Hyderabad: Unscientific roads, footpaths, increase of vehicle density and ongoing infrastructure projects have brought down the average vehicle speed in the city to 12 km per hour from 40 km per hour.
Experts claimed that none of the nodal agencies have worked in tandem to facilitate commuters and have not envisioned the growing needs of the city.
Despite convergence meetings every fortnight, the lack of co-ordination between all the nodal agencies has deprived citizens of basis civic amenities.
However, experts said strengthening public transport, phasing off vehicles above 15 years (public transport vehicles), regulating the entry of heavy vehicles into city and construction of scientific footpaths, would minimise traffic snarls in the city.
They said Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited’s last mile connectivity and frequency of fit RTC buses would play a vital role in providing hassle-free journeys.
Road and Transport experts have said that city roads lack uniformity and footpaths lack continuity.
Even though the state government embarked on strengthening the public transport system by constructing HMRL, it has forgotten to provide last mile connectivity.
As a result, commuters residing in the internal part of the city are forced to come on their four-wheelers or two-wheelers parking them at the station to take the Metro.
Experts said that the absence of last mile connectivity has created bottlenecks as the commuters in a hurry park their vehicles on the road side of every Metro station leading either to traffic snarls or slow movement of vehicles. Adding to the woes, unscientific road laying and foot path construction has aggravated the problems.
The nodal agencies including Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, Hyderabad Road Development Corporation and Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation Ltd have laid roads unscientifically at several stretches.
The nodal agencies have neither taken up the milling of roads nor laid uniform surfaces which have reduced vehicle speed drastically. This was even noticed by Municipal Administration and Urban Development Principal Secretary Arvind Kumar.
He asked the civic body chief to suspend the Assistant Engineer who laid a vacuum dewatering cement concrete road unscientifically near the Hyline restaurant in King Koti.
Prof K. Lakshman Rao, Director and Professor for Centre of Excellence on Disaster Management, JNTUH College of Engineering Hyderabad (JNTUHCEH) said besides unscientific roads, footpath construction had further reduced the vehicular speed.
He said the footpath width should be at least 10 per cent of the road. He said several line departments including GHMC, electricity and others have planted trees and installed transformers.
Mr Rao said that several footpaths in the city lacked continuity and pedestrians have been forced to walk on the roads. “Due to lack of continuity and availability of space, the pedestrian speed has been decreased to 0.5 metre per second from 2.5 metre per second. The alarming increase of vehicle density, unscientific road laying, ongoing infrastructure works and lack of last mile connectivity for the public transport system reduced the average vehicular speed to 12 km per hour from 40 km per hour,” he said.
Mr Rao said that the city’s traffic problems cannot be resolved without addressing these issues. A senior GHMC official admitting the slow movement of vehicles said that the road transport authority should regulate the number of new vehicles hitting the city roads.
