That movement of traffic in most city thoroughfares is an utter chaos doesn’t need iteration. Sometime back I posted a short video to YouTube on traffic on Dhakuria Bridge (see below), and the only comment I’ve received so far is from a Bong in US, that just says ‘chaos’.
According to me, the trouble with our decades-old transport minister is that while he loves to dream big every now and then, he cares very little to improve the situation on ground within available means. Thus while new trendy CSTC buses are being put to use, the ones purchased not long back already look unworthy to travel in. Then again, for the sake of a few hundred ramshackle private bus owners, he has been largely successful to scuttle the air pollution norms that would have let millions of city-dwellers breathe unpolluted air.
The latest to come out of his bag is the proposal to build an elevated ring road that, if implemented, would surely bring long-needed succor to traffic movement in the city. He announced this in yesterday’s conference arranged by Federation of Automobile Dealers Association. Let’s have the plan first.
As I can decipher from an outline sketch in today’s ABP, the ring road starting from Kidderpore, would proceed along DH Road up to New Alipore entry point, then going along Tollygunge Circular Road, turning right at Tollygunge Phari, taking the route of Anwar Shah Road and proceeding straight up to EM Bypass.
From there it will be following the arterial road till Ultadanga, proceeding thereafter along Canal West Road, passing Shyambazar on way to Kashipur lock-gate on Strand Road. Turning left, the ring road will travel the longest portion of its loop till it reaches Kidderpore.
There are many ifs and buts in the plan. First of course is money. The entire stretch of nearly 55 km will cost Rs.5500 crore, and it’s not clear where the money will come from. The newly appointed City Traffic Planner, Bibhas Sadhu says that if money is arranged in time, the whole work will not take more than 4 years to complete.
Another concern could be that of the fate of several flyovers being planned along the ring road. Examples are 2 privately planned Anwar Shah Road flyovers (see this post, Private flyovers) and the one being talked about at Ultadanga crossing. The ring road does plan to include 14-15 flyovers at main junctions, but will they include those being planned?
Kolkata suffers as much from lack of road space as from bad planning, lack of coordination among various implementing agencies, and complete disregard of inconvenience on the road. From past experience, there is not much reason yet to rejoice at another proposed road project even if it has all the promise to undo the present hardship to quite an extent.
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