Beyond adopting short term measures of putting road dividers on some patches of busiest roads in Jammu , that also when ‘Excelsior’ many a time suggested that measure at least to be adopted , in addressing regulating of ever increasing volume of traffic , nothing tangible has further been done to address the traffic management in the city. The traffic chaos is neither going to be over by providing just a few parking slots in the city nor by lifting of and towing away a few ”wrongly” parked vehicles on the roads or any other similar measure which can best be termed as cosmetic, patchwork and variegated approach . While a vehicle, whether four wheeler or two wheeler, should in principle have proper parking facilities on roads , the same is nowhere seen available while the owners usually park them at whatever spaces available and even at those points which create hurdles in the smooth traffic movement. Not only that, the way of using such very limited space on roads is often not occupied in such a way so as not to cause hindrance in the traffic flow but erratic and haphazard way of parking vehicles, wherever done in that way, add to the problems of the chaotic traffic position in the city.
Few roads in the old city are virtually turned into quasi permanent parking places day and night and that too, both sides of such roads occupied by such parking of vehicles thus frustrating any attempts by the traffic police to divert some volume of traffic from the congested roads even on one way basis to offload the pressure . This part of the problem is on account of such vehicle owners having no provision for overnight home parking hence the reason of using public roads for the purpose. Even lanes and sub-lanes including our office lane in Janipura are misused in this way thus creating problems for pedestrians and even for those vehicles passing through such lanes and sub-lanes . Emergencies at times having to pass through such wrongly occupied and congested roads and even lanes and sub-lanes, may and even are, encountering numerous problems is, perhaps, none of the concern of such erratically parked vehicle owners.
Till a comprehensive plan to address the ever increasing traffic problems in the city of Jammu is chalked out and lasting one at least sufficient for a decade or so , what is required is commercial passenger vehicles plying between various routes must use ”stoppage ”points and picking up and dropping passengers only at designated identified points on roads, a measure which had been attempted earlier to formulate and have implemented , however, collapsed soon after its announcement. That happened on account of faulty or non-implementation of this small regulation and as a result, these vehicles continue to stop at will and convenience even in twos and threes in rows wherever a passenger is waiting to get in and conversely wherever one desired to get down from such vehicles. All other vehicles following , one after the other, in this way have to slow down, stop or inch forward virtually crawling, giving place to numerous long jams.
Prescribe a minimum speed on the roads and regulate commercial passenger vehicles and with that , even on the same narrow and congested roads, half of the problem shall be resolved. Flyovers and laying out of model smart city cannot all be done overnight especially besides funds constraints for raising the matching infrastructure , there are associated problems in respect of availability of land for example in respect of identifying and constructing a few parking slots . In addition to it, heavy vehicles , even related to schools , colleges , institutes and Municipal bodies must not be allowed to run during peak hours as staggering their timings would ease the burden of traffic on already narrow and congested roads.
It is to be admitted that day by day, the position seems to be going virtually out of control as more and more chowks and intersections are added to the ”conventional” or habitual traffic congestions and seen full of traffic jams where whatever strength of the traffic personnel is deployed is seen helpless in traffic management . Blares of honks and horns by the stuck up vehicles is the scene witnessed especially during peak hours at such points. Therefore, what is required is taking urgent steps by the UT Government , Traffic Police and other Governmental agencies on priority basis to salvage the existing position of traffic in Jammu city. Mass awareness too is needed for observance of traffic rules and discipline especially in matters of parking, overtaking and creating noise pollution. Any continuous “Chalta Hai ” approach would only aggravate the problem rather making it to slip out of control.
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