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No Dedicated Lanes on City’s Black Spots

  • Though they may feature in traffic cops' list of top 10 black spots in the city, eight of the stretches have shown a decline in fatal accidents from 2010 to 2011, said joint commissioner of police (traffic) Satyendra Garg."There has also been a substantial decline in fatal accidents in general. Accidents have also come down on all roads except NH-1, which we have brought to NHAI's notice as several pedestrian facilities are required there," he said.He said there were a number of reasons why these signal-free corridors were seeing such high accident rates. These included heavy volume of traffic, absence of grills on the central verge, no speed-calming measures, absence of dedicated lanes for slow moving vehicles, insufficient pedestrian crossing facilities and use of high-beam headlights. The traffic police, Garg said, has suggested several remedial measures at these spots.
  • UTTIPEC director Ashok Bhattacharjee said the agency has asked road owning agencies in these hotspots to submit their internal audit report to UTTIPEC."We will then conduct our own audit. We will see whether all components of street design guidelines - adequate pedestrian facilities, road signs, visibility of road markings, segregation of pedestrian and vehicles and traffic calming measures - are in place or not and suggest corrective measures".While there is a substantial overall decrease in accidents - 1957 in 2010 to 1852 this year (both till November 30) - the two chronic black spots are a matter of mounting concern. As per traffic police statistics, the Ring Road stretch near ISBT Kashmere Gate has been a death trap since 2004. According to officials, one of the main reasons behind this high accident rate is the heavy influx of pedestrians from the interstate bus terminus. Despite pedestrian facilities like a foot overbridge, walkers continue to cross at grade level. Traffic police has now suggested high railings at the central verge.
  • Mukarba Chowk too has been a persistent trouble spot. "The stretch witnesses a high volume of traffic. Heavy vehicles have been found to take the service lane on the opposite carriageway while coming out of Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar. A facility is being created so that these vehicles can climb up to Mukarba Chowk directly," said a traffic cop.

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