median in monteith road
the menace of the mountainous medians continue...last month these came up in the small stretch between luz junction and the mylapore tank junction. this short stretch which is a heavy business zone of small business kind and in the heart of the busy residential area has no foot paths on both sides except in the small stretch in front of the railway station and bridge. this stretch has this huge median now which prevent anyone from crossing the road. irony is that there is no zebra crossing in either sides of the median.
just yesterday saw that the same is now being perpetuated in monteith road. this road has always been a youth hangout place. the traffic that comes here and all the commerce is dependent on the young people hanging around the place. college students escaping from their tyrant classes turn up in the afternoon with friends to hang out, serious students who frequent the connemara library drop by for a cheap sandwich at mid day and the entire place as far as i can remember has been milling with youth population.
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the traffic consists of very few buses, but, mostly autorickshaws and private vehicles that take visit this road. there are quite a few commercial establishments such as hotels and residential houses, so perhaps there are a few people coming in to work and from work too. it is not frequented by others except those who want to take a short cut to avoid the signal at the pantheon road junction. these are the only speeding vehicles in this road. yet, the menace of median comes up in this road to facilitate what traffic one knows not.
traffic management in India has to be people centered. we have so many people to use a road and we cannot only look at vehicles. we ought to look at a road as a real estate and a good management is to optimize to fit in as many people as possible comfortably. the pedestrians, the street hawkers, the small traders, the auto rickshaw drivers...everyone has to have some place and if a road is very specifically known for a particular purpose it is better to facilitate that purpose. yet, all roads get the same treatment, the large vehicle movement has to be made the most comfortable and we climb down the hirerachy of vehicle ownership with the pedestrian not even existing in the minds of the city traffic managers. the current method seems to be the same top-down approach to development in all our other development programmes.
just yesterday saw that the same is now being perpetuated in monteith road. this road has always been a youth hangout place. the traffic that comes here and all the commerce is dependent on the young people hanging around the place. college students escaping from their tyrant classes turn up in the afternoon with friends to hang out, serious students who frequent the connemara library drop by for a cheap sandwich at mid day and the entire place as far as i can remember has been milling with youth population.
View Larger Map
the traffic consists of very few buses, but, mostly autorickshaws and private vehicles that take visit this road. there are quite a few commercial establishments such as hotels and residential houses, so perhaps there are a few people coming in to work and from work too. it is not frequented by others except those who want to take a short cut to avoid the signal at the pantheon road junction. these are the only speeding vehicles in this road. yet, the menace of median comes up in this road to facilitate what traffic one knows not.
traffic management in India has to be people centered. we have so many people to use a road and we cannot only look at vehicles. we ought to look at a road as a real estate and a good management is to optimize to fit in as many people as possible comfortably. the pedestrians, the street hawkers, the small traders, the auto rickshaw drivers...everyone has to have some place and if a road is very specifically known for a particular purpose it is better to facilitate that purpose. yet, all roads get the same treatment, the large vehicle movement has to be made the most comfortable and we climb down the hirerachy of vehicle ownership with the pedestrian not even existing in the minds of the city traffic managers. the current method seems to be the same top-down approach to development in all our other development programmes.
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