A pedestrians only road for Ahmedabad

With more and more vehicles hitting the city's streets regularly, DCP, Traffic, MM Anarwala, believes that a model pilot project that makes streets pedestrian friendly, could help resolve parking woes in Ahmedabad.

While speaking at a workshop at the Centre for Environment Education (CEE), Anarwala said that it was important to go 'insane' while implementing such pilot projects.

He added, "During Diwali, which is just around the corner, at the stretch from Bhadra to Khadia, there is no room even for pedestrians to walk, leave aside four or two wheelers to pass by. Similar congested stretches can also be seen at areas such as Maninagar, Isanpur and the like.

In such areas we should have 'pedestrian friendly' roads."
He continued, "On such roads we can have divisions like cycle sharing, pedestrians only zones, park and ride facilities, public open spaces, tree plantations, street furniture, ponds and footpaths free from encroachment. But for this you need to be absolutely insane and such extreme levels of insanity are also required among the higher ups, as only then, I feel, can such projects be implemented."

Anarwala is in talks with a few stakeholders of society such as the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) to see if something can be worked out.

The workshop at CEE was organised by the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy (ITDP) and CEE in association with Bakeri Urban Development Private Limited at the CEE campus.

Answering a question raised by the audience about congestion near Jamalpur Bridge, Anarwala assured them, "I will speak to the AMC and float the idea of having parking and hawking zones underneath the bridge. I will also rope in AMC, RTO and the traffic department to look into the concerns of the auto rickshaw association with regards to parking space for them."

There are nearly 750 traffic police staff working in two shifts and managing 35 lakh vehicles running on the roads in Ahmedabad. In 2001, there were around one lakh vehicles on the road, so the current figures are alarming, Anarwala pointed out.