Solution to reduce traffic congestion & road accidents in my overpopulating hometown

Like other Asian cities, my city too has grown rapidly in past 10 years. City planners have

failed to combat the problem of growing population and today we have problems like

congested roads, traffic jams, rising death toll due to road accidents and surprisingly no place

for pedestrians to walk in busy streets. I am trying to solve some of these problems by

suggesting new grid style city street network. To keep city green, I have also suggested bi-

cycle lanes to engage growing youth population in my city.

1. Modifying the main streets of the city

To solve the current problem of traffic congestion, I propose network of roads put together in

the form of grids connecting main places in the city. There are two aspects of this vision. Old

city, which is now a small portion of the town possess lot of challenges for adaption of new

design. This idea is represented with green color in figure 1. I like them to be built on the

lines of Paris Boulevard as given in figure 2. Wide roads will reduce traffic congestion,

provide place for pedestrian to walk and as a bonus give opportunity for street side business

to flourish.

Figure 1: My vision for the modified street plan of the Kota, India

Figure 2: My vision to make main streets similar to Paris Boulevard

2. Redesigning the city Centre

Represented with black circle in figure 1, ‘Aerodrome Circle’ is now the center place of

Kota. Though it is center place, it is badly designed with no proper lanes to separate the

traffic, no paths for pedestrian to cross the roads and no proper road signs. This can be clearly

scene in figure 3. Such badly designed city center is a recipe for many of the growing traffic

problems and causing deaths every week.

I have taken inspiration from circular pedestrian bridge in Lujiazui, China represented in

figure 4 and my vision is to convert current city center into something like what is being done

in China. It will solve the problem of pedestrian crossing, near crossing accident and lane

Figure 3: ‘Aerodrome Circle – Kota’, at present

Figure 4: ‘Aerodrome Circle- Kota’ should look like this in future.

changing issues. The above design will also add significance to the city making it great place

to hangout.

3. Introducing bi-cycle path in new townships

Being an educational city as well as regional headquarters; my city has got a very high

percentage of young population, especially residing in the newly created sub-urban areas.

Most of these young people commute daily through bi-cycles or other two wheelers. Due to

lack of special place for them, they have to share place on the roads with other heavy

vehicles. This is dangerous and unhealthy too. Many accidents in the recent months forced

me to think about the solution of this ever-growing problem.

Figure 5: Bi-cycle lane plan, shown with red color in the road network

Figure 6: My vision is to introduce bi-cycle lanes like this one in Copenhagen, Denmark

Solution is simple, design a special lane along with roads for these young people to commute

freely. I have taken inspiration from the capital of Denmark, and thinking to encourage more

people to use bi-cycle to make city eco-friendly too.

Whom all I need?

Well, it is a difficult question. Most of the township planning is down by the city

administration with no involvement of the public. The land along the main streets is mostly

owned by the government with very little private interference, clearly it is possible to build

wide streets without much problem.

With the rising economic levels, people are coming forward demanding for better city

infrastructure and things are opening up for much larger private sector investment. It is

impossible to do retrofitting in the old township of Kota due to various historical factors

involved, certainly it is possible to do in the new downtown Kota. This new downtown is

rapidly expanding in the southern direction as represented in figure 1.

With traffic congestion increasing road-accidents every year with many people dying as

result of this, clearly my vision does not sound unrealistic. What needed now is the political

will and public support to make it into reality. I hope this will be possible and in future streets

of my city will be much safer than present.

References

- www.maps.google.com

- www.wikimedia.org

- www.tripadvisor.com

- http://www.amusingplanet.com/2012/12/circular-pedestrian-bridge-in-lujiazui.html

- http://www.transportgooru.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/copenhagen-bike-rush-hour.jpg

- Hotel Surya, Kota, Rajasthan, India.