One such widened road being used for parking purposes is the stretch from the Candolim market to the Candolim Church, where cars are parked right from the Candolim Community Centre building to the entrance of Bosio Hospital. The parking of vehicles has been causing considerable inconvenience to motorists, leading to frequent traffic jams.
“We often find cars lined up from Candolim market right up to the Chapel. Quite often, we have to be cautious of vehicles parked on both sides while driving or riding our vehicles. The authorities need to look into the matter on a priority basis or else, the area could soon turn into an accident-prone zone,” said Cynthia D’Souza.
Speaking to Herald in presence of Candolim Sarpanch Sandra Fialho and other panchas, former Calangute MLA Agnelo Fernandes said the taxi operators need to be instilled with a sense of traffic discipline.
“A hotel in the area has parking facilities to cater to vehicles of their guests, besides providing parking space for five tourist taxi vehicles. The other tourist taxi owners are expected to operate on telephone calls. Unfortunately, all of them now queue up along the roads,” remarked Fernandes.
“No hotel will provide parking space for tourist taxis inside their premises as these taxi operators are supposed to operate from home or via telephone. Incidentally, this particular hotel has given them space inside their property, but it is up to the taxi operators to maintain some sort of parking discipline,” he added.
While Fernandes claimed that most vehicles parked along the road were tourist taxis operating for the hotel, Fialho pointed out that vehicles of hotel guests were also seen parked along the road causing inconvenience.
When contacted, Calangute MLA Michael Lobo admitted that the parking of cars by the roadside had severely narrowed the width of the widened road, but added that the footpath had served its purpose.
“It is good that our initiative of a footpath has come handy to pedestrians walking along the road from Candolim market to Candolim Church. Else, it would have been difficult for them to have walked along the road with cars parked on both sides. We have deliberately raised the height of the footpath to avoid parking of any vehicle,” said Lobo.
“However with the cars parked, the road has been further narrowed causing inconvenience to locals and motorists.”
“We will take up widening of the road by two metres after taking the people into confidence. We will not touch the existing houses, but locals will be persuaded to shift their compounds and these demolished compounds will be reconstructed at our cost,” said Lobo.
