The last 15 days of the year see an enormous rise in the amount of traffic in the State, primarily due to the increased number of tourists that descend upon Goa for the Christmas and New Year experience. A large number of four-wheelers and six-wheelers are added to the vehicular population of the State as tourists from almost every State drive down to Goa. Added to this are the self-driven two-wheelers hired out to tourists that zoom around on all sides of the road with scant respect to traffic rules. At this time of the year, it becomes almost impossible to drive on the streets of Panjim and some of the coastal villages that draw a large number of tourists.
This is an annual phenomenon in the State. It is not a problem or an issue that has been noticed only in the last couple of years, yet there is no noticeable change in the manner in which the authorities manage the flow of traffic at this time of the year. The authorities in Goa have been slow in reacting to situations that demand immediate attention, and it is the same with traffic management also. Traffic moves so slowly in certain areas of Panjim that, for instance, it is possible to walk down 18th June road faster than drive down it on December 31. That also applies for the area around the municipal garden in Margao and in various other streets of Goa.
Ironically, on December 30 morning, the already reduced speed of vehicles was further slowed down considerably at Cortalim, on the National Highway 17, and it was primarily because a layer of hotmix was being laid out on this patch of the highway. This begs the question: Can’t such work be taken up and completed at a time when the flow of traffic is at the minimum and does not affect commuters?
Earlier in the week, Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, referring to the findings of a year old study, said that pollution levels in the State increase drastically in the months of November, December and January. He said that while the normal pollution level in the air measured in Goa is 60 parts per million, in these three months it increases to 139 parts per million. This is more than two times the normal and he attributed this to slow moving traffic. He made this observation while defending the construction of a third Mandovi bridge linking Porvorim to Panjim.
But is building new bridges or roads the solution to slow moving traffic?
Take the case of Delhi that suffers from major traffic congestion. Some years ago the National Capital built the bus rapid transit corridor to allow for quicker movement of public transport vehicles. For a while the experiment went well but then the Courts allowed for all vehicles to use the corridor that had been set aside for buses and cycles. This came following a survey undertaken by the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) that after speaking to car owners arrived at the conclusion that the corridor had not helped increase speeds and so had not played the part it was supposed to play.
Today, to ease the traffic congestion and speed up travel time, Delhi is in the initial stages of experimenting with allowing vehicles with odd numbered registration plates allowed on the streets on certain days and even numbered registration plates on other days. Delhi also discovered that building new bridges or roads and charging a toll for the use of the road shifted the congestion points from one place to another. The traffic jams just did not disappear as the number of vehicles on the roads kept increasing annually.
The first step towards easing traffic flow in Goa will be taken when drivers themselves begin to follow the rules and use the left lane for slow moving traffic and the right lane for fast moving traffic. It is so often that loaded 14-wheelers on the National Highway travelling at the speed of 30 kmph will be occupying the right lane forcing an avoidable traffic jam. That’s a small start but one that could play a part in easing the traffic congestion in Goa.
