However, our little State currently has innumerable ‘not so little’ issues that need to be meticulously dealt with. Whether it is political upheavals, price hikes, legal predicaments or something as basic as vehicular congestion; our State has seen it all!
The problem of traffic jams is not new to anyone in our State. The issue has been existing since long. The question to ask is, what has been done to mitigate the severity of the problem?
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At the outset, the scale of road accidents in Goa is really alarming, with 109 accidents getting recorded per one lakh population. Though, reports from the Union Ministry of Road Transport indicate that the figure of road accidents due to traffic congestion has lowered, the severity of the accidental impact has, by far, seen no improvement. Of the 2,000+ accidents that were previously reported in the State, over 200 cases resulted in fatalities, with the main cause of these mishaps being rash and negligent driving and blatant violation of vehicular rules.
For times out of count we have come across anxiety-provoking on-road situations involving speeding motorbikes cutting through the traffic and racing recklessly ahead. Also, there are instances galore wherein one vehicle overtakes another from the wrong side of the road. Incidents like these make motorists feel that driving or riding on Goan roads has become nothing short of a nightmare, and rightfully so!
Another interesting perspective which one needs to take into consideration is that, over a period of time, the number of new vehicles taking to the roads keeps increasing, but the dimensions of the roads remain the same. The best example of this is our beloved capital city of Panaji which is interestingly termed as a ‘Smart City’. There is not a single day when an office goer, or anyone for that matter, who heads to Panaji, especially in a four-wheeler, would find a parking spot in the first place. Bikers still have a relatively better chance of finding such spots rather quickly.
The issue scales news heights of seriousness when ambulances are caught in the midst of unending traffic lines thereby causing delay in transporting patients to the hospital and thus resulting in valuable lives being lost. Not just that, unanticipated traffic jams also cause inconvenience to people rushing to reach the airport in time to catch flights. Additionally, with the activated domestic tourism in Goa being in full swing, there has been a rise in the number of vehicles parked near casino premises that fuels further annoyance among motorists. With the traffic personnel apparently doing a sloppy job, there seems to be no light at the end of this tunnel, at least as of today.
Here are a few other suggestions that could aid in effectively mitigating vehicular congestion, especially in urban areas across the State:
1. Enforce stricter implementation of existing traffic laws through elevated awareness on penalties that could come with breach of traffic rules.
2. Increase inclination towards use of public transportation.
3. Give the green signal to ride-sharing apps such as Uber and Ola that encourage carpooling.
4. Make a shift to adaptive traffic signals that contain sensors which identify incoming vehicles at intersections and accordingly adjust their phasing responses.
5. Delivery giants such as Swiggy, Zomato, Flipkart, Amazon, EBay, and the likes could deploy drone systems with necessary permissions that will substantially reduce number of two-wheelers on roads thereby reducing vehicular traffic and also saving fuel and expenditure, as an added bonus.
6. Avoid peak hours to complete regular errands, which can be done when there is lesser traffic on roads.
All said and done, it is true that given the current state of affairs, it is nearly impossible to completely eliminate the issue of vehicular congestion or find a 100 per cent solution to it. Nonetheless, making an optimistic move towards that end by paying heed to the enlisted steps could significantly help attenuate this knotty problem.
