18th June road is the main artery on Panjim’s lung that stretches from leafy Campal and heads close to the Panjim church. For romantics, the road would have been an ideal walkway with no cars. Plans have been made to decongest 18th June road and even make it car free. But it hasn’t and won’t be easy. Franky Gracias finds out why
PANJIM, FEB 18: Panjim is beautiful, but not it’s parking arrangements. Enter the city and you will have to perfect the art of finding a suitable place to park your vehicle. City fathers have failed to address the problem, which in the days to come is only expected to get worse.
Case in particular is the busy 18th June Road where parking is at its worse at any given time of the day. Authorities concerned have looked the other way and there seems to be no immediate solution in sight. The idea of pay-parking too on this stretch never took off for reasons unknown.
Given the fact that traffic on this road is continuous, double parking is making life miserable for motorists. The residential complexes, commercial establishments, hotels, several government offices and offices along the street do not have parking spaces of their own escalating the problem further.
According to the traffic police, on an average more than 300 cars and 800 two-wheelers are found parked daily on both sides of the busy road making it even narrower for vehicular movement.
According to Patricia Pinto of People’s Movement for Civic Action, she remembers since 1997 ideas and talks doing the rounds of designating the street for use of pedestrians only. But the idea has remained only on paper and nothing like this ever has been tried even on trial basis.
Corporation of the City of Panaji Commissioner Elvis Gomes informed some five months back Urban Development Secretary A K Acharya also suggested the street be marked for pedestrian use only during weekends.
Acharya’s idea was to convert the road into a pedestrian street for certain hours and give it a touristy look by allowing food courts, music performances, street plays and corners for artists. This, he thought, would boost the most glamour quotient of the street of this main artery of the city which is a hit with both domestic and international tourists.
In the past this move has been scuttled by a lobby of business owners who have shops on this busy street using the alibi their businesses would get affected, but more so because they would have to park their vehicles elsewhere.
The CCP wrote to the Traffic Cell to help them implement the idea by diverting the traffic and taking care of the parking of the vehicles which otherwise used to be parked on the 18th June Road.
However, the Traffic Cell expressed their inability to help the CCP. SP Arvind Gawas wrote to the Commissioner saying that making 18th June Road, a pedestrian only road would choke the other streets and lead to double parking leading to further chaos on weekends.
Deputy Mayor, Yatin Parekh, who owns a shop on the street, said he personally doesn’t feel the idea was good. The reason cited by Parekh is more or less close to what the police think: 18th June Road is a central road preferred by many to move out of the city.
However, the deputy mayor is in favour of implementing the idea during festivals like Diwali and Christmas.
But this can be done only if there is some alternate arrangement for the parking of the vehicles during such days. He feels there is a need to move out government offices, most of them situated in the Junta House, out of the city to a centralised location.
So, for now, it can be concluded till such time city fathers, authorities concerned and other stakeholders come together to find a sure-shot way of putting an end to the street’s parking and traffic woes, the same continue to remain to only get worse by the day.
