Margao: It’s around 10 days since a new academic year started, but there seemed no solution yet to the old and perennial issues of traffic congestion, parking, and traffic management plaguing the commercial capital.
Traffic not only moves at a snail’s pace during peak school hours but comes to a halt on the roads, surrounding the schools, especially during the afternoon. A solution to the vexed traffic and parking woes is still a far cry, notwithstanding promises galore by the powers that be and the authorities.
Consider this: Around 10,000 students, 10 schools, besides a couple of higher secondary schools and colleges all located within a two-kilometer radius distance right in the heart of the commercial capital. These mindboggling figures ought to have spurred the powers that be and the planners to initiate measures to streamline the traffic and parking woes, but in vain.
Issue Of Double Parking Along The Punjab Sindh Centre To Margao Woodland Hotel
Huge serpentine queues of vehicles is literally been the order of the day in the city. Double parking along the Punjab Sindh centre to Woodland Hotel is a norm rather than an exception. The situation further aggravates when the school ends for the day as parents rush to the school gates to collect their wards.
It’s not uncommon to find traffic personnel struggling to regulate and streamline traffic during peak school hours. A senior traffic police officer said they have been left with little option than to regulate the traffic flow in the absence of long-term measures to ease congestion.
Staggered Timings
How many of the city schools have come up with staggered timings to reduce the traffic congestion in the heart of the commercial capital, is a question often asked at the road safety and traffic meetings. For, staggered timings of schools were mooted over a decade ago to ensure that all the schools do not end at the same time.
The staggered timings concept seemed to have not gone well with the parents on the ground that their wards are studying in different schools and schools ending at one time helps them to collect their wards without having to wait outside the schools.
Senior traffic officials, however, have insisted on staggered timings for better management and streamlining of traffic during peak school hours.
