A day after two motorbike riders died after being sandwiched in between two KSRTC buses at Chakkaraparambu Junction on the congested Edappally-Vyttila NH 66 bypass, road safety experts, enforcement personnel, and residents’ associations have demanded that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) augment safety measures on the 7-km corridor.
That over a dozen motorists and pedestrians have died in road accidents at Chakkaraparambu alone during the past decade sheds light on the need for the NHAI to relocate bus stops away from the carriageway of the accident-prone NH corridor, said a senior traffic police officer. “The agency must probe whether space for bus bays can be hewed out at relatively wide portions of service roads. The side medians having approximately 1.5-metre width can perhaps be added to it.”
Nisar Karukapadath, a resident of Chakkaraparambu who operated a fleet of buses on the Vyttila-NH bypass-Vyttila circular route till a few years ago, cited the need to install adequate boards and road markings to forewarn motorists, especially those from outside the city, of bus stops located at frequent intervals on the densely populated Palarivattom-Vyttila bypass. “Dedicated bus bays that have 3.50-metre width are ideal and can be readied if the NHAI makes some effort to lessen the width of 4-metre-wide central median and side medians. Likewise, the agency must chip away the central median and create waiting space for at least 10 cars at each U-turn to prevent traffic hold-ups in the vicinity of each U-turn,” he said.
