The solution to the worsening traffic congestion in and around Shillong is construction of flyovers.
This was opined by BJP spokesperson Gregory Shullai who has stated that a proposal with the suggestion will be made. He said the construction of the flyover will also be included in the BJP manifesto for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
“For a long while now we have been looking at the roads of Shillong, and above all its traffic jams. We keep seeing cars, their horns blaring at everything close and far from them, it’s a sea of cars that one is confronted with the moment one has to drive on Shillongs’ roads. All this just doesn’t fit into any plan, and we do believe that town planners and builders alike are keeping abreast of the matter, and so it is with the greatest difficulty that drivers have now the unenviable task of making themselves fit into a plan that has become Shillong,” he told Highland Post.
He said this must change. “We must fit into place and not plan how to fit in,” he added.
Stating that the theory of politics considers persons and property as the two objects for whose purpose the government exists, he said against this principle, it is easy to see the progress of dissent that has grown among the people. “Shillong is full of drivers rebelling against the government; everyone seems to have a solution to the traffic jams but there is no solution in sight as far as the administration is concerned and no one dares to openly come out with their solution for fear of being ridiculed,” he said.
Shullai said while headlines in the newspapers are fascinating but when it comes to traffic jams there is very little appetite to read what follows. “We have given up the hope that there is a solution to the problem of our roads and streets, but not totally…there still are those that try to see the solution that can solve the problem,” he said
He said that the Jowai road or the stretch from Dhankheti to Fire Brigade and beyond is one such road that is perpetually jammed, the reason being that the population has expanded immensely from Rynjah towards New Shillong, but the roads have not.
“There is very little that anyone can suggest that will solve the traffic jams on the Jowai Road and the Rynjah Road. There are plans to build a road through the Malki Forest to Motinagar but there is not a single locality along the whole stretch that will accept this proposal and without permission from the localities there can be no road,” he said that there is only one other option which is opposite the St Edmunds College and school gate there is a road that runs to the fruit garden.
He further suggested that since the government-owned fruit garden is a relatively barren therefore there would be no opposition if a road passes through it but instead would enhance sales. The road can be aligned such that it connects with the existing road at Upper Motinagar and from there to Mawblei and beyond and that will serve the purpose for both vehicles plying to Laitkor and beyond and to Lapalang and beyond, he suggested.
Social activist Kyrsoi Pyrtuh said that everyone talks about parking lots as a solution to traffic but these are not the solution to traffic jams.
“The construction of parking lots is not the solution to traffic jams and it might just become a wasteful investment with no results,” he said.
Stating that one of the solutions could be to increase and improve the public transport system and make it robust and properly monitored under urban governance, he however said, that construction of the flyovers is no longer feasible in old Shillong.
“Let’s not waste money here… In new Shillong, we can explore…
The idea to cover River Umkhrah and make it motorable or as parking space is also very bad,” he opined.
