BENGALURU: The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is planning to make Church Street vehicle-free on weekends. Experts too bat for making the street pedestrian-friendly.After being under construction for over a year, work on the the street will finally be completed by the first week of March, as per M Lokesh, Executive Engineer, BBMP. During the later part of its construction, vehicles were not allowed on the street. The BBMP, however, needs to take permission from Bengaluru traffic police for making the street a permanent pedestrian zone.
Urban expert V Ravichandar is among those in favour of implementing the rule on all days. “It (the street) has been closed for over a year and heavens haven’t fallen. It would be a great move to showcase pedestrian concern,” he said. He added that implementing this would enable the system to be adopted elsewhere in the city.Srinivas Alavilli, chief coordinator of Citizens for Bengaluru (CfB), is also a strong supporter of the idea, but adds that the owners of commercial establishments on the street should not be affected. “The street can be a role model of giving importance to pedestrians. They could start by implementing it for restricted timings, like from 4 pm to 9 pm,” he said.
He added that the move would actually make more people come to the street, by which the businesses there will thrive in the long run. Alavilli said it would be favourable to implement the same practice on several other roads and zones in the city, such as Jayanagar 4th Block and Malleswaram 18th Cross.
Biocon founder and CMD Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, via a tweet, said a practice of making roads vehicle-free from 10 am to 10 pm was done all over the world, and all deliveries to the establishments were carried out outside of these hours. Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) R Hithendra said the BBMP had not yet approached the department with a proposal, and added that public interest would be kept in mind while taking a decision.