COIMBATORE: Two months after announcing that a traffic signal would be installed at the DB Road junction in RS Puram, officials of the Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation (CCMC) are yet to install it.
Sources said officials are waiting to finalise a design to match the ambience of the location, which is a model road, in the process exposing road users to danger.
In order to make a ‘Model road’ under the smart city project, the CCMC removed the traffic signal and a police outpost at the junction in 2020. Later they installed a clock tower in the middle of the junction, making the corner lounges and paving cobbled stones at the entire junction to attract the public.
As the junction connects the ThiruvenkataSamy (TV Samy) road east, west and Diwan Bahadur (DB) Road is troubled by constant traffic snarls since the removal of the traffic signals, commuters requested the authorities to reinstall the signal to ease the traffic flow. Based on this request, during an inspection on June 21, corporation officials declared that the signal will be reinstalled soon. But no work for this has begun yet.
M Muthukumar, an auto rickshaw driver said, “The carriageway of the road was reduced and the width of the pedestrian pathway was expanded to more than required. They also shrunk the traffic area in the junction.”
He also said that they witness accidents in the junction regularly. “Lack of police outpost often leads to traffic congestion as vehicles come from all four directions and often get stuck in the middle,” he added.
Meanwhile, civic body officials justified the delay by stating that they are designing traffic signals with an antique look instead of regular conventional type.
A senior CCMC official said, “The junction has some western antique design elements such as time square and cobbled stones pavement. The lights also resemble the pattern. Hence we asked Uyir, an NGO that carries out signal’s work, to design the signals to adopt such a design instead of a regular pattern. The signal for this junction will be designed with an antique look .”