Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

Two-wheelers hijack pedestrian space

Anima Balakrishnan

Hawkers and hoardings usurp the pavement on N.H. Road

A TRAPEZE ACT: Making your way through the parked two-wheelers and the speeding vehicles on N.H. Road in the city is an ordeal. — Photo: M. Periasamy

Coimbatore: Enter Nawab Hakim (NH) Road from the Victoria Town Hall end and it is the chaos that catches your attention. Buses that stop at the turn, alighting and boarding passengers, two-wheelers parked haphazardly along the length of the road, hawkers and hoardings on pavements complete the picture.

One of the commercial streets in the city and a hub of wholesale goods, the stretch of NH Road from Victoria Town Hall to Mill Road junction is a pedestrian's nightmare.

Buses towards Ukkadam, garbage trucks and two-wheelers screech through the narrow one-way at break-neck speed. Add to it tractors, bullock carts and pushcarts. And the pedestrian space is completely taken over by parked two-wheelers.

In the stretch from Victoria Town Hall to Five Corner junction, a pavement does not exist for the most part and wherever a narrow one appears, it is hijacked by hawkers and hoardings. Almost 100 metres after the entrance, the walker's path is encroached upon by shopkeepers selling watches and betel leaves. The footpath is later taken over by hoardings and some shopkeepers even place shelves for sale on the pavement.

A little before the Five Corner junction, is a place of worship that juts into the main road. Since walking on the pavement is impossible, pedestrians are forced to take to the main road. That means a manoeuvring act between the speeding vehicles and the parked two-wheelers.

"Often we are grazed by the handle bars of the passing two-wheelers," says Uma, a pedestrian. "If you are in a hurry, this is not the road to take, especially if there are children with you," she adds. "Minor accidents happen on this road everyday," says a shopkeeper.

It is an open drain that invites the pedestrian to the stretch between Five Corner and Variety Hall junction. Persist with the pavement, manoeuvring through the narrow space between the parked two-wheelers and the shops, and you run the risk of ending in the drain as the slabs give way abruptly and the closely parked vehicles make it difficult to get to the road.

Proper pavement continues to elude on the route between Variety Hall junction and Mill Road junction.

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