Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Archway-type advertisement boards pose traffic hazard

Thiruvananthapuram: Huge archway-type advertisement boards that cover the road in a single span have come up in different parts of the city despite a government ban on such hoardings.

The District Collector had banned such display boards last year on the ground that they were a threat to public safety.

The order was issued under Section 133 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

The new hoardings are causing traffic congestion along the arterial Kowdiar- Vellayambalam- Vazhuthacaud road, according to traffic police sources.

Senior scientist T.S. Elangovan of the National Transportation Planning and Research Centre said the base of such arches often encroached upon road space causing up to 25 per cent reduction of carriage way width.

The traffic volume in the city already exceeds the available road space by 200 per cent. He said motorists tend to veer away from the base of such hoardings, causing a bottleneck effect on main roads.

Anil Kumar Pandala of the Thiruvananthapuram Road Development Company Limited (TRDCL), which has a 15-year contract for maintaining city roads, said heavy archway type hoardings are often supported by stay wires attached to streetlight masts.

The masts are not designed for taking lateral load and could topple over in windy conditions or if a vehicle dashes against the hoarding’s base. The holes dug up for placing the hoardings are rarely filled up and this causes slow degradation of the tarmac.

The corporation has stopped giving sanction for erecting arch-type display boards on public roads, its secretary Johnson K. George said. Executive Engineer (Roads and Bridges) Abdul Salam said his department had sanctioned the boards for generating public income. The government charged Rs.500 per day for every such hoarding. The boards were structurally safe and did not impede traffic flow, he said.

District Collector N. Ayyappan said he had not given sanction for putting up the advertisement boards. He said he would examine the matter on Monday. City Police Commissioner Ravada Chandrasekhar said the district administration had sanctioned the boards.

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