BMC: Road safety is not our duty

For all intents and purposes the road safety fortnight was envisioned as a time when different departments would take stock of things and then think of ways to improve conditions for motorists and pedestrians on the cityrsquos roads While the BMC insists that safety on the roads is the prerogative of the traffic department alone stretches poorly maintained by the civic body such as this one on Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road make motorists vulnerable to accidentsu00a0PicShadab Khan Imagine this correspondentrsquos surprise then when the traffic department of the BMC the cityrsquos civic agency that is in charge of its 1800 km of roads struggled and eventually failed to provide two basic figures from their records the number of zebra crossings and speed breakers in the city ROAD SAFETY CAMPAIGN A flop show A road safety campaign far away from the roads Road to safety in Mumbai only on paper Mumbai still gets behind the wheel in high spirits Several schools bunk road safety campaign Potholed flyovers miss safety lesson Not enough posters to promote road safety Most hospitals in the dark about campaign In pictures Motorists breaking traffic norms Four hundred zebra crossings were painted in the city last year by the traffic department Speed breakers were painted at the ward level but no figures were submitted to the traffic department thereafter As part of the road safety campaign organised by it the state government had issued directives that clearly set out goals and objectives for the BMC to accomplish in course of the fortnightlong campaign Many zebra crossings in the city are begging for another coat of paint and the state government had instructed the BMC to supply that during the campaign Needless to say this wasnrsquot done The directives said the civic body was to repair roads paint zebra crossings maintain traffic signals and ensure that speed breakers are in proper shape When MiD DAY approached the BMC to find out how many speed breakers or zebra crossings had been painted over the past 14 days dedicated to safer roads they admitted that no such work had been done Asked why no special initiatives had been undertaken in keeping with the governmentrsquos brief officials resorted to specious logic BMC chief engineer for roads bridges and traffic D R Dixit said ldquoWe did receive the directives and I have forwarded them to the official in charge of traffic He will be looking into this At many places concretisation of roads is going on All our work is aimed at making roads safer It is our daily job to maintain roads not just for a week or fortnight The maintenance of footpaths and subways is done on a daily basis That is our routine work and we have moved tenders for repair of bridges in the city just a month agordquo Deputy Chief Engineer R D Singh said ldquoRoad safety is not our duty but the traffic policersquos duty and they are doing all the relevant things in this respect Our regular work is always on We have taken no special measures during these 15 days Signals are maintained by us on a daily basis and whenever a signal malfunctions our employee attends to it within 24 hours of the complaintrdquo Did you know There are two types of signals Conventional and Area Traffic Control in the city and almost seven per cent of them break down on a daily basis Guidelines for BMC Repairing and maintaining roads in the city Maintaining signals zebra crossings footpaths foot overbridges and subways so as to prevent jaywalking Identifying damaged accidentprone spots and repairing them Organising sessions to discuss road safety issues Creating awareness through newspapers and televisionu00a0