|
|
 |
 |
| Sunday, 6 June 2004 |
 |
|
 |
News |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
Expressways - Can we afford or do we need them? by Dr. Kolita Weerasekera, Senior Lecturer - Open University of Sri Lanka Sri Lanka is an island with a maximum length of 435 kilometres from north to south, and a maximum width of 240 kilometres from east to west. The country is densely populated with over 18 million living in an area of 65,525 square kilometres. At present except the unresolved zone between Jaffna peninsula and Vavuniya (Vanni area) and the protected sanctuaries the country is fairly densely populated. Hence any road or highway linking A with B has a large population to serve in-between. The country has approximately 100,000 kilometres of road network including 11,147 kilometres of national roads under the Road Development Authority (RDA) while the rest is under the Provincial Councils, Local authorities and certain government agencies. Freeways expressways and access control roads are now mushrooming all over the world in developed and developing countries where larger distances are to be travelled in shorter times and where the countries are sufficiently large in extent so that these high speed roads are geographically permissible. Unfortunately the advisers to the government of this country have not realised the fact that in this country there is no distance between A and B which could not be covered within few hours at a manageable undisrupted speed of 60 kmh. The travel time on a road is governed by the travel speed plus how easily the vehicles are able to pass through intersections and town-centres. When the roads are congested the travel time increase. Congestion Roads becoming over capacity, and traffic congestion at intersections and town-centres are two different scenarios. If roads go over capacity new alternative highways have to be constructed. When the problem is congestion at intersections and disruptions at town centres the answer is, proper traffic management at those congested areas and insisting on road discipline. It seems that advisers to the government have mixed up these priorities. They tend to promote the idea of freeways or access control roads as a solution to congestion at intersections and disruption town centres. But when thinking from a traffic engineering point of view, there are more economical and better solutions to ease traffic congestion other than building expressways in this country. Following is a list of some available low cost options using traffic engineering techniques to improve our main arterial roads. The rationale should be to concern rate on making the best use of the roads that exist before launching on unaffordable expressways in this country. 1. More over passes and grade separations at congested intersections 2. Introduction of by-passes in busy town centres and access to those be limited 3. More road discipline to relieve driver stress 4. Better traffic management schemes at congested areas 5. Measures to improve through-puts at intersections 6. Signalised intersections - (instead of ad-hoc traffic signals, install co-ordinated and traffic flow responsive signalised systems at busy city centres) 7. Introduction of area traffic control systems 8. Regularise parking on existing roads, especially in congested areas 9. Create opportunities for more off-road parking and encourage multi-level parking structures 10. Clear zones and no parking stretches along town centres 11. Stress on parking requirements when approving multi-storey commercial buildings (basements and ground floors to be used for parking only) 12. Introduction of heavy spot fines on bus drivers obstructing the traffic flow (blocking two lanes when loading passengers) and construct more bus-bays. 13. Implement strict lane discipline (swapping of lanes, driving on two lanes, driving on opposite directional lanes should be strictly prohibited) 14. Take necessary action to phase-out unsafe and undisciplined vehicles (such as three-wheelers which have very sharp turning circles that encourage violation of lane discipline) from our roads 15. Whenever possible to encourage container movement and cargo handling to be done on railway (Colombo-Katunayake on Puttalam rail line and Colombo-Matara on Matara line) 16. Educate drivers - encourage defensive driving 17. Encourage road discipline 18. Treat black spots and improve bottle necks 19. Maintain continuity of carriageway lanes 20. Plan out road repair work and maintain smooth carriageway surfaces Congestion at town centres and poor driving practices seem to be the main traffic problems in this small island. Congestion leads to delays and inconvenience for everybody and causes major inefficiency in the road network causing a burden on the economy. Some experts may see this problem as too many motor vehicles and others may see as not enough roads. But unfortunately in this country the advisers to the government seem to be seeing this problem as not enough expressways. When the real problem is caused due to mis-management of roads especially at intersections the answer is not the expressway. The classic example is the proposed Colombo-Katunayake expressway. One should always think that saving 15 minutes by driving at 100 kmh along the freeway instead of 60 kmh on an arterial road for a distance around 25 kms, what ultimate gain is there when the roads in Colombo are congested and it takes another 1 hour to travel from Peliyagoda to Maharagama or Ratmalana. Expressways costly? Expressways are required when connecting large cities sufficiently distant and roads have to run across large areas of thinly populated open extents. This type of situation is scarce in this country. These high-speed roads are designed for speeds (in excess of 100 kmh) where the design requirements are much higher than a good arterial road. It should be remembered that these high-speed highways are costlier than good arterial roads due to the following reason. 1. High overall construction costs 2. Required quality of the construction materials are high - Hence cost demanding 3. Access control costs (fencing and railing along the expressway throughout) 4. Additional road accessories such as electronic speed indicators high quality road signs and greater in numbers than required in an arterial road, costly toll booths, lane markings, cat eyes, reflectors, communication systems for breakdowns, and many more 5. Costly overpasses and under passes at all the cross-roads. 6. High standards bridges and drainage culverts are much costlier than similar structures on arterial roads. 7. High maintenance costs (high level of maintenance is required otherwise may lead to costly accidents) 8. High cost interchanges 9. Excessive fillings and cuttings (large amounts of earth work) to maintain the required gradients enable to have the expected high speeds. 10. Costs required for embankment protection treatment is more costly than in arterial roads 11. Greater land acquisition costs due to more land requirement than arterial roads Why prefer expressways? The thinking of our advisers to the government is easy to understand. The rationale is simple, when there is congestion, build more roads to accommodate the vehicles. These new roads to be prestigious schemes and politically to be visible, expressways can be the answer. Since small-scale improvements are not politically visible the advisers think of the biggest way - the expressway. These costly projects lead to more construction costs, more earth works, more studies, more foreign involvements etc. etc. that, finally may lead to more commissions and attractive packages to the politicians. Expressways can be justified if the country is economically sound and when the majority of people do have vehicles, which are fit to travel on expressways and can afford to pay the tolls. Where the majority of people cannot afford to have expressways fit vehicles but only have bicycles, three-wheelers, poor conditioned cars, diesel vans and buses or no vehicles at all, will they ever justify expressways going across their villages for them to be staring at the speeding vehicles on the expressway with gaping mouths. Expressway from Colombo to Jaffna Since the advisers to the government seem to be fond of expressways so much, why not plan to build a Colombo-Jaffna expressway (Friendship Freeway). If the situation of the country can be brought back to normal through the freshly initiate peace talks a freeway connecting Colombo with Jaffna running along the middle of the country might be able to justify the first freeway in the country. If built, this freeway will help to keep a close contact with Jaffna, strengthen goodwill and keep unity of the country as the name suggests. The other main roads such as roads to Trincomalee, Mannar, Kandy and up-country may be made to branch off from the Friendship freeway. |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security Produced by Lake House |
