Colombo city gets major facelift:

Building a city any Sri Lankan can be proud of is our aim - Omar Kamil :

By Ranil WIJAYAPALA

Colombo, the commercial hub of the country received a face lift during the past two years constantly changing its appearance from one of pre-colonial setting to a modern city. Much of the changes were done during the past few years to facilitate the free movement of traffic, hassle free walk for the pedestrians and also to provide a better environment for the public.

You may have tired when you were walking along the section of Galle Road from Kollupitiya junction to Bambalapitiya junction during the past few months and may have been disturbed by the ongoing construction work along this road stretch.

If you were disturbed by the road construction work along the Galle Road during the past few months you are going to have motorists-friendly, pedestrian-friendly and disabled-friendly road very soon with a new look given to the road by the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC).

The CMC under the directive of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa undertook the project a few months ago to improve the road as a model road with uniflow traffic system and introducing new features to ensure the safety of the pedestrians and also the free flow of traffic.

Gregory’s Road

According to Director Engineering, Traffic Design and Road Safety Nihal Wickremaratne the 1.8 kilometer road stretch from Bambalapitiya junction to Kollupitiya junction will be open as a four-lane road with one lane available exclusively for buses.

This road will be a pedestrian-friendly road as we have constructed footways on either side of the road for the pedestrians to have a hassle free walk. Apart from that resolving a long felt need the road will also facilitate parking bays for nearly 600 vehicles along the road increasings the parking bays by about 100, he added.

The main issue when constructing this road was the safety of the pedestrians while developing this road for uniflow traffic system. To overcome this issue we are in the process of installing nine pelican crossings, he added.

These pelican crossing will have more visibility for the motorists with enlarged heads of the signal lights. Each lane will have pelican lamps to ensure the safety of the pedestrians.

These pelican crossings will also have walking man lamps which is illuminated, to give an indication to the motorists.

The problem with pelican crossing is that you press the button and cross the road when seeing a gap in the road without waiting for the signals. When the red light comes on the man has actually crossed. So the motorists find that there is no pedestrian waiting to cross and they often tend to violate the red light signal in frustration, he added.

Through this new pelican crossing system that shortcoming has been avoided.

We had a trial at the pelican crossing at the Public library to capture the image of the pedestrian who is trying to cross the road. To activate the pelican crossing, the man also has to be there and he also has to press the button. If you press the button and go away the cycle does not get activated to have the red light comes on. That is a new feature added to Galle Road development to ensure the safety of the pedestrians and the free flow of traffic, he added.

The new development of this road has given more attention for the disabled persons. When installing the footways we have dropped the footways to road level at crossing so that it will facilitate easy crossing across the road, Wickremaratne added.

To facilitate the disabled tactiles have been installed on the pavements so that the blind and the partially blind can feel the path. Those tiles were imported for this purpose and we are in the process of installing them, he added.

Attention has also been given to ensure hassle free walking for the pedestrians by shifting feeder fillers like Ceylon Electricity Board feeder fillers to the sides of the foot walks.

We have also installed the street lamps on the either side of the road which gives some sort of an illuminated road. All the street lamps were installed new and power supplies are installed new, he added.

When constructing and developing this section of the road we have been careful not to allow the utility agencies to dig the road at least for the next three to four years. So that they will advance their programmes to fall in line with our road development projects in supplying the utility services without digging the road except for very urgent situation - for a break down or any other emergency situations, he added.

Telecommunication agencies worked with the CMC and they advanced their programmes laying ducts whilst about four kilometers of pipe lines were laid to facilitate the supply of water.

We helped them install their pipe lines and ducts, excavating the ground and spending a lot of money although that is the job of water supply and drainage board, Wickremaratne added.

To avoid future cutting of the road we have kept 20 crossings with duct lines. Those are the special features of the road.

Intersections improved on Galle Road

Now the asphalt surfacing of the road is 99 percent completed and only some byroads connecting to the road have to be resurfaced on either side of the road.

Drainage and utility services have already been completed and traffic lights will be commissioned by about the end of this month. About thirty five per cent of the footway paving has been completed and the balance will be completed very soon, he added.

According to the Deputy Commissioner Engineering, Vishaka Dias the biggest challenge they had to face was when installing utility services. We had to work with other agencies to shift the service lines to either sides of the road, she added.

The bigger challenge we had was that we had to complete the road construction without closing the road. We had to complete the work when the traffic flow was on and that delayed our work to a certain extent, she added.

We are hoping to complete the entire construction work within another one month's period and we are going ahead with the beautification of the road by planting trees at selected places, she added.

The Special Commissioner of the Colombo Municipal Council, Omar Kamil the prime mover behind all these projects said the development work has been done in the Colombo city under the directive of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and under the personal supervision of Secretary Defence Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

We are doing infrastructural improvement particularly on the Galle Road as well as in other roads of the city like Gregory's Road to give a face lift to the city and also to improve our road network to international standards, he added.

New features have been included in these road development projects with facilities for the safety of the pedestrians movement and also for the traffic movement, he added.

Uniflow traffic system has been further improved to ease the traffic movement in the city. These are the new feature the CMC is continuing and this process will be continued in the future and many other roads will also be added to these programmes, he added.

The development on the Bloemendhal Road, resurfacing of the Dematagoda which had not been repaired for many years will also be included in this programme.

As a part of improving the traffic movement on the city streets we are hoping to improve the intersections of the road where there is a huge traffic movement. We are working towards that direction to ensure that there is no traffic snarls at junctions, Kamil added.

The Development of the Gregory's Road as a modern road has also been completed under the special projects carried out by the CMC to give a face lift for the city.

We are also designing the streets for the pedestrians since there is a huge traffic congestion on Bambalapitiya junction and Kollupitiya junction because the railway stations are on the sea side and people have to come to Galle Road and cross the road to reach their destinations. Therefore, we are taking note of this situation and working towards constructing a overhead bridge to ensure the safety of the pedestrians and also of the faster movement of the traffic along the Galle road, he added.

In the meantime many open spaces on either sides of the roads will also be developed and more greenery will be seen. Pedestrian crossings all over the city will be modernised in keeping with the modern requirements, he added.

When we are implementing all these projects the entire Colombo Municipal Council work together as a team.

Not only those who are engaged in the construction work, the finance division, the procurement division, the supplies divisions and the administration section should also work according to the requirements of these projects. Otherwise we cannot complete these projects on time, he added.

He said though there were obstructions from some quarters within the CMC they could overcome those obstacles after working as a team to achieve one task that is to have a better city for the country.According to Kamil, many of the road development projects like Galle Road development and Gregory's Road development projects have been carried out as special projects and the CMC we have to make use of the funds available for the maintenance and the capital budget for the scheduled projects.

So far we managed to utilise the funds available with the CMC to implement these projects.

But we hope to get the assistance of the Government to obtain funds from other funding agencies to complete the projects which are in the pipe line, he added.

Through all these development projects we're going to provide a better city which any Sri Lankan can be proud of, he remarked.