Hawkers and unruly traffic make the Gariahat and Rashbehari Avenue-SP Mukherjee crossings risky for pedestrians. Metro checks out the problem points:

Hawkers

Both pavements of Rashbehari Avenue at the Gariahat crossing are taken over by hawkers, forcing pedestrians to walk down the carriageway. The situation turns worse during shopping seasons, such as Poila Baisakh and the Pujas.

A senior officer of the Southeast Traffic Guard blamed the hawkers — a “socio-economic reality”, according to mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya — and the growing vehicle count for the traffic chaos at the key crossing.

The authorities had planned to relocate the hawkers in a market on the Kasba-EM Bypass connector, but the arrangement failed to make headway.

“The market was in a prime pocket but we often failed to sell a single item during the entire day there. We had to come back to Gariahat,” said Abhijit Saha, the secretary of the Gariahat Indira Hawker’s Union.

Unruly autos

Autorickshaws on several routes either start from or pass through the Gariahat crossing. Most ignore the “stop line” and the Zebra crossing when the signal turns red. The autos often race each other and switch lanes in violation of traffic rules.

To make matters worse — as pointed out by Bhargav Maitra, an associate professor, in IIT Kharagpur’s civil engineering department — the lanes on Rashbehari Avenue are not marked.

The autos are also to be blamed for the traffic mess at the Rashbehari Avenue-SP Mukherjee Road crossing. To catch passengers coming out from Kalighat Metro stations, the three-wheelers there are parked too close to the crossing.

Share cabs, too, eat up much of the carriageway space, jostling for passengers with buses and autos.

Tram passengers

Following deregistration of tram tracks, passengers often have to dodge vehicles plying at a high speed to board or alight from a tram. “It’s a miracle that there are no mishaps on most days,” said a traffic constable posted at the Rashbehari crossing.

Traffic signals

There are no traffic signals for pedestrians at the Rashbehari intersection, forcing people to walk across the road at a great risk. “The traffic volume is high at the crossing. Just when the east-west traffic stops, the north-south flow starts. Among the south-bound vehicles, quite a few take a left turn and enter Rashbehari Avenue. So, pedestrians never get a proper chance to cross the road,” said Gaurav, a college student.

Officialspeak

An official of the Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority said the widening of Gariahat Road from four to six lanes had to be stalled because of the hawkers.

Policemen of the Southeast Traffic Guard blamed a manpower crunch for not doing enough to book errant vehicles.

Ballygunge councillor Rajib Deb opposed any move to shift hawkers from Gariahat to a place where they would not be able to sell their wares.

— Rith Basu