Patna, Sept. 7: The proposed master plan for Patna Metropolitan Region (PMR), 2031, prepared by the state urban development department can turn out to be a cure for the traffic-related miseries of the capital.

The city, at present, is infamous for its narrow and chock-a-block streets, which is further plagued by the encroachment menace.

The vehicular traffic has grown by 67 times in the past two decades, from 4,384 in 1981 to 2,89,844 in 2001.

The average width of the roads is 5.5m but encroachment at most places has shrunk it by almost 50 per cent.

The plan provides for making roads of four different widths — 60m, 45m, 30m and 24m.

At present, the road network is not adequate as less than 10 per cent of area is in use against the normal standard of 15-20 per cent. According to land use policies stated in the plan, 16.17 per cent of total land area or around 90sqkm in PMR is proposed to be utilised for developing road networks.

These roads are also supposed to be provided with adequate number of streetlights. Ideally, for a normal two-lane road, the preferred spacing between two streetlights is about 30m. However, the spacing between streetlights is 155m in Patna Municipal Corporation area and above 400m in nagar parishads at present. There are a total 9,267 streetlights on the total length of surface roads in Patna urban area of 1,500km.

“Roads are important for development of any region. Although the condition of roads has improved a lot over the past decade, there are areas where roads are congested. Moreover, vehicular traffic is also increasing at a tremendous rate. However, the government must be extremely meticulous in preserving the interest of existing land owners while developing such roads,” said D.M. Divakar, the director of AN Sinha Institute of Social Sciences.

Parking space in Patna has always been ignored owing to lack of ample authorised space and lack of construction regulations. However, Development Control Regulations (DCR) for Patna, 2031, as a part of the proposed plan includes mandatory provisions for leaving parking area as a percentage of the total built-up area in residential and commercial establishments. The DCR also talks about consideration for on-street parking.

Off-street parking rules for residential establishments is 40 per cent of the total built-up area, 40 per cent of the total built-up area in case of lodging establishments, 60 per cent of the total built-up area in case of commercial establishments, 35 per cent in case of educational establishments and 35 per cent in case of hospitals and medical institutes.

In case of on-street parking, angle parking has been considered more convenient than parallel parking. Parking would not be permitted close to an intersection.

The decision on the type of parking would be based on width of road, volume and type of traffic, turnover expected and nature of development in the area.