Accidents on NH bypass sends alarm bells ringing; clamour for dedicated bus bays grows louder

Demand for safety measures on congested NH 66 bypass after fatal accidents; experts urge NHAI to relocate bus stops.

A day after two motorbike riders died after being sandwiched in between two KSRTC buses at Chakkaraparambu Junction on the congested Edappally-Vyttila NH 66 bypass, road safety experts, enforcement personnel, and residents’ associations have demanded that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) augment safety measures on the 7-km corridor.

That over a dozen motorists and pedestrians have died in road accidents at Chakkaraparambu alone during the past decade sheds light on the need for the NHAI to relocate bus stops away from the carriageway of the accident-prone NH corridor, said a senior traffic police officer. “The agency must probe whether space for bus bays can be hewed out at relatively wide portions of service roads. The side medians having approximately 1.5-metre width can perhaps be added to it.”

Nisar Karukapadath, a resident of Chakkaraparambu who operated a fleet of buses on the Vyttila-NH bypass-Vyttila circular route till a few years ago, cited the need to install adequate boards and road markings to forewarn motorists, especially those from outside the city, of bus stops located at frequent intervals on the densely populated Palarivattom-Vyttila bypass. “Dedicated bus bays that have 3.50-metre width are ideal and can be readied if the NHAI makes some effort to lessen the width of 4-metre-wide central median and side medians. Likewise, the agency must chip away the central median and create waiting space for at least 10 cars at each U-turn to prevent traffic hold-ups in the vicinity of each U-turn,” he said.

He further exhorted the NHAI, Kochi Corporation, and the police to clear encroachments and haphazard parking on service roads. “There are places where shops have encroached on substantial width of the service roads and entry to side roads. All this reduced the width of the tarred surface, causing accidents and traffic hold-ups,” Mr. Karukapadath said.

The absence of dedicated bus bays on roads is a big problem on most roads in Kerala, said B. Anish Kini, scientist-in-charge of the Kochi regional office of the National Transportation Planning and Research Centre (NATPAC). “The other accident-risk factors include entry to side roads that take off directly from the Edappally-Aroor bypass, that too from near bus stops. This created a lot of ‘blind spots’, where motorists are unable to see each other and also pedestrians who might cross the road in front of or behind parked buses.”

NATPAC had in 2022 conducted a safety study of the bypass as part of its Accident-Free Kochi campaign. Interestingly, the stretch that is said to be the busiest in Kerala and is also among the most accident-prone, does not have Artificial Intelligence-enabled cameras, it is learnt.