Chandigarh smart city project: French idea for public transport, three Tricity ‘corridors’

  • | Saturday | 21st April, 2018

(Express photo)THREE TRANSPORT corridors connecting Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali have been proposed by the French Firm —Systra — in its detailed study for a “mobility plan” under the Chandigarh smart city project. “The Chandigarh smart mobility plan is aimed at designing a public transport masterplan that will improve people’s transport options. “This will fetch passengers travelling interstate to use public transport here. The corridors have been chosen after looking at the “transport demand” at different stretches in the city. Corridor 3 will cover population in Chandigarh and Zirakpur and cover jobs located in the centre of Chandigarh and Zirakpur.

Blueprint of the proposal. (Express photo) Blueprint of the proposal. (Express photo) THREE TRANSPORT corridors connecting Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali have been proposed by the French Firm —Systra — in its detailed study for a “mobility plan” under the Chandigarh smart city project. These corridors are routes deemed to be “traffic generators”. Depending on the “trip generating facility” of each route, the report suggests a combination of bus rapid transit system (BRTS), light rail transit (LRT), modern tram and monorail as possible modes of transport along these three corridors. The report was tabled at a meeting of UT officers with French officials recently. France is assisting UT in the smart city project and has assured financial assistance for two projects. The mobility plan is one. Home Secretary Anurag Aggarwal told Chandigarh Newsline that the report was part of the discussion and they were analysing the suggestions given in the report. “The firm is conducting survey in different phases. They have completed first two phases already. We have been assured of proper assistance from the French officials,” he said. The corridors have been chosen after looking at the “transport demand” at different stretches in the city. According to the report, Corridor 1 will run from Mullanpur to Panchkula. At one end is Firozpur Bangar village, with the corridor passing through Mullanpur Garibdas, Madhya Marg in Chandigarh, Chandigarh-Panchkula road towards Maheshpur, Golf Course, Sector 3 Panchkula and will end in Sector 24, Panchkula. The corridor goes past the defence area and the botanical garden in Mullanpur. Located along this corridor in Chandigarh are important educational and health institutions such as Panjab University, PGIMER, Government College for Boys and Girls Sector 11, Home Science college, DAV College Sector 10 and railway station road, all generating a large number of passengers. In Panchkula, the corridor will serve the commercial stretch along Chandigarh road – V Mart, Fun cinemas, residential areas of sectors 6, 7, towards Maheshpur road, Tau Devi Lal Stadium. Corridor 2 will run from Sector 60, Mohali, to the south-west of Chandigarh to Sector 1. It will cover Jan Marg starting from Capitol Complex and end at Mohali bypass road in SAS Nagar. Though most of this corridor passes through residential areas, ISBT sectors 43 and 17 are located on this route. “This will fetch passengers travelling interstate to use public transport here. Capitol complex – the heritage site, art college, administrative buildings, recreational sites – Rose Garden, are all located here,” the survey report specified. Corridor 3 has been traced from Sector 25 in the north west of Chandigarh to Zirakpur. This corridor will cover Dakshin Marg starting from Dadumajra Colony passing through Industrial Area Phase 2, airport area, defence area and Guru Gobind Singh Nagar in Zirakpur. It covers residential, public and semi-public land use, including Dr H S Judge Institute of Dental Sciences, Sector 25, passport office Sector 34, Government Medical College Sector 32 and CSIO too. “The Chandigarh smart mobility plan is aimed at designing a public transport masterplan that will improve people’s transport options. The idea is thus to design a transport system that will address the needs of local residents by 2031. The objective of the analysis is to provide insight into the type of area each corridor covers. The idea is to make sure that main trip generating areas (where people live, work and shop) are served by the proposed transport network,” the report further stated. In terms of providing access to jobs here, it said that Corridor 1 will cover opulation from Panchkula, Chandigarh and the new city of Mullanpur and provide access to jobs located in Chandigarh and to a lesser extent in Panchkula while Corridor 2 will cover population in the south-west of Chandigarh and provide access to jobs located in central areas of the city. Corridor 3 will cover population in Chandigarh and Zirakpur and cover jobs located in the centre of Chandigarh and Zirakpur. The firm also conducted a survey of heritage sites along these routes and stated that “heritage zones, precincts and buildings are strongly supporting the proposed corridors as they are the traffic generators. Hence proposed corridors will cater to the need of traffic demand”. To improve access to public facilities, the firm surveyed the number of such facilities available and found that these were the highest on these routes. “The total number of existing public facilities are 611. The number of facilities covered under these corridors are 67, 64 and 68, respectively. It shows that around 33 per cent of public facilities are covered under proposed transportation corridors,” it stated, adding that these corridors had 36 per cent of trip generating facilities which was the highest. As these routes are “traffic generators”, it was suggested that BRTS, LRT and monorail are possible modes for Corridor 1 and tram, BRTS and monorail for Corridor 2. For Corridor 3, it is BHLS, BRTS, tram and monorail. The advantages of each of the modes was also specified. Bus rapid transit will require a totally or partially dedicated or shared Right of Way (RoW) – a dedicated bus lane that will minimise interference from road users with signal priority at junctions. “In this study, the term tram will refer to modern tram. Segregated lanes and junction priority allow good headway, commercial speed and capacity. Considering environmental issues, modern tramway projects offer a new share of public space in favour of pedestrians and cycles,” the report said. About light rail transit, it stated, “Though LRT is sometimes used as synonym for tram, we will only consider elevated LRT systems in this study. As a result, they do not include tram systems. Elevated LRTs are physically separated from road traffic and their capacity is lower than Metro systems.” For all the latest Chandigarh News, download Indian Express App

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