A daily circus on Residency Road

If you are driving from Richmond Circle flyover and St Marks Road towards Mayo Hall, be sure to drive at 2 to 5 kmph between 2.45 pm and 3.30 pm. The traffic crawls right from the flyover and accumulates on Residency Road. The stretch during peak traffic takes a minimum of 20 minutes to cross. The traffic crawls and stops even in the morning between 8.45 am and 9.15 am.

Early morning too, the speed at which you drive in the stretch here is 2 to 5 km/hr. This is the scene at the Bishop Cottons Boys and Girls school junction everyday. The primary cause everybody cites is the presence of schools on Residency Road, St Marks Road.

What do the students think? Rohit Kumar, a high school student of Bishop Cottons Boys’ School, says that the traffic cannot be altered because of the permanency of the schools. “The schools cannot be moved out, practically speaking. As an alternative, parking has been rationalised to some extent with three-lane parking being allowed during peak times and children have to be dropped off and picked up from within that space. I see no other practical solution,” says Kumar.

Another Bishop Cotton student Jethro Jayadeep agrees that morning and evenings are a pain for the schools, their parents and the regular traffic. “We have worked out a few small solutions to the high traffic. Separate traffic police have been allotted for this area for morning and evening. They help regulate traffic flow in non-junction areas, which allows students and parents to cross the road.”

Otherwise, there is no way of crossing the road. “One has to do so between the vehicles moving slowly towards Brigade Road. There is a traffic warden at Bishop Cotton Boys’ School who concentrates on the other vehicles besides those coming to the school for pick-up and drop of students. More constables too have been posted.”

According to Pradeep R, the schools have taken up awareness programmes on how students and parents should handle the traffic during peak hours. “Our school has had teachers coming in from the traffic department teaching us basics of traffic rules, parking and vehicular movement. Police officials have also come and cautioned us about how we should handle the daily traffic, where to cross and how to be alert to the traffic flow. Overall, we understand that our parents would be anxious about dropping us off and taking us back. Creating separate staff has been one of the measures by the traffic police to deal with this issue.”

Yukti of Cottons’ Girls School thinks that it is best handled by fixing time for drop-off and pick up of children. “No parents or cab drivers should be waiting for more than a few minutes, but what we see are cabs parked for almost half-an hour or more. Entry and exit time for the cabs should be clearly defined. This would apply to parents too. Once the students come to know about the fixed time, cabs and parents too can spend lesser time at school,” Yukti explains.