Mangaluru: The public which took part in the Road Safety Committee meeting on Friday barged over the officials of the Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) for not providing pedestrian-friendly footpaths, failure to set up rickshaw bays, laying road humps and incomplete road construction work.

Activist G. Hanumanth Kamath said that a lot of money has been spent on the concretization of roads around the city. But, the pedestrian is forced to walk on the road, as there is no footpath at all the major roads. In some cases, the footpath is being used to park vehicles, he pointed out.

On laying speed breakers, the Deputy Commissioner A.B Ibrahim asked the MCC to complete the work by January end. MCC in-charge commissioner said 31 road humps will be laid in the city limits. The contractor will start the work on Friday.

Auto-Rickshaw parks

The rickshaw drivers association wanted to know the status of constructing rickshaw bays in the city. The MCC had approved to establish 280 rickshaw standing parks, three years ago. In reply, assistant commissioner of police (Traffic) Uday Kumar said that it is not possible to have all the parks now, as the city has been concretized and expanded due to more number of vehicular movements. Meantime, the DC advised to set up one bay each in all the 60 wards in the MCC.  

Shiradi Closure

DC A.B Ibrahim said that the Shiradi Ghat is likely to be close from December 25 to facilitate the construction of road work. However, before closing the ghat, the work on the Mani-Mysuru stretch will be completed by December 25, he said.

After the Shiradi Ghat road is closed, all the ‘A’ category vehicles except light vehicles and red buses, will travel via Charmadi Ghat road while the ‘B’ category vehicles expect tankers will travel via Mani-Mysuru road. “We have asked the KSRTP and private bus operators to use Shivamogga road to travel between Udupi-Bengaluru”, he said.