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Kerbstone painting to enforce roadside parking?
Written By silkboard - 26 March, 2012
Traffic Bangalore parking BTRAC suggestion BTP Transportation Enforcement kerbstone
Every drop of paint used on or around the road should have some purpose, should communicate something to the road users. If you look at the kerbstones, you would find a lot of paint wasted in creating the black/white or black/yellow stripes. As far as I know, the black/yellow or black/white paint patterns don't communicate anything to road users or drivers. Also, we have all seen the impact those BTRAC no-parking signboards have had. Drivers avoid parking "just under" the boards, but are comfortable parking one foot away and beyond. Some BTRAC no-parking boards indicate the "length" of enforcement, most don't.
Don't jump in to blame traffic police for laxity in enforcement though. Enforcement is easier when you can CLEARLY communicate DOs and DONTs to the public. On parking front, traffic police is not able to do that. And mind you, illegal roadside parking is perhaps the top reason for inefficient use of roadwidth in Bangalore today. 1 car parked on the side is enough to choke the flow 100 meters before and 20 meters after where it is parked and slow everyone down.
The solution? Paint the kerbstones, use the colors to communicate parking related messages to the drivers.
Everyone can figure where to park, where not to. With clear messaging, police can involve citizens in parking enforcement - "just mail us 3 pictures of any enforcement, we will mail them a ticket". And last but not the least, consistently painted kerbstones look better than yellow/black stripes.
cheers,
SB aka Pranav
COMMENTS
idontspam - 27 March, 2012 - 14:11
The boards dont help, people are poor with estimating. Secondly nobody goes around with a measuring tape to prove they parked less than 100 meters. Paint is unambiguous where the paint ends the restriction ends, easier to enforce
Naveen - 28 March, 2012 - 04:12
The idea of using color codes to denote parking /no-parking on kerb stones is good, no doubt, & can go a long way to enhance enforcement. Signage is now being ignored almost everywhere (due to the ambiguities pointed out) except on few CBD roads where there are cops or parking attendants. However, the black /white or yellow /black painting is done universally for enhancing safety to make kerbs more visible to traffic.
Rather than one single color, what can be done (without compromising safety) is to use color combinations such as white /green, white /red or black /yellow to denote parking /no-parking or restricted parking, instead of black /white or yellow /black. This would also break the monotony with using single color.
silkboard - 26 March, 2012 - 04:22
A possible color scheme would be
- RED kerb - no parking
- GREEN kerb - day time parking okay
- YELLOW kerb - loading zone, 10 minutes mornings only (for schools, near darshinis, shops etc)
- BLACK kerb - 5 minute parking zones, say near ATMs, Service Centers
- NO paint - parking okay, all times of the day
Whether the drivers will follow or not comes next. But its our job to first communicate parking rules to them loud and clear.
Another example - RED zone before a bus stop. So that I can go tell the autos to move away. Without the clear RED, the auto chap is always going to argue with you.
This is a good idea - more visible and cheaper than installing signs. But the issue remains of enforcement. Also, in some places they flip the parking on odd and even days - so one would have to come up with a colour scheme for that ( BLUE for even days / ORANGE for odd ) ?
Ramesh
srinidhi - 27 March, 2012 - 12:15
Guess we can have stencilled words on the painted kerb as below:
The boards also help when they have more information like below: <-> 100 mts (on both sides) -> 100 mts (on one side only ) This is currently done at some junctions in blr..
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