With authorities focusing heavily on managing traffic congestion, The Sunday Morning looked at some of the new plans in the pipeline, such as the park-and-ride system project, and also the economic cost of uncontrolled vehicular traffic in the city. On Monday (21), the authorities brought into force the bus priority lane system while also establishing specific instructions for three-wheelers and motorbikes. Police Media Spokesman SSP Jaliya Senaratne explained to The Sunday Morning that only buses along with school and office transport vehicles would be allowed in the priority lane. “Only private and CTB (Ceylon Transport Board) buses along with office and school transport vehicles will be allowed to use the bus priority lane,” he told The Sunday Morning, adding that three-wheelers and motorbikes have been advised to use the middle lane. “Three-wheelers and bikes can go in the second lane. Only when there aren’t three lanes available can three-wheelers and bikes use the lane for ordinary vehicles. However, the bus lane cannot be used by any vehicle other than those specified at all times.” The Sunday Morning then spoke to leading economist and former Central Bank Deputy Governor Dr. W.A. Wijewardena on the impact of heavy traffic congestion on the country’s economy. Negative impact Dr. Wijewardena explained that long hours spent on the road, travelling from home to the workplace and back, results in low productivity among the workforce in the country. “What happens is that the human capital of a country becomes easily exhausted as a result of having to spend longer hours on the road. It reduces thinking power of the people as well their physical capacity. Right now, Sri Lanka is suffering from that ailment. People are travelling with great difficulty to the city of Colombo from distant locations.” He noted that foreign nations, especially those with industrial capacities, have adopted methods where workers would reside at the workplace till the weekend or the end of the month. He said that traffic congestion in fact causes huge losses to the economy on a daily basis. “One can see that people have settled down in the satellite areas of Colombo with a distance of about 20 to 30 km and they take about two to three hours to reach their workplaces. Three hours in the morning and evening each and as a result, we lose six hours per day in manpower. So the human productivity is pretty low as a result of that. That is why in China, workers stay in the factory premises itself so that there is no travel time or other disturbances. Similarly, the same thing has been introduced by Brandix when they set up the textile (factory) in Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, India.” Dr. Wijewardena noted that the logistics sector could use the support of the authorities, as it is one of the main areas adversely affected by high levels of traffic. “There are certain things you cannot avoid. For example, taking manufactured goods and merchandise to the ports. That cannot be done over the internet – it has to be (physically) transported. So these are the priority areas in Sri Lanka. You must have special roads for these containers to travel.” Dr. Wijewardena pointed the finger at the politicians and successive governments for the failure to better manage traffic, especially in Colombo, citing “politicking” as the number one reason. “During the previous Government, there was a proposal to construct a single uni-railway line, but this Government came to power and the project was immediately stopped. We expect that a different government that comes after this could scrap this Government’s project. Sri Lanka needs a roadmap for road transportation, which will be signed off by both the Government and the Opposition so that it can be followed regardless of the government in power.” Solution He then made several propositions for the authorities to follow to ease traffic congestion in Colombo, key among them being better, developed public transport as opposed to individual, private transport. “The Government must have a roadmap for road transportation. Maybe within the next five to 10 years’ time, there must be a roadmap which would give the policy guidelines for the successive governments to implement. That roadmap should necessarily contain facilities for mass transport rather than private individual transport, and public transport must be improved. In Thailand, where I have been teaching as of late, they have introduced luxury buses and people travel in these buses rather than in their private vehicles.” Once again referring to initiatives by foreign countries like Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia, he suggested that Sri Lanka too could set up three-wheeler halts for passengers to embark and disembark from. In addition, Dr. Wijewardena said an efficient public service too would reduce the need for citizens to travel profusely. “Another long-term plan should be the automation of the public service so that people don’t have to visit the public offices to get a public service. Public service should be decentralised while everything is shifted online so that people are not required to travel and can access these facilities at home. For those who don’t have access to computers at home, then the Government must enable various communications and computer centres from which one can get the relevant public service from the state authorities.” Noting that road accidents kills more people than the coronavirus on a daily basis, Dr. Wijewardena emphasised the need for the enforcement of road discipline and urged authorities to go ahead with the new traffic plan despite objections from various quarters. “The Government should enforce the new traffic laws without going back on it because of the various objections made by people. Road discipline is a must in Sri Lanka. On an economic aspect, these are small changes. People are objecting now to temporary inconveniences, but in the long run, these changes are needed. When the Government started the one-way traffic plan in the city of Colombo, we saw heavy traffic congestion in the first few days, but gradually that dissipated. Similarly, these new changes too will soon become the norm.” Meanwhile, the Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB) is weeks away from kicking off its park-and-ride system programme as a measure to reduce traffic in the city of Colombo and its suburbs. “From 15 October, we will be starting the park-and-ride programme. The first stage will start from Makumbura to Pettah, and then Pettah through Battaramulla back to Makumbura. From Makumbura the route will go along the highway to Pettah, Colombo. Another route will be to go from Makumubura to Nugegoda through Narahenpita to Town Hall. There will be both clockwise and anti-clockwise routes. We have allocated low-floor buses for this project. With this project, we hope to reduce traffic congestion, especially if the citizens transition to using the park-and-ride system,” SLTB Chairman Kingsley Ranawaka told The Sunday Morning. He too pointed out the need for a culture of disciplined motorists. With regard to the current traffic lane law, he said that changes have been met with resistance and objections but will succeed in the long run, adding that it is not the first time vehicular traffic and lane changes have been implemented. “If you go into rural areas, you will find that when traffic is stopped at a railway crossing, all the small vehicles such as motorbikes and three-wheelers creep their way to the front of the traffic queue and cause even more of a block at the front. This block in turn takes time to disperse, causing further traffic congestion along that road.” Citing earlier instances where the public had been reluctant to accept traffic law changes, Ranawaka said that masses would see the benefit as time progressed. Noting that Sri Lankans as a people are very resistant to change, he said that even when the current garbage collection system was first introduced, many people protested against it, but the system was successfully implemented. “Another good example is when Duplication and Galle Road were both made one-way. People said it would never work and would cause additional problems, but now that change has been implemented successfully. I think the people will soon assimilate to the new traffic systems.” Park-and-ride system “The park-and-ride system is an initiative by the Government to have motorists in small vehicles such as motorbikes and cars transition to using efficient, quality public transport for their daily travel needs. For the pilot project, we hope to use the Makumbura Multimodal Transport Hub as the starting point where those coming into Colombo can park their vehicles at the designated car park and hop onto a bus to Colombo. The Makumbura Transport Hub can park over a 1,000 cars. At the current assessment, we will only have 15 buses for these two routes, even if a bus was to leave every 15 minutes.” He said that government expenditure for the park-and-ride system project were being kept at a minimum through various methods including opting for a profit-sharing agreement with Lanka Ashok Leyland to procure the required number of buses. The main reason for profit sharing is due to the risk factor in the project as well as their inability to import new buses at the moment. The buses that are to be used have been brought down a few years earlier for a different purpose but were never used and were parked in the yard. Moreover, they have also negotiated in the agreement to have more buses released as the project progresses. He said the next step would be to amalgamate the railway system as well. “We need to upgrade the Kelani Valley Railway Line to enable this integration. There is a train from Makumbura to Pettah, but we need to increase the number of trains. Right now, there is an issue on that line with the substations along this route. The Police and the National Transport Commission are continuing to formulate new strategies to ease traffic congestion in the country.” He said an awareness campaign also would be conducted in the coming days to inform the public of the park-and-ride initiative and its many benefits. “We hope that the people transition to this system quickly, as it is a guaranteed way to reduce traffic congestion in Colombo. Public co-operation is needed to ensure the project kicks off successfully, considering the investment the Government is pouring into it. We hope to do a publicity campaign soon to educate the masses on this project.”