KATHMANDU, July 22: With the onset of monsoon season, vehicular movement along waterlogged roads in Kathmandu runs into difficulties. As a result, road travel turns into a terrifying ordeal since it involves a considerable amount of time at that time.
However, the condition of roads during heavy downpours is favorable to traffic police personnel usually busy directing traffic during office hours since few vehicles ply roads in such a situation. It is in this condition that they breathe a sigh of relief.
A brief moment of their relief from hectic life comes to an end after the heavy downpours result in roads being waterlogged. The traffic situation worsens as all the vehicles try to overtake each other to reach their destinations as soon as possible.
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This is the problem that repeats itself every year in the capital with the beginning of monsoon season. But it is possible to overcome it.
There are different ways of managing vehicular movement during the monsoon in Kathmandu valley to avert traffic jam that is a boon to road travelers.
“Some of the ways of making roads in Kathmandu free from traffic jam include promoting public vehicles, expanding the width of roads, making vehicles violating traffic rules liable to severe punishment and opening certain roads to one-way traffic,” Ravi Kumar Poudel, a spokesperson at the Metropolitan Traffic Police Division (MTPD) told Republica Online .
According to him, Nepal lacks an adequate number of traffic police personnel. “Currently, as many as 14,000 traffic police personnel are working in different cities of the country. The country needs at least 22,000 traffic police personnel if we are to address the current traffic problems facing the country”, added Poudel.
However, traffic police personnel have been playing a significant role in the management of vehicular movement along different roads in the capital by updating us on traffic information through SMS system, radio and hotlines though their number is not adequate enough to address the traffic problems completely.
Similarly, people can acquaint themselves with traffic updates by visiting traffic police’s facebook page and downloading traffic police app on their mobile phones.
