Now, agencies constructing roads inside the jurisdiction of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) would have uniform street design guidelines for better, safer, efficient and people-friendly road network in the city.
The 136th meeting of Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA), chaired by HUD Minister Niranjan Pujari, gave its nod to the guidelines, which would be submitted to the State Government for its final approval.
Once the approval is received, roads developed by all agencies i.e. BDA, BMC, Public Works Department, Rural Development and Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco) would have uniform code to follow within BMC area. later, the guidelines would be extended to important roads on the city outskirts.
The necessity for the guidelines was realised as on many occasions when we encounter digging up of roads, repeatedly for undertaking utility specific work within the width of the road. Interestingly, these infrastructure, in most cases, are developed without considering future road expansion or lying of utility line of different agencies. Secondly, repeated digging and damaging of the roads by different agencies makes it utterly difficult for the actual users, i.e. motorists, cyclists and pedestrians. Thirdly, this also hampers lying of utility lines by other agencies. The guidelines intend to provide a step-by-step approach to formulating a complete approach. In simple terms, complete streets are streets for everyone. They are designed and operated to enable safe access for all users, including pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit riders of all ages and abilities.
The street design guidelines have also dealt with the street hierarchy i.e. how street width (RoW) differs as the city has several types of roads from a width of 6 metre to 60 metres. It has also identified a 120 km-long priority corridor to be implemented as complete streets in the city, in phase. Transit priority street network is a web of public transit corridors supported by Intermediate Public Transport (IPT) and NMT.