Financial Times

Overflowing vehicles: Fast track to disaster in Colombo
By Chaturi Dissanayake
Cars, vans and three wheelers not to mention public vehicles all drive like mad hugging the roads as if there is no law in the country. Sounds familiar? It would be if you have been driving to Colombo every day in the morning.
But here’s a stunning statistic: the number of people coming into the city has reduced by 50,000 in the 10-year period to 2005 while the number of vehicles has risen by 47 %, according to a new survey. “The number of vehicles coming in to the city has increased by 47% in the last 10 years.

The number of vehicles coming into the city is 190,000 per day out of which 155,000 are private cars vans motor cycles and three wheelers,” explains acknowledged transport specialist Professor Amal Kumarage of the Moratuwa University. He told The Sunday Times FT that while their survey has shown decreasing numbers visiting Colombo – which is not good for economic development in the city – another 1/3 of the people coming into the city now come in their private vehicles whereas in 1995 it was only a quarter who did so.

The reason for this rapid change in the trends of transportation is the poor state of public transportation and an increase in the income levels of the people. Prof. Kumarage said there hasn’t been any parallel improvement in the quality of the public transportation system as against improvement in people’s income levels thus forcing people to use private transport means.

“This has resulted in road traffic congestion in the city as more private vehicles demand more space on the road which unfortunately can’t cater to this demand. This will ultimately result in people going away from the city or not visiting the city,” he said.

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