Another mess on Parliament Road

The only way one can describe the vehicular traffic on the Parliament road, especially in the evenings is as mayhem. The short distance of two to three kilometres from the Kanatte junction to the Nawala Road junction, believe it or not, invariably takes 45 minutes or more, purely due to the lack of traffic control at the latter junction.

I am talking about traffic on normal days. I just do not want to even think of the stress, the waste of time, the petrol consumption etc. on days when Parliament sits. It defies description. It is a pity that this situation has been in existence for years with no attempt being made to resolve the problem. The powers that be, the traffic police at Welikada Police Station in this instance, only need to co-ordinate the large number of cars that travel towards Kotte by assigning just a few policemen during the rush hours at the turn off to Nawala.

In other areas in the city, I have even seen innovative policemen opening an additional single lane on the opposite side of the road for the heavy traffic, the separation being done with traffic cones.

At least for the vehicles turning to Nawala such a lane could be opened. I am sure if the OIC of the Welikada Police Station, ironically located just in front of this enormous traffic fiasco, bothers to give a little bit of thought to this problem, no doubt a solution will be found.

By Upali Wickramasinghe, Kotte