Terraffic
Repost This ArticleLook into the taillight abyss long enough and the chaos looks into you. Find myself driving like a shitheel, cutting off Trishaws and poking lodgedly into impassable lanes. The traffic is bad, its always been bad. In the daytime getting around Colombo is impossible, dangerous, stressful. Lately, however, the city has made lanes one-way and no one has adapted. Will adapt, I wonder. Galle Road flows to the North and Duplication flows to the South, and it flows like butter. Frozen butter. The difficulty now is that simple point-to-point trips now involve kilometers of detour, clogging of traffic, and bottlenecks down narrow lanes. I can’t say if its worse, but it certainly sucks.
Uniflow is a convincing sounding word for traffic management, and it may even make sense. In Colombo, however, there are few tangible benefits yet. As an example, I was at a Pirate Shack on Galle Road and I wanted to go back to Majestic City, against the flow of traffic. So fine, get onto Duplication, go that direction, and turn off where the signs show a viable reconnect to Galle Road. Over the course of 20 minutes. The medians on Galle Road, however, are still up so I’m stuck on the opposite side of the road and am forced to pass MC entirely. Double back again, spend another 20 minutes, and finally get to back. Via Dickman’s Road. The rub, however, is that I spend 20-25 minutes and clog up kilometers of Duplication Road to get literally 200 meters from where I was. Should’ve just walked.
Worse, the one-way system is random and haphazard. The marking is still the same, so if you turn onto an empty street you have no idea of which way to go. The lanes also suddenly change to two way, which is a bit of a shock if you don’t see it coming. Sometimes Galle Road is one way, sometimes it’s two-way past Temple Trees, and sometimes they close that side and you have opposing traffic coming directly at you.
Also, all my laboriously collected shortcuts are now useless cause nothing makes any sense. I just stick to the main roads because a mistake can end up turning into a 30 minute tour of the city.
Another problem with the confusion is that it necessitates a cop literally every 100 meters. I can’t imagine the outlay, but there are literally hundreds of cops on the street every day. Must be a good time to rob outstation.
One more. As a pedestrian, crossing the street is now totally impossible. Duplication is a case in point. There’s no oasis in the median, it’s just four lanes to cross. There are 4 lanes to cross, but the probability of benevolence is perilously low. I’m scared to cross normally cause even if one guy stops, the guy in the other lane won’t. You pass in front of the kind lady who stopped to get grazed by a van. Now it’s that problem times four. Even at night Duplication is really difficult to cross. What happens is just chaos. Pedestrians flow across all parts of Dupes, in hordes. One car shows a little weakness and suddenly it’s zombies in the street.
I think what they are doing is damn good. It totally discourages people to use their own cars in the city. Isn’t this way better than a congestion tax like in London? I know it might be a concept alien to a hick from Southern US, but many sensible countries are trying to reduce noise and air pollution in cities and encourage alternative modes of transport.
Isn’t it good to walk 200 metres instead of driving. It helps your health, makes you feel less guilty about contributing to climate change, and saves you a lot of money and stress. Why don’t people use bikes, scooters and trishaws (4 stroke of course) in the city. I think the government could help the situation further by promoting “luxury” buses and tax cuts for scooter users.
I walk or ride to work at least a couple of days a week instead of driving my petrol guzzling sports car and it’s so much fun in the summer. What’s good for me is good for everyone in Sri Lanka.
It would only make sense if there was some usable public transport. Currently services are lousy, which is why there are so many cars and motorcycles on the road.
Added danger to pedestrians is looking the wrong way. I have almost been killed twice crossing the Galle Rd. I was looking the wrong way after getting to the centre island.
Now I am tring to get into the habit of looking both ways on ANY road, but sometimes old habits are hard to break.
The uniflow system was created for the security of the ministers after the failed attack on Gotabaya. makes it easy to close off whole roads and send the motorcade through. Everybody else has to suffer.
Er… we’re not suffering, actually. Uniflow means you gotta drive further to get somewhere, but you get there faster.
Driving along Duplication is great fun – the odd trishaw from out-station that comes straight at you, not knowing that the rules of the game have changed, the pedestrians who continue to look only one way when crossing, the lack of any lane indications resulting in that Panadura bound “Sapumal Kumari Tours” cutting right in front of me to pick up passangers who really don’t have a clue as to where bus-stands are anymore and the wretched condition of the road itself.
Thurstan is better – but I’ve heard reports of drivers getting copped for going over 40!
Getting there faster David? Dunno about that…
I honestly don’t feel like I get anywhere faster. I also get ‘lost’ a lot more, knowing where I am but being locked into a certain trajectory for kilometers. I think that’s bad cause I’m clogging up traffic in places totally unrelated to where I’m going. But I guess I’m OK with it. Just wish they’d do something for the pedestrians.
I’m all for toll roads and whatever to gen the revenue for some decent public transit. If there was functional transit within Colombo I’d happily keep my car parked all day, but there isn’t. In fact, the Uniflow thing cocks up buses the worst. I used to take a pretty straight shot on the 177 home, but it takes a terribly circuitous route now.
That’s the worst of it. The Uniflow renders public transit w/i Colombo pretty much unusable. I used to hop from round the Library to Colpetty Junction, no problem. Now that connection isn’t possible. The bus would have to turn on Duplication, go I don’t know how far, turn around, and then get back on Galle Road. I used to even commute to Moratuwa, just 177 to Colpetty, 10x to Moratuwa. I don’t know how to do that anymore. It’s certainly not easy.
If you depend on buses, it gets a lot worse, to travel short distances you have to go around to a junc, or simply walk. perhaps uniflow is part of a secret health plan by Nimal Siripala. i donno.
duplication doesnt have bus stands, the geniuses who put took together the plan obviously forgot that part. Now there are pockets of people ‘set wela’ at certain points. happening.
Yeah, Sanjana, faster! I dunno, maybe it’s just me & my car. But I’ve been copped for speeding twice. In fairness, I was speeding. Over eighty both times.
I got a bit lost at first, too, but my office is at Barnes Place, smack in the middle of the uniflow, so we learned fast. Now I’ve got it down pat and get anywhere in two thirds the time it took me before. The only time it jams up is when schools are out, mostly because of the stupid vans parked all over.
Yeah, the pedestrians have it a bit tough, but I’m sure bus stands and signs will eventually come along. How long has it been, a month?
I am one of those pedestrians who absent-mindedly crossed Galle Rd looking the direction I was used to. I got a bit of a shock when cars wizzed behind me afterwards.
So keep that in mind and cross safely. There really should be some campaigns to warn the public about new road systems. Suddenly starting up this stuff is not the way to go. Ideally there should be thorough signs indicating changes and warning pedestrians.
yup happened to me too, nearly got killed crossing Galle Road. wonder if anyone got actually killed.
i was under the impression though that in cars you actually get around faster, while the pedestrians need to bus it around like that ‘parangiya’ (Portuguese) in kotte.
Some mahinda chintana.