Kolkata: Cops have decided to tweak certain traffic plans for New Year's Eve and this weekend, keeping Park Street and "any important arterial road", like Belvedere Road or Alipore Road near Alipore zoo, open on New Year's Eve ‘unless closer to midnight.'
The decision was taken at a review meet for traffic and pedestrian movement in Park Street on Monday, considering the fact that the city's hotspots still have massive crowds of revellers and the new year will be ushered in close to the weekend.
"On Cristmas, we needed to shut Park Street for a brief period and there were no major traffic bottlenecks, except slowing down of vehicles for a short while on JL Nehru Road," said an officer.
According to the revised plan, movement of vehicles towards Park Street from the JL Nehru Road-Lindsay Street crossing will be stopped "periodically, as and when required," if there is a traffic bottleneck at the Park Street flyover approach. Instead, these vehicles will be asked to take the flyover and enter Park Street zone through Ho Chi Minh Sarani.
Cops will deploy extra personnel to man the barricades to prevent those from breaking. If required, vehicles coming from CR Avenue and SN Banerjee Road and going south beyond Exide will be diverted via RR Avenue and Red Road towards SSKM Hospital. This will help decongest Park Street, a plan that worked on Christmas evening.
Given the pressure of vehicles from Outram Road, even if cops are not shutting down Park Street, two alternate roads to Park Street — Kyd Street-Free School Street-Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road and Ho Chi Minh Sarani-Camac Street-Short Street — will be kept pedestrian-free as far as possible.
Inspectors will lead security teams at malls that witnessed unprecedented footfall. The Park Street area will be manned by 10 DCPs. Cops will continue raids to counter drink-driving.