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Senior resident complains of Barnes Place traffic

World renowned visionary and science fiction writer Dr. Arthur C. Clarke who has made Sri Lanka his home for nearly half a century has written to the Mayor of Colombo complaining about the acute traffic congestion in Barnes Place which was caused a grave hindrance to the residents hampering their movement.

Dr. Clarke in his letter to Mayor Prasanna Gunawardena said:

I am writing this letter on behalf of all residents of Barnes Place and Rosmead Place. I have written several letters before and I am tired of informing the Authorities of a matter, which troubles me and other residents of Barnes Place everyday owing to the traffic congestion on Barnes Place and Rosmead Place.

There should be an end to this and I would appreciate your assistance to bring about a permanent solution.

Often, we are unable to go out or come in as we wish. We are trapped in our own houses! We are taxpayers, and Barnes Place is supposed to be the prime area in Colombo. I remember two instances when I was caught in a traffic jam at the top of Barnes Place about 300 yards from my residence, where I was trapped in my car for over twenty minutes, since the traffic was at a standstill.

Ultimately my valet had to pull out my wheelchair from the boot of my car and to bring me home all the way in the wheelchair with great difficulty as vehicles were parked almost in the middle of the road and there was no room even to navigate the wheelchair.

On another occasion a patient had to be carried to a vehicle parked some distance away on the Barnes Place, since parked vehicles obstructed our gates. As I am now in a very poor state of health, this could be an extremely serious matter.

There are vehicles parked all over the street in a disorderly manner, even along the by-lane on which our house is located. When Musaeus College is about to close for the day, quite often our gate is obstructed from about 1.20 to 2.00 p.m. Vehicles are also parked on the bend (curve) of our by-lane, thereby blocking the view of a driver trying to enter or exit Barnes Place.

If our gate is kept open by some chance, some drivers try to bring in their vehicles to park in our premises. On one occasion our staff was forced into a heated argument with a van driver who tried to park his vehicle within our premises, completely blocking our main entrance, and then refused to move it! Why should we undergo all these unnecessary inconveniences? How can people live in this area? As I said before, I am writing this on behalf of all residents of Barnes Place, those who undergo the most difficulties are the residents just living in front of the school and I sympathize with them. I also heard from a very reliable source that this same situation is prevalent at Rosmead Place too.

The school vans bringing children to Musaeus College park their vehicles from 7.30 a.m. till 2.00 p.m. on both sides of the road thus reducing the road space. Moreover, although the Municipality has erected cement barriers to prevent parking on one side of Barnes Place, most have been broken or damaged by vehicle owners, and parking continues regardless at these points.

Furthermore, although Barnes Place is a one-way street at school opening and closing times, with the flow of traffic converging from Wijerama Mawatha to Alexandra Place through Barnes Place it serves no purpose. Vehicles parked in a vacant land close to Musaeus College exit Barnes Place through Wijerama Mawatha, creating a terrible traffic jam at the Wijerama Mawatha/Barnes Place intersection. Barnes Place then becomes a one-way street only for its residents! In order to reach our residences when the one-way street is in operation, the residents of Barnes Place are compelled to take the route through Horton Place/Wijerama Mawatha.

But at the Barnes Place - Wijerama junction it is not possible to turn into Barnes Place because drivers never honour one-way rules.

I am writing these facts through my own experiences. You can now imagine the great inconvenience we have to face as residents of this area, but regrettably nobody is bothered about us.

Those who follow the correct flow of traffic, tend to become disorderly when they arrive at Musaeus College entrance, parking right across the road to drop and to pick up school children, thereby obstructing vehicles behind them. Some stop vehicles on the middle of the road to drop children in front of the school without any care for other vehicles coming behind.

They continue to wait in the vehicle to watch children cross over to the other side and most of the children take their own time to cross the road without crossing it quickly, and as a result the road gets completely blocked.

Apart from the traffic problem, I wish to bring to your notice another serious problem we come across. The drivers as well as parents who occupy these vans until the school close take their meals inside the vehicles. All remnants of food and polythene bags are just thrown carelessly all over the road so that when it rains, the drains get clogged due to waste matter and polythene bags and water overflows onto the road. Also the van drivers used the pavements as a convenience, resulting in very bad odour emanating always through out the area. This causes an environmental health hazard to the residents as well.

On account of the traffic problem in Barnes Place during day-time, we decided to re-arrange our out-door programs for the evenings. However, recently, the Asha Central Hospital has opened their rear entrance is facing Barnes Place; now visitors to the hospital park their vehicles alongside Barnes Place from 4.00 p.m. onwards to avoid parking fees in the hospital car park, thus causing heavy traffic blocks in the evenings too.

This again causes us much hardship and inconvenience. Asha Central Hospital should alow the hospital visitors to use their car park free of charge, and then the people need not park their vehicles on the roads!

The Sai Baba Meditation Centre situated across the road in front of my residence in Barnes Place, conducts their ceremonies (Bajan) on Thursdays. On that day too, very heavy traffic jams are experienced in Barnes Place with vehicles being parked alongside the road till very late in the evenings. However this could be tolerated as these Bajans take place only once a week.

I presume the only solution to solve this problem is to prohibit vehicles parking alongside Barnes Place throughout the day. Perhaps Musaeus College too should sacrifice part of their land and provide facilities within the school premises to enable bring school vans inside so that the school children could be dropped and picked up inside the school premises and not on the road as is the practice now.

This may also act as a safety measure for school children - since we hear of so many stories about abductions and other horrors that take place these days involving school children. I would like to suggest that it may be worthwhile deploying permanent traffic wardens and traffic police on Barnes Place as well as Rosmead Place from morning through late evening. When the police begin taking action on errant drivers, the situation is bound to ease owing to their presence on the spot.

It would be greatly appreciated it, if you would arrange some responsible officers of your staff to meet me at my office so that we would be able to discuss the matter in detail. We appreciate that time is of premium value to you, but since this problem has been bothering us over a period of time we would like to have a speedy resolution and hope that you will solve it for us satisfactorily.

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