New Town police and the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) have started placing boards along the township’s roads asking motorists and bikers not to race and to maintain moderate speeds.
Several speed cameras have been installed across all three action areas.
The move has come after officers of the Bidhannagar commissionerate, which polices New Town, and NKDA officials reported that several stretches of roads were being used as race tracks at night by a section of motorists.
New Town has smooth, wide roads interspersed with large well-marked intersections, pedestrian crossover points and subways and a mapped traffic signalling system.
The Major Arterial Road is a 10.5km speed corridor that connects New Town with Salt Lake on one end and the airport on the other.
Officers of the Bidhannagar commissionerate’s traffic wing said a section of motorists and two-wheeler riders have been converging there regularly, especially at night, for “fun rides”.
“There are many who stay in New Town and come for friendly races among themselves at night when traffic lightens up considerably. However, driving at high speeds is fraught with risk. We have been setting up these boards to discourage them,” said the officer.
What the officer did not mention was the complete lack of vigil on some of these stretches late at night.
The officer said they had mapped out several speeding zones.
Among them are stretches of Major Arterial Roads’ south-west extension that leads from the Kolkata Gate intersection to housing complexes like DLF New Town Heights and Sukhobristhi Housing Complex in Action Area III. Another stretch is the one that leads to the Aliah University campus from Ecospace.
Both these roads are wide and smooth and markedly different from the bumpy roads that dot other parts of the city.
“This is a move to make people cautious. There have been multiple accidents here in the past involving highspeed races among bikers and motorists. In addition to this, our teams continue to maintain vigil and we are organising night check-posts regularly to check incidents of driving under the influence of alcohol, rash driving and speeding,” said a senior officer of the commissionerate.