Traffic management plan for a hill town case study Mussoorie, Uttarakhand

Abstract

Today most of the hill stations are overcrowded and many types of scarcities have emerged because of the unplanned growth of tourism. It is time to realize that tourism can play a positive role in the socio-economic development of the hill areas. Accessibility to hill towns, resorts and places of tourist interest as well as movement within the area are important considerations in any kind of planning for hill tourism. The question of accessibility poses special problems due to, difficult terrain, inevitable restrictions to movement by automobiles, heavy investments involved in road building and improvement. Many a hill resorts have been losing tourists every year due to lack of proper accessibility and facility to move about and this has adversely affected the local economy. Mussoorieis a hill station and a municipal board in the Dehradun District of the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand located about 35 km from the state capital of Dehradun and 290 km north from the national capital of New Delhi. Mussoorie isconveniently connected by road to Delhi, Dehradun, and other major cities. It spreads across hills at a height of 1876 meters above mean sea level. The lowest altitude is 1200 meters in the southern part, whereas highest altitude point is Lal-Tibba, at 2300 meters on the northern part.As of 2011 India census Mussoorie had a population of 28,829.It is called the ‘Gateway’ to Yamunotri and Gangotri Shrines of Northern India. The closest railway station is Dehradun.Mussoorie is suffering from overdevelopment because of increasing number of hotels, guest houses and tourist lodges. There are lots of problems related to traffic, such as narrow roads and congestion on main roads due to heavy tourist population during the peak season (May to July). The availability of less space in town due to high elevated land and less road width is causing traffic congestion on roads. The traffic problems have a great economic impact because main economy of Mussoorieis dependent on tourist’s arrivals. Parking is one of the major problems in town that is created by the increasing number of vehicles and there are only five existing off street parking areas available in the town. The study aims to prepare a Traffic Management Plan for Mussoorie. The main components of this plan are Vehicle movement plan, Pedestrian movement plan, Regional connectivity map, Different types of parking proposals, parking bays for IPT Modes and Proposals for public transport. These have been classified as proposals for immediate and future implementation.