Every drop of paint used on or around the road should have some purpose, should communicate something to the road users. If you look at the kerbstones, you would find a lot of paint wasted in creating the black/white or black/yellow stripes. As far as I know, the black/yellow or black/white paint patterns don't communicate anything to road users or drivers. Also, we have all seen the impact those BTRAC no-parking signboards have had. Drivers avoid parking "just under" the boards, but are comfortable parking one foot away and beyond. Some BTRAC no-parking boards indicate the "length" of enforcement, most don't.
Don't jump in to blame traffic police for laxity in enforcement though. Enforcement is easier when you can CLEARLY communicate DOs and DONTs to the public. On parking front, traffic police is not able to do that. And mind you, illegal roadside parking is perhaps the top reason for inefficient use of roadwidth in Bangalore today. 1 car parked on the side is enough to choke the flow 100 meters before and 20 meters after where it is parked and slow everyone down.
The solution? Paint the kerbstones, use the colors to communicate parking related messages to the drivers.
Everyone can figure where to park, where not to. With clear messaging, police can involve citizens in parking enforcement - "just mail us 3 pictures of any enforcement, we will mail them a ticket". And last but not the least, consistently painted kerbstones look better than yellow/black stripes.
cheers,
SB aka Pranav
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the colors, this way ...
A possible color scheme would be
Whether the drivers will follow or not comes next. But its our job to first communicate parking rules to them loud and clear.
Another example - RED zone before a bus stop. So that I can go tell the autos to move away. Without the clear RED, the auto chap is always going to argue with you.
Good idea
This is a good idea - more visible and cheaper than installing signs. But the issue remains of enforcement. Also, in some places they flip the parking on odd and even days - so one would have to come up with a colour scheme for that ( BLUE for even days / ORANGE for odd ) ?
Ramesh
Also, I suppose in many areas
Also, I suppose in many areas you would have to paint the entire footpath red !
Ramesh
unambiguous
The quality of the kerbstones (not footpath) are a lot better these days than earlier. So this idea should make sense.
painting with stencil?
Guess we can have stencilled words on the painted kerb as below:
The boards also help when they have more information like below: <-> 100 mts (on both sides) -> 100 mts (on one side only ) This is currently done at some junctions in blr..
Boards don't help
The boards dont help, people are poor with estimating. Secondly nobody goes around with a measuring tape to prove they parked less than 100 meters. Paint is unambiguous where the paint ends the restriction ends, easier to enforce
Kerb stone signages
The idea of using color codes to denote parking /no-parking on kerb stones is good, no doubt, & can go a long way to enhance enforcement. Signage is now being ignored almost everywhere (due to the ambiguities pointed out) except on few CBD roads where there are cops or parking attendants. However, the black /white or yellow /black painting is done universally for enhancing safety to make kerbs more visible to traffic.
Rather than one single color, what can be done (without compromising safety) is to use color combinations such as white /green, white /red or black /yellow to denote parking /no-parking or restricted parking, instead of black /white or yellow /black. This would also break the monotony with using single color.
color code, standard?
Signboard plus explanation
Signboard plus explanation as proposed by @srinidhi is the best option. There may be in Kannada and English explanation and sign painted on the road indicating limits of no parking zones. Reasons being sign boards can be mass produced because they have standard design. The signboard is only say 2 x 2 ft , but sidewaks are long and takes more effort to paint 100s of feet and cost lot more.
Signboard + explantion
Signboard + explantion already exist, it has been proven to be inneffective, so we are actually spending a lot of money already with Zero effect. These signboards can be used for other notifications after the kerbstones are painted, secondly kerbstones are already being painted white & black so there is no saving in "cost". Thirdly kebstone painting forces all streets to have proper kerbs which lead to creating sidewalks for walking.
Rest of the world uses either kerbstones or shoulder markings to indicate parking because it is intutive & makes sense not because it is cheap & useless.
Kerb paint + stencils best
Cost of maintaining a painted kerb could be lower as the risk of vandalism is much less compared to the signboards. Plus, as BBMP starts using those cleaning machines, kerbstone paints would get cleaned regularly.
Other one time cost is on standard stencils, need two sets per color, for kannada and english letters. And probably need say 5-10 sets per police station, for usage in their area.
We could pick two radial corridors to try this, say Magadi road on west side, and Old Airport Road on east side? We could measure and record all costs involved for two corridors so that its easier to budget for more corridors. Then, with clear budget (Rs xxx / km of corridor) Traffic Police could roll out to all major corridors.
Who would maintain the paints could be a problem area - BBMP, or Traffic Police!?
searched around, no standards yet
Searched around nic websites for kerbstone, kerb etc, found very few hits. One hit was from Delhi, see this link (pdf file), talks of kerb painting for parking enforcement like this:
No mention of painting kerbstones, only a hazy mention of "face of the kerb".
Now, lets see a DMV manual from US - see this link from Varginia. Clear talk of painted kerbs
We need clear published standards like above. This same 4-color standard as it is may not work for us. I would paint "where you can park" as white. And green would be the "drop off zone", for 2 minutes only. Basically, replace white above with green. And introdue white as "can park here". So, our drivers will be conditioned to - if you see some paint on the kerb, there is some "rule" to be careful about.
Where there is a will...
Apparently its okay to not do what IRC says to do but not okay to do what IRC does not say anything about. When authorities are asked why engineering is pathetic even if IRC lays down standards the excuse is it is not mandatory & only advisory, when it comes to kerbstone painting they want a CYA specs from IRC
Bottomline, while this suggestion has been found reasonable by traffic police they will not be able to get BBMP to implement because it is not specified in the IRC.
I guess we can write to IRC & ask them to include this in their specs as an alternative in urban areas whih have kerbstones