Impact of Rajagiriya flyover on neighboring communities

Traffic congestion became a serious problem in the city of Colombo since 1978 with the introduction of the open economy into Sri Lanka. This issue was expanded to other adjacent districts such as Gampaha, Kalutara, and Galle significantly since the year 2000 with the boom of vehicle imports and the tendency of moving towards using private vehicles. Industrial development and expansion of businesses to those districts might have caused such traffic congestion along with the enhancement of affordability for using private vehicles. Rajagiriya junction is a critical junction in the road network in Colombo metropolitan region that connected to Borella, Kollupitiya with Nawala, Battaramulla, Malabe, Athurugiriya areas. The facility available at the existing four-legged junction is currently saturated. The main objective of this study was to identify the contribution of flyovers to reduce the traffic congestion, with special reference to Rajagiriya flyover, 50 commuters, 25 traders both permanent and mobile surrounding the flyover and 25 Householders were selected through purposive sampling method. Focus-group discussion, field observation, and questionnaire surveying techniques were used to collect primary data while other data gained from secondary data sources such as Urban Development Authority, Road development Authority and Department of Survey. Descriptive Statistics including percentage and mean score measures to analyze the data and used Inferential Statistics Methods such as Paired Two Sample for Means, using SPSS software. Furthermore, the conclusion obtained from data analysis, created a Kernel Density Map for road traffic accidents with the road network in Rajagiriya intersection using ArcGIS 10.1 software. According to the scope of the study, this study revealed that there was heavy congestion along the Sri Jayawardenapura Mawatha in the morning peak and evening peak as well as other time of the day. The study was identified that the morning peak time was 07:30h -08:00h while 17:00h - 17:45h was in the evening. The majority of the sample was daily routers. Half part of the fixed merchant’s sample had mentioned that the construction of the Rajagiriya flyover as an existing issue. Also, all fixed merchants did business in the pre-construction period of the flyover and after too. Finally, the researcher was found that the amount of vehicles is higher than after the construction of flyovers than earlier. For that reason, traffic congestion had also increased. Moreover, here results demonstrated that the construction of the flyover project had a failure due to insufficient feasibility study.