Gujarat Vidyapith set to restrict use of vehicles on campus | Ahmedabad News
In a move intended to encourage the use of public transport and vehicle-sharing, the campus of Gujarat Vidyapith is all set to become a vehicle-restricted zone.
Based on an internal survey recently conducted among faculty, staff members, and students of the 104-year-old institute on the use of public and private vehicles, the university authorities have decided to develop two separate parking lots for cars and two-wheelers near the backside entrance.
With this, the designated and non-designated parking spaces across the campus — presently used by both the staff and visitors — will be replaced.
Also, the university gates next to the metro station will be made accessible to encourage the use of public transport, authorities revealed.
“To manage vehicles on the campus, designated parking lots have been planned. At these parking lots, electric golf carts will be provided for internal commuting. These measures will be put in place in order to regulate traffic on the campus and make it clean and green,” Gujarat Vidyapith Vice-Chancellor Harshad Patel told The Indian Express.
At present, Gujarat Vidyapith has one electric golf cart that was assembled by its students. Another similar electric vehicle is being procured by the authorities.
The vehicular usage survey conducted by the authorities — among nearly 200 teaching and non-teaching staff — revealed that while nearly 75 per cent of the staff is using private vehicles for commuting, only 11.5 per cent use bus, metro or other public transport services to commute.
Interestingly, nearly 10 staff members residing within the campus use bicycles for commuting against 46 users of two wheelers.
Eleven members have one two-wheeler, 10 have two and five have three two-wheelers.
Among these 200 staff members, 110 commute from Ahmedabad city and nearby areas and nearly 50 from Gandhinagar, over 10 from Vidyapith campuses other than Ahmedabad one, and over 20 reside within the Ahmedabad campus.
The survey has also collected data on the duration of parking of different vehicles on the campus as 80 per cent of the staff is parking their vehicles for more than an hour, the highest benchmark in the survey.
Similarly, the analysis of vehicles used by the students residing on the campus revealed that out of nearly 360 students only 15 have two wheelers.
However, over 40 two-wheelers and four-wheelers are being used by students not residing in the hostels to commute.
