As part of the Smart City Plan, Bhubaneswar plans to adopt a COMPLETE STREETS approach to create a balance between the movement of pedestrians, cyclists, transit, and vehicles. Complete Streets principles balance the priorities of each group within a hierarchy of street types and respect their diversity.
Like most of the Indian cities, streets in Bhubaneswar have undergone a lot of changes to adjust and adapt itself to cater to the changing demands with respect to the traffic volume, traffic flow, extent, functions and behavioral pattern of the users. This has greatly affected the street network and its hierarchy leading to many traffic related issues.
- BDA has prepared Street Design Guidelines for Bhubaneswar to ensure coherence in the street designs and currently, these guidelines are being approved by Works Dept. Government of Odisha. These street design guidelines shall not only ensure better distribution of road space to all user groups such as pedestrians, cyclists, public transport, motor vehicles but also shall ensure planned integration of underground/overground utilities, signage, bus shelters, etc.
- BDA has identified total 120 km road network out of which 40 km priority road network is identified for implementing the complete street design in phase 1
- Out of this 40 km network, Janpath streetscape of 5.5 km is being implemented by BSCL under smart city project and sachivalaya marg streetscape of 9.5 km length is being implemented by Works dept. Bidyut marg streetscape design for 5.5 km is completed and is to be taken up for implementation. BDA has prepared designs for these streetscapes through its extended technical wing - Bhubaneswar Urban Knowledge Centre (BUKC)
- In addition to these efforts, in order to promote cycling and walking in the city, BDA has identified NMT network in Bhubaneswar. And cycle tracks are being developed on the 40 km priority road network.
- As a part of complete street principles to promote the use of public transport, BDA along with BPTS (CRUT) is in the process of finalising the Bus routes for city's bus services which is being modernised and being equipped with 200 new buses.