6 minute read
Traffic and Parking Affected by Neighbourhood Amenities
U20049
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Maps are of much importance to many people, including designers. They help the reader look at the area mapped in a smaller, more organized way that helps them comprend their surroundings. Hence mapping is an important skill to learn as a designer. The process of mapping my neighbourhood, Thaltej, started out by having to choose a 500 sq.metre area in which my house is located. This selection of the area couldn’t be random, it had to be well thought out so that it could be more beneficial for the coming two parts of this exercise. I chose the area keeping in mind the various amenities such as schools, colleges, hotels, temples etc., which are located in close proximity to each other, that my neighbourhood has to offer as I felt it is one of the most notable characteristics. I could build around it and figure out what should be mapped in the final part of the exercise. Once the area was decided, it was marked on Google maps, and a rough map was made to represent and name the important attributes, which were the neighbourhood amenities in my case, as well as the roads and greenery with the help of the marked area in Google maps. Making this map helped me get a better sense of my surroundings in relation to where I live, which is where the tiny black house is marked in Figure 1. The next step was to make a more detailed map that showed all the buildings, roads and greenery by tracing the marked Google map on a software called AutoCAD. This was done to study the marked area in its entirety so that one could understand how the urban area is planned. I tried to show the attributes that were noted down in the first part of the exercise in this map as well. The commercial/ important buildings were highlighted in red which can be seen in the image below and trees were shown, as they are quite permanent in nature and hence showing them is of importance, keeping in mind their sizes. Making the base map helped give a clearer understanding of the neighbourhood before making the final map.
Figure 1: Places of Interest in my Neighborhood Note. Rough sketches were made to indicate some of the important buildings that affected the traffic on a daily basis. The sketches helped visualise the area better. From (Unpublished portfolio from CEPT Foundation Program Studio) by D. Shah, 2021, CEPT University. Copyright 2021 by D. Shah. Figure 2: A Laborious Process Note. Tracing Google Maps to show all the buildings in the 500 sq.m. area enlightened me in terms of my surroundings. Despite having seen all the buildings separately, seeing them all at once helped me realise how many there were in totality. From (Unpublished portfolio from CEPT Foundation Program Studio) by D. Shah, 2021, CEPT University. Copyright 2021 by D. Shah.
Figure 3: Process of Mapping Note. On the left is my first attempt at mapping and the approach was showing it in a 3 dimensional view and on the right is my second attempt, which looks similar to the final map, except the colours. In this exercise I learnt the importance of colour theory in a map. The map should be visually pleasing for the reader to want to read the map, but care should be taken to make sure that the different elements are distinguishable enough for the easy reading. From (Unpublished portfolio from CEPT Foundation Program Studio) by D. Shah, 2021, CEPT University. Copyright 2021 by D. Shah. 62
Once the base map was done, specific attributes were to be selected and based on that, a map was to be made. In the initial stages, I wanted to focus on the traffic, pedestrian traffic and the traffic flow of the neighbourhood, but it was soon realised that the foot traffic wouldn’t be legible on the map as it would make it complex and chaotic, making it very hard to read. Hence, I decided to change what I wanted to map, and chose to show the traffic and vehicle encroachment at different times of the day. Changes in the way that the map was to be represented were also made. Before, it was to be shown in a 3 dimensional view, but I realised that traffic would be mapped better if it was shown from the top. The same can be observed in Figure 3., where one can see how traffic is much easier to read in the map on the right than compared to the one on the left. Hence a shift from Sketchup software to AutoCAD was made to make 2 dimensional maps showing plan views of the area.
Since I wanted to map the traffic, I went out at different times of the day and counted the buses, cars and two wheelers that were seen on a road at that particular time and noted it down. For the vehicle encroachment mapping, two streets were selected. These streets were selected on the basis of prior knowledge of how many vehicles were found parked there on a daily basis. The first street was one in which there is a marketplace. Because of the presence of the market, the street remains busy in comparison to the rest at almost all times of the day and a lot of people parked haphazardly too. On the second street there is a school, a college and a gym as well. I had been given permission to mark the traffic as if the current situation of the pandemic wasn’t there and the schools and colleges were working offline. This decision was made because the arrival and dispersal times of the students greatly affected the traffic. To map the parking, similar to how I mapped traffic, these streets were observed during different times and the number of two wheelers and four wheelers that were parked there were noted down and the way in which they were parked was also observed. To make sure that the parking in the streets was more legible for the reader, the two streets were shown in a zoomed-in view. The final sheet indicates the traffic in the neighbourhood and the parking/vehicle encroachment in two streets at 7am, 10am, 4pm and 7pm to get a better idea of how the traffic changes during the whole day. With the help of these maps, one discovers that the main road, Priyakant Marg stays the busiest at 10am and 7pm, while the other two streets shown in the zoomed-in views are the second most affected by the traffic and highly affected by the parked vehicles. It goes to show that the amenities, the police station, hospital, hotels, educational institutions and temples, among many others, play a big role in the flow of traffic in the neighbourhood.
Figure 4: The Final Representation of the Traffic and Parking in My Neighborhood Note. An explanation and legend have been provided to understand the maps in a better manner. Dull colours have been chosen for the background, residential buildings, green spaces and trees, while brighter colours have been used to highlight the commercial buildings and traffic. There is also a graphical scale on the bottom right corner so the reader is aware of the actual scale of the maps. From (Unpublished portfolio from CEPT Foundation Program Studio) by D. Shah, 2021, CEPT University. Copyright 2021 by D. Shah.
