WRECKING BHOPAL
BRTS
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| Bhopal BRTS corridor |
The state
government is reported to be considering a proposal of the Regional Transport
Officer to allow school buses into the BRTS corridor on the plea that it is
these buses which cause traffic jams – a feature in the city which has become
virtually a regular affair.
Earlier, the
BRTS in Indore was virtually reduced to a mixed traffic corridor as private
cars were allowed into it. The matter had gone up to the local bench of the
High Court which, too, gave its clearance. The inevitable result was reducing
to nought of a well-conceived government plan to not only reduce the number of
cars on the roads and thus make available to other commuters space for cycling
or walking but also to reduce vehicular emissions. Two other advantages foreseen
were, one, of providing the common man a faster and cheaper mode of motorised transport
and, two, reduce consumption of polluting fuel oils bringing down their imports
and helping in reducing the almost perpetual current account deficit.
By introducing
four-wheelers into the corridor the local authorities at Indore killed the very
concept which had been adopted the world over for promoting public transport.
It was implemented with great success in Ahmedabad where the BRTS reportedly
“wowed the world”. Not only the Asian countries contemplating introduction of
the system made it to Ahmedabad to study its successful version, it also won
the World Sustainable Transport Award in 2009 awarded by the Institute for
Transportation and Development Policies, the organisation that spawned BRTS.
New York was given the same award a year earlier and last year it was Buenos
Aires, putting Ahmedabad in an illustrious league of cities.
If one looks at
the whole question legally, there is indeed no bar on allowing vehicles other
than BRTS buses into the earmarked corridor. Even the write-up of Devendra
Tiwari, Additional CEO of Bhopal City Link that runs the BRTS admits that other
buses could also be let into the corridor thus integrating the entire public
transport system of the city. But the question is whether the objectives of the
BRTS would be fulfilled if that were to be done. Wouldn’t the corridor be
choked with buses, whether those of the city services or of schools, holding up
the BRTS coaches thus defeating its very objective?, Besides idling of bus
engines would increase the emissions. Perhaps it is too early to cry foul and tinker
with the corridor. True, even after two years there are not enough buses in the
system and hence the corridor does look empty. Perhaps, the company that runs
the services is, ill-advisedly, extending the bus routes. One thought,
saturating the corridor with adequate number of buses would not have provoked
the kind of proposals that are under consideration. While the buses are being
spread out thinly all over this expanding city, the corridor itself does give
the impression of being empty and that the frequency of buses is not quite
adequate making the system somewhat unpopular.
In many ways the
corridor was not properly planned. It has taken almost five years in building
and yet it is not ready till today. One wonders whether the detailed project
report was adhered to and works on it started in good time. The route through
the older part of the city is still not ready as its widening and removal of
encroachments from it are still to be carried out. Besides, a vital flyover and
an important railway over-bridge are yet to be completed. Then the feeder
services with parking lots at important junctions are nowhere in sight. One
doubts whether feeder services were really thought of at the initial stage and
were ever integrated with the plan of running buses in the corridor.
Then, most
importantly, proper traffic management was never enforced. It was a given that
on creation of the corridor the mixed traffic lanes would have thinner slices
of roads and the burgeoning vehicle population of two and four wheelers would
choke up the passages unless properly managed. The planners knew that the local
motorised commuters are an undisciplined and impatient lot, each trying to get
ahead of the vehicle in front breaking all traffic rules. Management of traffic
and disciplining the traffic is something which has not been paid attention to
till today. Only the
other day there was a report that BRTS corridor was
swamped by vehicles of politicians and their supporters who had gone to the
collectorate to file nominations for the municipal elections. Politicians too
are an undisciplined lot; they far too often have their SUVs parked in the
corridor and the traffic police have no guts to haul them up. If they were to
do so, probably, the Inspector General himself would be hauled up by the
politicians in power. That is why the traffic police are very alert in so far
as VIP movements are concerned but they are indifferent to management of
critical areas that are prone to regular jams.
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| A Bhopal traffic jam |
Hence, it would not
be quite right to blame the BRT System. It was conceived for popularising
public transport so that, inter alia, the pressure of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere is eased up a bit in a bid to temper down warming of the earth’s
atmosphere that is poised at a critical level threatening the very future of
the planet. Precisely for that reason the advanced countries with better
management of traffic, more disciplined commuters and more aware people have
also opted for it. A report "Transportation in Transition: A Look at Changing Travel
Patterns in America's Biggest Cities," said in 2013 that a study found
reduced driving miles and rates of car commuting in America's most populous
urbanized areas. The study also finds a greater use of public transit and
biking in most cities. One of the most vital findings was that the proportion of
workers commuting by private vehicle—either alone or in a carpool—declined in
99 out of 100 of America's most populous urbanized areas between 2000 and the
2007-2011 period averaged in U.S. Census data.
If the Bhopal and Delhi BRTS have failed it is
because both were not planned properly, both were not implemented properly and
politicians did not have the will to intervene and set right matters as and
when required. Particularly in Bhopal, the politicians are more prone to breach
the discipline with its catastrophic cascading effects down to the common
people. Besides, at the outset they had left it to an incompetent Municipal
Corporation to build it that did not have adequate human resources either in
numbers or in quality. It never occurred to the local government to take a leaf
out of the book of Ahmedabad BRTS. Perhaps they just do not care.
If school or
other city buses are allowed the use of the corridor, it would be the
government and the municipal corporation that will have to be held responsible
for wrecking the System after having spent enormous amounts of tax-payers’
money and causing inconvenience to the entire population of the city for the
last 5 years.
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photos from the Internet
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