[Tushar]

The Delhi government has officially decided to scrap the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor between Ambedkar Nagar and Moolchand. The BRT corridor consists of designated lanes, segregated for the usage of public transport buses. While the system was introduced to encourage the use of public transport, the corridor found a lot of opposition right from 2008, when the system was introduced.

Many resident complained that the corridor wasn't properly regulated, leading to private vehicles entering the specialized lanes and causing traffic snarls especially at intersections. The corridor was set up at an expense of around Rs. 150 crore and reports now state that the cost of dismantling it will come up to Rs. 35 crore.

However, while the corridor is being scrapped, five new BRT projects are under consideration, wherein the bus lane could be setup on the left side of the road to make traffic flow smoother.

The five proposed BRT corridors are Karawal Nagar - Mori Gate, Gazipur - National Stadium, Badarpur - IGI Airport, Dilshad Garden - Tikri Border, and Bhopura Border - Janakpuri District Centre.

Source: ET Auto

[jessie007]

Totally ill-planned and ill-executed project. Should have been scrapped long time back, but was held up due to the stubborness of the ruling government that implemented the project in the first place. Conceptualisation by IIT engineers is fine, but one has to gauge the level of civic sense of the average motorist. All vehicles were in all lanes including cycle and even on the pavement. Worst of all, motorists even used the cycle lane to go in the opposite direction.

If a traffic light went out of order, minimum 3-4 policemen were required to control traffic from 4+4 lanes on BRT and 2+2 lanes on the perpendicular roads. If the roads were absolutely straight, it would have been slightly better, but with curves and buses snaking from bus lane on one side of a signal crossing to the other side that located at an angle, created bottlenecks.

The chaos was so much that I stopped using the BRT in the morning and used a longer route (7 kms versus 4.5 kms via BRT) and still reached earlier and the fuel average of my vehicle also increased. I even started parking the car far away from my office so that I didn't have to cross the BRT, as in the evening it took from anywhere between 5-10 to turn onto the BRT from my office parking - this is because traffic on BRT is given preference and traffic coming from the sides has to wait minimum of 4-5 minutes to get a green light - sometimes one had to wait for the signal to turn green a second time, as vehicles have to turn slowly into the relatively narrow car lane of the BRT, after dodging the buses that are way ahead of the stop line in the middle of the road.

Once I couldn't take a right, as the signal for bus lane was red, but it ran the red light. The bus could have rammed into my car had I not seen it. Had to eventually take a U-turn from under a flyover ahead.

The only benefit of the BRT has been the widening of the road. After removing all the concrete lane barriers and bus stops in the middle of the road (without any foot-overbridge for passengers to cross to the side of the road); there will be eight wide lanes (four on each side) and there should be less congestion. The worst part of the dedicated laning system was that if you didn't want to go straight, but turn, the straight going traffic will be blocking you at the signal as there are only two lanes in the middle, left side is cycle lane and right side is bus lane. So turning traffic which could easily have cleared, causes more congestion on the road.

I really went on a rant - such is the frustration of an average commuter who used the BRT daily. Hopefully the situation will improve in the near future - fingers crossed!

[vixz16]

I am from Indore and we have similar problems, BRTS is nothing but a nuisance for the cars & bikes, I mean with a city like ours, where we have only 30 buses on BRTS and more than 50,000 cars. Because of these 30 buses, we all suffer. Fed up of the traffic jams, I got myself a bike, but still the traffic is terrible in the evenings. IMO, MP govt should also scrap this project completely and remove all the BRTS barriers in the middle of the road. This will make the roads broader and the traffic congestion will reduce tremendously. If they do that then the local administration should be alert, otherwise the sidewalk will be captured by thelawaalas!

[DCEite]

Why don't no goverment addresses the root cause -
Overpopulation and high density of our cities.

No matter how many flyovers, metros, brts you build, the abnormally high rate of increase of population means more and more vehicles than the roads can handle.

What we need is a policy on population influx into the urban cities, and more importantly, population stablization.

[GeeTee TSI]

Our buses are largely underpowered and 'wheezy' more prone to breakdowns as they're neither replaced within age limit nor maintained well. Dedicating a lane seems a shortsighted idea for such buses, given the limited number of lanes. Would rather they restrict slow moving trucks on highways in a TST (Truck Sedate Transit)

[saurabhdadhichi]

Originally Posted by DCEite

Why don't no goverment addresses the root cause -
Overpopulation and high density of our cities.

No matter how many flyovers, metros, brts you build, the abnormally high rate of increase of population means more and more vehicles than the roads can handle.

What we need is a policy on population influx into the urban cities, and more importantly, population stablization.

+1 to that.

None of the political party has even slightest hint on solving the root cause of ever growing problems. You know why, its because it will hit directly their vote bank.

What even BJP government miss is with Swacch Bharat, Clean Ganga, Beti Bachao Beti Badhao, Make in India campaign they all will be left being ineffective if they don't put mechanisms in place to encourage controlling population, pollution & waste.

India shining is a distant dream to me!!

[alpha1]

Overpopulation is the problem but not in the sense that is being illustrated in this thread.
Traffic congestion happens because there are more vehicle PER km of road.
This happens mainly because of two reasons:
1. slow average speed
2. actually high number of vehicles on the road

And answer to both is better civic planning.
Not the birth control measures and going the China way like many are trying to hint.

Raising the FSI is another indirect way of raising more number of people per sq km of land, which ultimately does cause higher number of vehicle per km of road.

[sourabhzen]

Originally Posted by jessie007

Totally ill-planned and ill-executed project.
I really went on a rant - such is the frustration of an average commuter who used the BRT daily. Hopefully the situation will improve in the near future - fingers crossed!

It was not ill planned but I'll managed. I am using this stretch since 2002 when there was no BRT and trust me, the traffic was as bad as it is today. At least the bus commuters covered this stretch in time when the BRT worked as it should. Now even they well suffer. The common Delhi citizen does not respect any traffic rule and that is main cause of it's failure.

We may cross whatever we want but I am absolutely sure that the situation on this stretch will remain as it is. The BRT still worked better than Lado Sarai to IIT road. Car owners are pleased by scrapping BRT, what will we remove from other roads?

[vasudeva]

The corridor was comatose for more than a year (or maybe more) as non-bus traffic could move in the designated bus lanes without any restrictions or traffic violations. This is just the official death certificate for something that ceased to exist some time back.

[mustangboss302]

Thankfully the most moronic thing in Delhi got scrapped. After so many deaths and waste of public resources, the government realised that the BRT is good for nothing. The first sensible thing the Kejriwal government has done.

[myavu]

Originally Posted by sourabhzen

It was not ill planned but I'll managed. I am using this stretch since 2002...

I am using BRT for last 5+ years. 95% self driven and rest DTC AC low floors. I also felt that BRT was actually good from day one when Delhi Police was managing the traffic meticulously. Even though there was a holding up for cars at Chirag Dilli, the traffic otherwise was a neat flow and DTCs were happily zipping through 5KM corridor.

But due to crazy civic sense, nearby residence association, some residence groups, individuals, Charted Bus operators, Gramin sevas, etc start dismantling dedicated BUS corridor's metal fencing and RC dividers to gain access from Car tracks and nearby pocket roads resulting in crisscrossing all type of vehicles in and out of corridor at a given point of time anywhere in the entire length. For last one year it is so crazy and sometimes funny too.

IMO, the failure of the BRT system constitutes to lack of civic sense. Nobody wants to drive 200 to 300m this way or that way to gain entry to their colony or pocket roads

I await more chaos post dismantle of BRT.

Cheers!

Vinu

[sourabhzen]

Originally Posted by mustangboss302

Thankfully the most moronic thing in Delhi got scrapped. After so many deaths and waste of public resources, the government realised that the BRT is good for nothing. The first sensible thing the Kejriwal government has done.

That is how this project has been projected by the elite and car lobby and in turn made a mess out of something that could have initiated a change in Delhi.

[sukhoi30]

They should scrap the one in Pune too. Especially the ones in Swargate and Hadapsar. It is not serving anybody's purpose. People just don't follow normal lanes, forget about dedicated bus lanes.

[sourabhzen]

Originally Posted by sukhoi30

They should scrap the one in Pune too. Especially the ones in Swargate and Hadapsar. It is not serving anybody's purpose. People just don't follow normal lanes, forget about dedicated bus lanes.

Yes, whatever is not followed should be scrapped - Ladies only coaches in trains and metro rails; traffic lights in many parts of India; no honking rule near hospital zones; speed limits; pedestrian crossings and in some cases manned railway crossings too; meters on Delhi auto-rickshaws...

The list is endless.

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by sourabhzen

That is how this project has been projected by the elite and car lobby and in turn made a mess out of something that could have initiated a change in Delhi.

Nope.
People actually suffered in the BRT. The wrong place, it came up at.
I cannot justify 15-20 minutes waiting times. This was when the cops were around.
Post that was the Uniformed private guards period. 25-30 minutes ,then. People were still not venturing into the bus lane, because the cops at the end of the corridor were a deterrent. This needed policing, but more than that it needed educated analysts who should have understood that the volume of traffic on this stretch couldn't be accommodated from 4 lanes to two, without causing headaches.

The BRT is a luxury which should be undertaken by a city which has an alternative to private transport.

Delhi public transport, closer to the bottom than the top(metro not included)
Las mile connectivity, and comfort. Do that, rather than implementing unplanned concepts.