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This is an archive article published on August 26, 2018

Day 2 of BRTS chaos: Other vehicles trespass, buses try to find their way as traffic cops watch

To add to the woes of commuters, a major portion of the highway from Nigdi to Dapodi continued to be encroached by mechanics and their vehicles, or autorickshaws, further hindering the flow of traffic.

Day 2 of BRTS chaos: Other vehicles trespass, buses try to find their way as traffic cops watch All kinds of vehicles plying through the BRTS route near Dapodi on Saturday. (Express photo by Manoj More)

The day after its launch, traffic movement on the Bus Rapid Transport System (BRTS) between Nigdi and Dapodi was far from smooth, as bus drivers remained confused, traffic police remained spectators and officials of the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation struggled to manage the route. On Saturday, buses could be seen plying on the BRTS route, then moving out of the designated track, only to make their way back to it after some time.

Much like the day of the BRTS launch, the 4-km stretch between Pimpri Chowk and Dapodi remained chaotic. The Nashik Phata-Dapodi stretch, where work on Pune Metro project has taken over almost the entire length of the express lane, saw traffic snarls as vehicles kept travelling from the express lane to the service road, and back to the express lane. Bus drivers had a tough time as they tried to make their way through the maze of traffic.

To add to the woes of commuters, a major portion of the highway from Nigdi to Dapodi continued to be encroached by mechanics and their vehicles, or autorickshaws, further hindering the flow of traffic.

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Till Saturday afternoon, from Kasarwadi to Dapodi, tempos, autorickshaws and even two-wheelers used the BRTS track, hampering the movement of the very buses the BRTS was built for. When Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar was alerted about this by The Indian Express, the administration swung into action and stopped other vehicles from using the BRTS route.

The traffic wardens on duty didn’t seem to be trained to handle the situation properly. PCMC’s BRTS in-charge Vijay Bhojne said, “Commuters don’t care for traffic wardens. We need help from traffic police to manage the BRTS”.

Traffic policemen, however, were busy trying to nab motorists who violated traffic signals. They seemed to be oblivious to the encroachment on the highway stretch between Nashik Phata and Phugewadi, or the problems faced by buses as they tried to use the BRTS.

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At Nashik Phata chowk, vehicles were seen parked comfortably right next to ‘no parking’ boards. When alerted, Assistant Commissioner of Police Satish Patil reached the spot and directed local police to take action against such vehicles. Traffic police were seen noting down numbers of vehicles parked indiscriminately at the chowk. “Police will take action against vehicles parked in the ‘no parking’ zone,” Patil told The Indian Express.

PCMC Commissioner Hardikar said he had informed Additional Police Commissioner Makrand Ranade about the encroachment problem on the highway and the need to remove encroachers. “Soon, we will come up with a traffic policy and will provide towing vehicles to police,” said Hardikar.

Of the 273 buses deployed on BRTS route, at least 30-odd buses did not ply the entire length as they had to take a detour towards Bhosari, Pimprigaon, Chinchwad and YCM Hospital. “It will take at least eight days for the BRTS route to settle down,” said Bhojne.

He claimed things fell in place in the afternoon and traffic on the BRTS route ran smoothly after that. “There were no accidents or any breakdowns,” said Bhojne.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


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