The Bus Rapid Transit corridor is paved with good intentions. There is no argument about how badly our cities need an efficient mass transit network, or about the need to create disincentives for the overwhelming volume of private transport. But it is remarkable how public opinion can mobilise against such an obvious good, when enacted by administrations conquered by the idea of a particular model instead of a commitment to the end gain of a public transport system that works. There are large numbers of people (outside the SUV-driving segment) who would migrate to the bus or the subway if they were patently better systems — that is, cheap, frequent, comfortable and well-served. But until they have that infrastructure in place, it makes no sense to alienate citizens from the concept by implementing it disastrously. BRT is a classic example of high-modernist planning by the state that force-fits a complex situation to its blueprint — what’s great for Bogota should do fine for Delhi. But this one-size-fits-all logic of the state often comes at great public cost when it fails to acknowledge unwieldy, particular realities. In Delhi, it was implemented without consulting citizens or traffic authorities — the corridor was just bunged into the middle of a very busy road, leaving no options for alternative routes, and squeezing the great crush of cars, three-wheelers, two-wheelers and bicycles to thin strips on either side. Instead of creating new space for buses, the existing road was sliced in a bizarre redistributive manner, worsening the clutter and chaos. In urban planning, as in politics, to leave no room for manoeuvre can only result in sorry outcomes.Even measures like congestion-pricing, which could radically alter the state of our roads by creatively managing demand, can’t be enacted unless citizens have dependable public alternatives. Unfortunately, the botched BRT experiment could discredit the very idea of mass investment in public transport — for which the blame rests squarely with planners who took the aerial view instead of designing a workable transport scheme that we would have been only too grateful to have.
