Roadblocks to bus lane proposal

MUMBAI, JUNE 7: Minor glitches, including the lack of exits, marred the traffic department's experiment for an exclusive lane for BEST bu...

MUMBAI, JUNE 7: Minor glitches, including the lack of exits, marred the traffic department8217;s experiment for an exclusive lane for BEST buses which began on a four-kilometre stretch from Sion to Dadar in the city today.

The single-file approach posed some problems, especially when it came to bus stops. 8220;The buses find it difficult to leave the lanes and when one bus at the head of the queue halts at a stop, all the other buses too have to halt,8221; said a traffic constable at Maheshwari Udyan.

According to policemen, passengers in some of the buses too protested at the slow movement resulting in the cones being removed in some stretches of the road. The lanes on the extreme left of the road were demarcated today by plastic cones between 9 am and 12 noon and again between 6 and 9 pm.

Nearly 50 traffic constables and 20 BEST inspectors from various bus depots were deployed along the length of the bus lanes today. Drivers were informed of the new system by notices pasted at all bus depots this morning.8220;We8217;ve had no complaints so far except the tree branches obstructing buses on the extreme left of the road,8221; said BEST Inspector J I Patil.

The bus lane proposal coupled with a computerised synchronised signalling system was first suggested by the BEST administration two years ago to compensate for falling bus speeds. On the success of this scheme hinges a major boost for public transport and major fuel savings.

8220;Our buses moved at 20 kmph a decade ago, this has dropped to between 10 and 12 kmph today,8221; said BEST General Manager Vinay Mohan Lal. He said the adminstration wanted public transport to get precedence over other forms of transport since they carried more people. This experiment would achieve objectives even at the cost of causing inconvenience to private cars.

The existing experiment, if applied through the entire network could cause a substantial improvement in speed. 8220;There8217;s no reason why we shouldn8217;t achieve 20 kmph,8221; Lal said.

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With reduced journey times, he said the aim would beto encourage people to move on from private transport to public transport. And with the time saving, the undertaking would be able to operate more services using the existing number of buses. 8220;Today we are adding over 50 buses a year to the fleet as we take more time to operate routes, this in turn adds to traffic congestion,8221; Lal said.

Additional Commissioner of Police Traffic SPS Yadav said the experiment would be closely watched by the department for the entire week after which a decision on floating a notification would be taken. Motorists who strayed into the bus lanes, would only be warned intially, he told Express Newsline.