'Direct buses will decongest traffic'

'Direct buses will decongest traffic'
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: Although Metro Rail is being hailed as the solution to the city’s traffic problems, it will take several years before it is operational.

In the meantime, buses still remain the most widely used public transport. With Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) promising to add 1,000 more buses by October end, Bangaloreans might just get some respite from crowding in buses.

The additional buses will bring the total up to 4,330, the highest in any metro. As part of the BMTC agenda to ‘rationalise’ routes, the new buses will mostly exclude crowded terminii like Kempegowda and Shivajinagar in a bid to decongest them.

These terminii have become solely changeover points for many. For example, to go from Indiranagar to Jayanagar, one changes buses at Shivajinagar. Providing more direct buses is the solution to this problem, BMTC officials believe.

“At present, the Kempegowda terminus handles 10,000 trips per day. We would like to bring this down to a reasonable 4,000 within the next few years. In the recent times, BMTC has been adding more bus routes designed to exclude the hubs. We will introduce more buses, especially on the Outer and Inner Ring Roads,” BMTC Managing Director Upendra Tripathy said.

The recently inaugurated Shantinagar bus terminus is also an attempt to decongest the Kempegowda and KR Market bus stands. BMTC wants to set up similar terminii at Kengeri, Domlur and Hebbal in the future.

The worser worry about BMTC buses is their dropping speeds. It takes at least two hours to commute from the Bangalore Airport to Kempegowda. From 22 kmph a few years earlier, buses now crawl at a dismal 14 kmph. BMTC attributes it to the burgeoning pedestrian population adding to the existing congestion.

“The city roads were built to take care of around 8 lakh vehicles.

Today, there are actually 22 lakh vehicles. Two-wheelers try to squeeze in between the bigger vehicles, people jay walk on the roads, so buses are bound to slow down,” Tripathy said.

The skywalks proposed by Bangalore City Corporation (BCC) is expected to take care of the problem of pedestrians walking across roads, slowing down traffic.