U-turn on lanes: Exit auto, enter bus

U-turn on lanes: Exit auto, enter bus
DH News Service, Bangalore:
The gargantuan traffic woes of Bangalore City may defy comprehension. But that has not stopped the City traffic police from regularly conjuring up measures that they claim would address these woes.

Never mind, if some of these steps are nothing but turning on their head their own earlier initiatives. In line with their “do-undo-do” strategy, the City police have now decided to bid adieu to dedicated “auto lanes” and replace them with dedicated “BMTC bus lanes”.

Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic and Security) K C Ramamurthy told mediapersons here on Tuesday: “Dedicated auto lanes are soon going to be history. We have held a series of meetings with BMTC officials and are working out various modalities to bring in dedicated lanes for BMTC buses. To start with, we plan to introduce it first on the Minerva Circle-Town Hall stretch and later extend it to Badami House-Kempegowda Circle stretch.”

Tried & shelved ideas
It may be recalled that dedicated BMTC lanes were tried and given up not too long ago on the City roads.
The dedicated auto lanes were introduced a year back under the B-Track project on K G Road, Kasturba Road, Queen’s Road and St Mark’s Road with much fanfare.

Dedicated lanes for bicycles is also on the list of the tried-and-jettisoned measures to end the City’s traffic woes.
To accommodate BMTC buses, the existing 2.3-metre broad auto lanes will be further widened up to 3.3 metres. Though there are technical problems, the police are firm that the dedicated BMTC lanes will solve the traffic congestion to a large extent, Ramamurthy added.

A majority of the top brass in the City police are of the opinion that “at last, the department has realised its mistake and decided to scrap the auto lanes. The idea of having a dedicated bus lanes was coined long back but due to reasons best known to the authorities, it was in the cold storage.”

BMTC Managing Director Upendra Tripathy said that the dedicated bus lane, one of the proposals suggested in the CTTS (Comprehensive Traffic and Transportation Survey) to make public transport more effective and viable, would be implemented in the City in a phased manner after talks with the traffic police.

Ramamurthy, however, claimed that of late, there is a tremendous co-ordination between the police and civic authorities. The officials are positive and open to new ideas.

Widening roads
According to sources, several roads have been identified and short-listed for widening. In the days to come, traffic flow would be rendered smooth on Sankey Road stretch from the High Grounds police station to the Windsor Manor junction.

Likewise, talks are almost through with the Doordarshan authorities and in all probability, they might part with a piece of land, easing the traffic bottleneck at the Nandidurga Road junction.

Flip-flop on one-way
The traffic police have also undertaken a study to have a relook at existing one-way rules in the city. Once the study report is out, motorists in the City might have the pleasure of driving on select roads in both directions.