Officials cite mention of it in the Indian Road Congress document as a necessity for Indian roads
Building of Chennai Corporation
Chennai: Picture this. An MTC bus pulls up slowly by the kerbside of a bus stop and comes to a halt. Passengers alight in an orderly fashion with senior citizens having no complaints whatsoever. The waiting commuters now board the vehicle and the bus departs. This scenario would make Chennai a utopian city.
But such a scenario will have to wait as Chennai corporation’s plan to set up bus bays on the city’s streets finds opposition from bus drivers and traffic planning experts.
Creating bus bays was the option put forth by transport management authorities for this city because buses normally stop 10 feet away from shelters. This forces commuters to stand on the carriageway putting their lives at risk.
However, bus bays fail to bring buses closer to the commuters. “It is easier stopping away from the shelter because driving out from the bay is a headache. Vehicles never stop here and most of the time we have to swerve hard right and interrupt traffic flow to get back on the lane,” said an MTC driver, requesting anonymity.
The Chennai corporation, after it took control of the city’s bus shelters from MTC recently, has judiciously set itself on the path to creating bus bays with as many as 58 of them under various stages of planning.
Officials cite mention of it in the Indian Road Congress document as a necessity for Indian roads.
Transport planning experts, however, are of the opinion that bus bays would only work on National Highways and not on the crowded city roads of Chennai. “Putting up a bus bay doesn’t solve the issue of commuter safety. Inadequate sitting space and improperly designed bus shelters are primarily the reason why commuters opt to stand on the road,” said Advait Jani, Program Coordinator, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP).
Besides, land acquistion is a must to erect bus bays on the streets of Chennai making the proposition unfavourable for the corporation. Jani cites examples of shelters on OMR which, according to him, personify the essence of bad design and lackadaisical work. “Another example is the Madhya Kailash stop. The STC buses that stop here interrupts traffic flow and the MTC shelter on the Adyar side is built in such an angle that it does not make it easy on the drivers to take the vehicles in,” Jani said.
Given the situation, putting up shelters, instead of creating bays, seem a viable alternative.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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