Ahmedabad BRTS Creates M ore Traffic Snarls Rather Than SMOre olving!

BRTS- Bus Rapid Transport System

I am a resident of Ahmedabad and i was shocked ( to say the least) on watching the slideshow on Economic Times calling Ahmedabad BRTS a success! I understand that wherever this half-baked concept has been introduced, (Delhi, Pune, Mysore...) it had been an utter and undisputed failure. However, the respected Economic Times so naively calls the BRTS in Ahmedabad a runaway success and worth emulating in many more cities!

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/slideshows/infrastructure/brts-lessons-delhi-can-learn-from-ahmedabads-transport-system/ahmedabad-brts-success-has-caught-attention-of-other-cities/slideshow/20147240.cms

Sir, the photos u have shown are only the 10-20% stretches , where the roads are amply wide and were previously 8 lane roads!!

 The rest 80-90% of the roads which were just 6 lane or 4 lane and now  have an additional BRTS corridor are never displayed by the authorities...

This picture rests my case! More a BOTS -Bus Only Transit System!! Pray tell us, where is the space for the rest of the traffic to move ! 

If you see them u will realize that the Gujarat Government has only worsened our traffic woes! Quite literally! The corridors have reduced the road to a mere 1-2 lane for the general traffic!. Add AMTS buses, lakhs of autorickshaws illegally parked on the side of road and other slow vehicles typically seen in India ( laries, cycle carriers) and there is hardly any space for us to move.. So that the average speed is merely 20-30 km / hr!

Look at the picture below... this is but one of the widest roads in Ahmedabad (shivranjani crossroads).
This photo shows all the problems which the AMC is not able to solve.

Gobbled up roads (source - Ahmedabad Mirror )

Thanks to a BRTS stop on one side and lack of minimum parking facilities by
 the shopping complex, the swanky Shivranjani road is now reduced to just
 1 and 1/2 lane each way, instead of  3-4  lane it used to be!!! 

1. The shopping complexes on the left side should have an adequate parking space. But it doesn't have one. ( Reason? The building plan was passed by the corporation... why do they turn a blind eye to such illegal construction?! :-/ ) As a result, the people visiting the building have to park on the road and thus the swanky 3 lane road on one side, it is now reduced to 1 1/2 to 2 lane!! And the government blames the rising number of vehicles!

2. Contrary to what is claimed, the bus stop is quite close to the crossroad and right across a busy shopping complex... further narrowing the road and creating a bottle-neck. And those who designed BRTS (CEPT) are supposed to be the brightest in this field!

Economic times says Ahmedabad BRTS didn't build bus stops at cross roads and hence is a success .. well the above pic proves them wrong...

They must visit the entire corridor and not just the advertised stretches to know the truth!
70-80% stops have been build right at the spots where there is either maximum pedestrian movements ( opp. schools and popular eateries, at crossroads) so that there is an eternal chaos due to the newly created bottlenecks!!!!

 The closed system adds to the woes and not decrease, as you mention -- the BRTS corridors lie empty as the Regular buses fill up the BRTS and cause endless traffic snarls!!

Further testaments to its failure -

"BRTS earns in lakhs, spends in crores 

The civic body is losing Rs 60 lakh every month, Rs 7.2 crore annually, on the ambitious public transport service. "

-Ahmedabad Mirror  "CEPT study reveals that poor have not benefited from Bus Rapid transit system, nor has pollution gone down. " -http://www.unep.org/transport/lowcarbon/Pdf's/DNA_Article.pdf

This Times of India photo of Delhi BRTS highlights the similar problem Ahmedabad is too having because they are more or less mirror images of each other with minor changes...

The reasons 1 & 2, that explain why Delhi BRTS failed also applies to Ahmedabad BRTS 

If Delhi BRTS had failed miserably, then why did the Gujarat Government think that a similar system in Ahmedabad will succeed!? We need an answer!

Need I say more!!?? Because there's plenty more!

If metro was a very expensive option , why does the government want to make it now that the BRTS has covered most of the city at a whopping cost of 1000 crore to the exchequer!!!!! 
Obviously the modi govt after siphoning off tons of money from over inflated BRTS budget (Rs 50-60 lakh for a  single, ugly, small BRTS stop (shown here) in a poor country like India- is it really worth that much? )

Ladies and gentlemen, these minute bus stops along
 the route take a whopping Rs 50 lakhs to make! 

now wants to repeat the same from metro!
  After a delay of 10 years, you should know that a metro will now cost 3 times the original amount - Rs 12000 crore instead of Rs 4000 crore in 2004!!! 
And guys, we are the ones who is paying for this enormous 'mistake' by the town planners who have proved themselves to be one of the most incompetent ones! And that includes the CEPT which has planned the entire Ahmedabad BRTS!

 A Possible Solution - A semi-open BRTS corridor 

 There can be one possible solution to make the best of the situation...  Why not allow all public transport vehicles to go through the BRTS corridor. 

 If one has noticed, the BRTS corridor remains empty 90% of the time, while the AMTS/ST buses use up the rest of the road...

Why not let the AMTS buses too travel through the BRTS routes, which remain empty most of the time!!

AMC can pass a rule making it compulsory for AMTS / ST buses to pass through the BRTS corridor. This will free up a significant amount of space and also increase the speed of traffic in the general corridor.

The BRTS can always charge AMTS a monthly fee for using its corridor.

If this proves to be a success, (and logic says it will) why not allow even auto rickshaws to move through the corridor at a nominal charge.

You can see in the adjoining picture how much space the auto wallas occupy!!

 I bet this will free up more than 50 percent of the general corridor on the sides.

The traffic police should also stop taking 'hupta' from illegally parking rickshaws and shopping complexes and the municipal corporation should severely punish and even demolish illegally constructed buildings on either side of roads which don't have adequate parking facilities.
AMC must also construct multistory parking facilities so that citizens don't have to park on the road!

Such simple steps (though they do require strong will power)
will easily decongest Ahmedabad's roads (as in the peaceful picture above) and we shall become one of the best cities in India, if not the world. :-)


P.S.   One of my acquaintances accused me of "copy, pasting" my ideas from "useless" articles!! He then went on to blame me for the worsening traffic problem... He said that we shouldn't have so many cars in our family!!

 As a nation progresses, the buying capacity of an individual increases... and more and more people shall own cars and two wheelers... In such a scenario, it is a duty of government to
1) widen the roads - but thanks to BRTS, the roads have become narrower!!! Why the idiotic decision? It is based on the wild assumption that majority of the people will shift to BRTS!! Well , Delhi metro is a runaway success. Many have shifted to metro for daily commuting... Yet, it's traffic problems still exist!! IT'S ONLY NAIVE TO MAKE SUCH ASSUMPTIONS!!

2) To provide an alternative  means of transport which is EQUALLY CONVENIENT OR EVEN BETTER - Only then can you hope that the mango people like me and others will stop using our private cars, and shift to public transport....

The BRTS is neither convenient nor efficient for most routes.... ITs probably the best means of travelling on 132 ft ring road... But what about the rest of the ahmedabad, and travelling in Old ahmedabad!!
Except for 132 ft ring road, BRTS has no regular feeder buses, One has to take help of illegal shuttle rickshaws ( packed with 5-6 ppl at one time!!) to get to one's destination after alighting from a BRTS bus... Other than 132 ft ring road, every where else, the waiting time bwn two buses is too large, the buses are slow thanks to the jams BRTS itself has created!

Why the hell in this free country shall i use such an  inferior mode of transport and waste precious time in my busy schedule!!!! I repeat what i said else where, Give me a public transit as efficient as Delhi Metro... and I will sell all my cars and start using it!!!! Till then it is jocular and naive to expect the public to stop using their private vehicles!!