Traffic police answers key question on Facebook

by April 28, 2011 Governance

It's a simple question: why aren't bus stops in Bangalore shifted away from intersections? The answer isn't as simple. It's messy city, and so you have a messy answer.

Bangalore Traffic Police (BTP) has answered a long pending question in citizen’s minds on its newly launched Facebook page. 

BTP has started engaging the English-educated citizenry of Bengaluru on Facebook.

BTP’s maiden Facebook post today raised and answered this question:

Why don’t police shift bus stations away from junctions?
Bangalore Traffic Police on Friday, April 29, 2011 at 9:26am

A: Firstly, installation or removal bus shelters does not come under the perview of traffic police.  Unfortunately, each of the bus shelter is a revenue spinner through advertisements for the agency which installs these.

But we have taken initiatives to shift this bus shelters without much success. Where as there is complete consensus among citizens as to where bus shelters should not be; there is no consensus as to where it should be installed, as no residents, no shop-keeper, no establishments wants it in front of their establishment or residence. Hence, there is complete consensus about the problem but none about solution. Moreover, Bangalore has a peculiarity of having junctions so close that many times it is difficult to find locations for shelters which would be away from junctions on both the sides.  We are focusing on not to let them commit mistake in future.  However, correcting the historical legacy appears difficult at the moment.

But buses stops even where there is no bus shelter i.e. beginning of all the flyovers because people stand and wait there. So it is not an issue of shelters, bus drivers but much beyond that i.e. citizens.

Not surprisingly that post already had 18 comments by afternoon. The BTP’s Facebook page as a whole has already built up over 500 ‘likes’. Notably, the New Delhi Traffic Police has led the way in using Facebook to interact with netcitizens there and has over 58000 likes when Citizen Matters checked today.

Bangalore Traffic Police Commissioner Praveen Sood is already known for his tech-savvy approach to traffic management. The Facebook initiative appears to be in line with that. ⊕

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Comments:

  1. Nagaraja Magonahalli says:
    May 1, 2011 at 12:56 am

    Traffic management is the total responsibility of BTP, there are to be sufficient rules framed by Govt./Transport Dept. This is nothing short of escapism. what Btrac has done other than displaying large number of traffic guidelines, which are mostly flouted. Let BTP take more volunteers if they do not have sufficient manpower to steer the solutions for this chronic situation. only explanations will not do since problems are mounting day by day

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