GENRE: Voices

Bengaluru's bus priority lane (BPL) project was to be launched in Outer Ring Road (ORR) today, but has been postponed yet again. In the first part of this series, I explored issues with respect to the overall strategy of the project. What's also clear is that the BBMP and BMTC have not thought through many practical difficulties in implementing it. Here are some of those: BPL is actually Bus 'BMTC Priority Lane'! Presently the BPL is only for BMTC, and not for other forms of mass transport such as: State transport buses from all states Private intercity (long-distance) buses  Private buses…

Tomorrow, BMTC’s bus priority lane (BPL) will be fully operational on a 27-km stretch of Outer Ring Road (ORR), from Swami Vivekananda Road to Silk Board. The project was to be launched on November 1st, but was postponed to 15th, as BBMP was unable to complete the infrastructure work due to rains. There is much optimism about the project, but it has strategic and planning issues that should have been addressed beforehand. In the first part of this series, I look at the strategic problems around BPL. BPL is not contextualised in terms of the city’s transport needs The project…

Public transport in Bengaluru has deteriorated rapidly. Though the government declares magic bullet schemes such as elevated corridors and bus priority lanes, these pop out of thin air without any city-wide planning for transportation. Rather than jumping to ad-hoc solutions, we should first be clear about the problem. At the core of this is how we measure the performance of our transportation. If any public transport agency wants to win over the public as its customers, it will have to consider the following Key Success Factors (KSFs) for mobility, and find optimum solutions. End-to-end connectivity Pickup within 300 m of…

How adaptive are urban citizens today when it comes to technology? Digitisation not only plays a central role in any smart city once it’s established, but also lays the path to getting there. Along the way, its various stakeholders – private companies and businesses, local and state governments and equally importantly, its citizens -- all need to be in sync for a smart city to thrive. The challenge however, not only for Chennai, but for any city under the smart city mission is adoption of technology. Ultimately, it’s citizens who should be able to easily adopt and reap the benefits…

State government has announced its decision to add 6000 buses to the BMTC fleet in a phased manner and to reduce bus fares. This is a huge win for commuters, civil society groups and the city at large. The Bengaluru Bus Prayanikara Vedike (BBPV), a collective that advocates for better BMTC services, welcomes this long-awaited reform, and applauds the government and BMTC for the decision. Congratulations, Bengaluru! Decades of road widening, building flyovers and massive mobility infrastructure such as elevated roads and Metro, have only resulted in inadequate provision, increasing cost of public transport as well as traffic congestion. Finally,…

It all started with a nine-kilometre ride three years ago. Soon cycling enthusiast Felix John started pedalling long distances, with his recent record being a 1200-km ride to Coimbatore. And now, he is Chennai’s Bicycle Mayor, appointed by BYCS – an Amsterdam-based social enterprise. His responsibilities as a bicycle mayor are many and diverse: to increase cycling in the city and to bridge the gap between cyclists and local government, among several others. In an interview with Citizen Matters, Felix John, who takes pride in hailing from North Chennai, talks about the ambitions, feasibility and challenges of promoting cycling in…

It was the year 1935, when the idea of widening Race Course Road was being discussed. The project would destroy the guardhouse of one the older buildings 'Poorna Prasad' in the stretch, that was built in memory of the first Diwan of Mysore Mir Miran Purnaiah in 1910. So the-then Diwan of Mysore, Mirza Ismail, decided to translocate the portion that would have to be destroyed, brick-by-brick, to another part of Bengaluru. Today we see it at Lalbagh West Gate entrance. I open with this anecdote, because when the powers-to-be put their mind to protect a city and its history, options…

Twenty six years ago, on 1st June 1993, the 74th Constitutional Amendment or Nagarapalika Act was effected to give “power to the people” in urban governance. Under the 74th CA, ward committees had to be set up in all municipal corporations with population over three lakh, to ensure decentralisation, citizen participation and accountability. In the municipal corporations of Karnataka, elected representatives have posed total resistance to the setting up and functioning of ward committees. In Bengaluru, with constant pressure from citizens, more than 50 percent of wards now have ward committee meetings, though infrequently. But how are these meetings being held?…

“The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody has decided not to see.” This quote from Russian-American author and philosopher Ayn Rand’s bestseller, The Fountainhead, aptly describes everything that happened at Rabindra Sarovar since early morning on November 2nd well into the following day, as an order from the country’s green court -- the National Green Tribunal (NGT) – was brazenly flouted to allow the conduct of Chhat Puja in the Sarovar premises. An earlier story on Citizen Matters had detailed all the precautions and steps that had been taken to protect the national lake from toxic…

Many stakeholders have been involved in the introduction of bus priority lanes in Bengaluru - BMTC, BBMP, DULT, Bengaluru City Police, among others. The project also put the advantages of public transport at the centre of public discourse once again. However, an important aspect that plays on our mind about public transport is our personal safety. Women especially, are always at the bottom of the ladder when it comes to safety. We sat down for a chat with Bhaskar Rao, Commissioner of Police, Bengaluru city, on measures to improve safety in public transport. In his candid style, Rao spoke at…