[sustran] Re: Delhi's BRT project in trouble?

[Carlosfelipe Pardo]

Sujit and all,

It is very interesting to see that, in the articles talking about 
Delhi's BRT, they are emphasizing on the 1 hour to travel 5.8km in the 
morning, but few is said about the 19 minutes taken on the same route in 
the afternoon! As has been said by many in the past few days, it's all 
about how to get the media to be a positive stakeholder and, at the same 
time, sell more newspapers, etc.

I think it's not so much about a "conspiracy against BRT". There's more 
because they love the scandal (it sells more), and scandals about BRTs 
are not so difficult to find: if a pedestrian is injured by the BRT, 
despite thousands are injured every day in India by cars and 
motorcycles, then the BRT is the bad guy.

Ideas on how to reverse this tendency are welcome... though I think it's 
what many sectors are struggling with the media about, with not much 
luck. However, work on public awareness and providing good press 
releases and inviting the press to lunch, dinner, etc sometimes have 
good results.

Best regards,

Carlos.

Sujit Patwardhan wrote:
> For the last month of more, the media led by Times of India Delhi Edition
> (other papers have also been critical) have been conducting an anti-BRT
> campaign. Most of the criticism is about the traffic indiscipline and not
> about BRT per se but readers (not experts on BRT) get confused. My responses
> defending the BRT sent to the editor have been ignored and not published.
>
> I feel this is largely on account of the fact that Delhi administration and
> promoters of BRT have not taken up a major Public Awareness drive. Pune the
> city that inaugurated an incomplete BRT for political reasons, has been
> suffering similarly. However, BRT commuters have been praising the system
> and saying it should be implemented on many more corridors. It may be a good
> strategy to do a study of commuters to see their reactions and the real
> benefits they received from the BRT system. In Pune the commuters have been
> supportive and that has helped the city to see the picture in a larger
> framework, though much needs to be done.
>
> As for Ahmedabad, they are building a closed system. That certainly looks
> more attractive but needs feeder buses and frequent changes. It may not be
> the best system for India I fear.
>
> Anyway we hope Delhi BRT starts showing some positive improvement. There is
> a positive editorial in Business Standard today which I will forward to you.
>
> With warm regards,
> --
> Sujit
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 2:21 PM, Paul Barter <paulbarter at nus.edu.sg> wrote:
>
>   
>> Will Delhi's BRT be given a chance to prove itself?
>>
>> Bad press and teething problems seem to be putting Delhi's ambitious BRT
>> plans in danger.
>>
>> Delhi's BRT pilot phase has entered a trial period since Sunday. The
>> first 5.6 km is due to start formally on 1 May.
>>
>> Unfortunately press coverage of the project continues to be extremely
>> hostile. Reading some of the articles on this in the Indian media one
>> could be forgiven for thinking that Delhi's entire congestion problem is
>> caused by 5.6 km of busway.
>>
>> All this looks worrying for Delhi's BRT. If politicians cave in and
>> abandon the project now it would be a huge setback for public transport
>> in India.
>>
>> Read more of this article at http://reinventingtransport.blogspot.com/
>> -----------------------------------
>>
>> I am sure some of you know more about Delhi's BRT than I do.
>>
>> Can it be rescued? Will the teething problems settle down before the
>> politicians lose their backbone to support it? Was it a mistake to begin
>> with such a challenging corridor? Will this episode give BRT a bad name
>> in India as a whole and threaten even the Ahmedabad project, even though
>> that project is for a much higher-end BRT system?
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------------
>> IMPORTANT NOTE to everyone who gets sustran-discuss messages via
>> YAHOOGROUPS.
>>
>> Please go to http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/listinfo/sustran-discuss to
>> join the real sustran-discuss and get full membership rights. The
>> yahoogroups version is only a mirror and 'members' there cannot post to the
>> real sustran-discuss (even if the yahoogroups site makes it seem like you
>> can). Apologies for the confusing arrangement.
>>
>> ================================================================
>> SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred,
>> equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries
>> (the 'Global South').
>>
>>     
>
>
>
>