[sustran] BRT kerfuffle, Delhi (Today's NYT)

[Paul Barter]

Delhi BRT in a New York Times blog.  (hat tip from the Transit-Prof list)
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July 9, 2012, 8:25 am

Next Stop, Supreme Court, for Delhi’s Bitter Bus Corridor Battle
By MALAVIKA VYAWAHARE and PAMPOSH RAINA

[Buses ply on the Bus Rapid Transit corridor as other vehicles are stuck in
a traffic jam in New Delhi, in this April 27, 2008 file photo.]Prakash
Singh/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBuses ply on the Bus Rapid Transit
corridor as other vehicles are stuck in a traffic jam in New Delhi, in this
April 27, 2008 file photo.

Delhi’s experiment with efficient public road transportation, in the form
of the Bus Rapid Transit corridor, has devolved into a court battle that
pitches the city’s wealthy, car-owning minority against the majority of
road users.

The next step may be the highest court in the land. The Delhi government
plans to appeal to India’s Supreme Court to keep the corridor car-free if
Delhi’s high court, which is hearing the case now, decides that cars should
be allowed in the bus-only lanes, an official in Delhi’s Transport
Department told India Ink on Monday.

Delhi’s buses are residents’ most important method of transportation in the
city of over 16 million. Fewer than 20 percent of road users in Delhi
travel in private vehicles, including cars and scooters, while about half
of all road users in Delhi commute by bus, according to the RITES Delhi
Traffic and Forecast Study. The rest use bicycles or three-wheeled
auto-rickshaws, or go by foot.

The BRT corridor, which is modeled after other systems in high-traffic
cities like Bogota<http://www.deccanherald.com/content/237010/ipl-2012.html>,
was designed to make bus and bicycle travel safer and faster, and encourage
travel that does not involve cars. It features a bicycle-only lane and a
center lane just for buses.

Whether the corridor, which was completed in April 2008, has been a success
depends on which camp you ask. It has saved lives, but it has also
increased the travel time for car drivers. Whether it has shortened bus
travel times depends on which research you read.

Drivers and their advocates are so upset that they have filed a flurry of
court petitions, demanding that the corridor be shut. News coverage in some
English-language newspapers, particularly The Times of India, has often
been sympathetic to these drivers, calling the corridor a “nightmare<
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2008-04-22/delhi/27765132_1_school-buses-brt-delhi-school>”
and “a volcano waiting to erupt<
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2008-07-27/delhi/27913330_1_ambedkar-nagar-and-moolchand-brt-bus-rapid-transit>.”


An interim court order<
https://docs.google.com/open?id=1r4m3doNk42Bv9H91WLFlFFQ-AY2rjVRCXkoHpqmgw02vR6RZbFSMFPrhi1yU>
last week directed the government to allow private vehicles to use the
corridor reserved for buses. A final judgment on whether to overturn it
altogether is due this month from the Delhi High Court.

According to B.B. Sharan, a retired colonel who is one of the petitioners<
http://delhihighcourt.nic.in/dhcqrydisp_o.asp?pn=55966&yr=2012> who wants
the corridor open to all vehicles, “only 50 buses plied on the corridor in
an hour while the number of other vehicles was 40 to 50 times the number of
buses.”

Traffic jams are a common sight on the carriageway next to the bus lane, he
said. “It is unfair to give so little space to car users. Not a single car
user has started using the bus; nobody has benefited from this,” he added.

Not everybody agrees with his claim.

“The number of fatal accidents reduced from an average of 9 to 10 accidents
per year between 2001 and 2006 to 2 in 2009 on the stretch,” said Geetam
Tiwari, an assistant professor at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Ms. Tiwari was one of the authors of the report “Delhi on the Move: 2005,”
which proposed the BRT concept and was presented to the Transport
Department in 1995.

“Fatal accidents involving bicyclists have not occurred in the bicycle lane
since 2008,” she added.

Dunu Roy, director of Hazards Centre in New Delhi, a nongovernmental
organization, agreed with this assessment. “After the BRT became
operational, not only have fatalities gone down dramatically, accidents
have gone down too,” he said.

Private vehicle use is rising fast in New Delhi and most Indian
metropolises: An average of 1317 vehicles, including auto-rickshaws and
scooters, were added to Delhi roads every day during the 2010-11 fiscal
year according to Delhi Statistical Handbook<
http://www.delhi.gov.in/wps/wcm/connect/7ac2f48049058b2290e296159d025186/chap10.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&lmod=-1847694946&CACHEID=7ac2f48049058b2290e296159d025186&lmod=-1847694946&CACHEID=7ac2f48049058b2290e296159d025186&lmod=-1847694946&CACHEID=7ac2f48%20>
2011, of these 95 percent were private cars and two wheelers.

Soon, Delhi’s roads won’t be able to handle the traffic, transportation
experts say, making introduction of systems like the BRT necessary. “The
capacity of roads in Delhi will be exceeded by 2021 on most major roads and
junctions,” said Ms. Tiwari.

Convincing private vehicle owners to use public transportation remains a
difficult task in India. Car-pooling Web sites have sprung up<
http://www.livemint.com/2012/06/19194145/Share-a-ride.html> recently, but
bus transportation is widely seen as inconvenient, crowded and unsafe<
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/82-delhi-women-find-buses-most-unsafe-study/541230/>
for women.

Advocates of the Bus Rapid Transit corridor argue that the interim court
decision negates the corridor’s original purpose. “Allowing other vehicles
in the corridor essentially destroys the corridor. There is space for
everyone, but the concern of minority car users seems to influence the city
engineers and traffic managers,” Ms. Tiwari said.

Even research related to the BRT is controversial. Mr. Roy of the Hazards
Centre said there are multiple problems<
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B7NsBPUxnA4MX2hRTm4xTlkwSVU> with an
interim report<https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B7NsBPUxnA4MWFdVTGIyZ21QbGc>
by the Central Road Research Institute<http://www.crridom.gov.in/> (CRRI),
a national research organization, which is the basis of the interim high
court order.

The CRRI had conducted a trial run between May 12 and May 23 allowing
private vehicles in the bus corridor. In its report the institute concluded
that traffic moved faster when other vehicles were allowed in the corridor
than when they were barred, but the report did not make note of accidents
or fatalities.

“Their report is completely unscientific,” Mr. Roy said. He pointed out
that in the Terms of Reference<
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B7NsBPUxnA4McVhJUkJnbDZEZUk> the
government asked for comparisons with the BRT corridor and mixed vehicle
corridors on other roads. Instead, Mr. Roy said, “the CRRI modified the BRT
corridor itself and compared the results.”

Subhamay Gangopadhyay, director of the institute declined to comment on the
findings of the interim report and said that he would only speak once the
final report is submitted to the Delhi High Court on July 12.

Zubeda Begum, the lawyer representing the Delhi government’s transport
department, said that she had not looked at the CRRI interim findings but
said that the organization was not an expert on the matter.

Despite the pending legal dispute, the Press Trust of India quoted<
http://www.ptinews.com/news/2740363_More-BRT-routes-to-be-commissioned-in-the-city>
Sheila Dikshit, Delhi’s chief minister, last month as saying that her
government “will commission more BRT routes in the city as a means to
promote public transport, as a bulk of passengers were ‘happy’ with the
existing facility,” but provided no further details.