rangaraj - 5 May, 2008 | Bangalore | BMTC | Bus | Bus Stops | public transport

As i drive daily to work - (i live off Old Madras Road (OMR) and my workspot is near the Bangalore dairy), it is frustrating to see the haphazard bus stops of BMTC, that has a severe impact on traffic. Let me give a couple of examples in my route.

As i leave home

1) OMR - just past HAL officers colony is a road joining the OMR - buses stop at the intersection to drop of people (unofficial stop) - convinient and thoughtful to passengers, but not to public - the official bus stop is 50m down the road, where they stop again. Solution - stop a little ahead of the crossing if you still want to be considerate to passengers.

2) 80 ft road (I'nagar) - official bus stop is just short of the intersection of 6'th main and 80ft road - huge inconvinience for vehicles going straight as they all move to the right lane (only 2 lanes). Suggestion - do not make any bus stop atleast 50mt from an intersection - the permanent one needs to be moved.

3) Intermediate ringroad (traffic light just at the end of the ring road - unofficial stop) - Buses stop just after the junction and when everyone wants to move ahead when the light turns green, one of the lanes is blocked. - Solution - no stopping at that location

4) Just after the next trafffic light (past the mahindra/renault showroom) - unoffical stop - Buses and yellow boards stop here just after the traffic light and again cause the traffic to move to one lane - Solution - no stopping at this point

5) Official busstop (just short of the Shantisagar turning) - again reduces it to a single lane and the same solution of no stops 75mt from an intersection should apply here as well.

Return journey (from dairy to OMR)

1) Unofficial/official? stop - This is a stop that is used by BMTC and the bigger culprits are private buses - just after bigbazar and just short of the traffic light - traffic that is turning left (U-turn) will have to move to the right lane and come back to the left most lane. Solution - remove this stop (the other stop previous to this can be used - about 100mt away)

2) A huge busstop on the road where St'John hospital starts - BMTC/Private buses stop there just as traffic is entering that road from three roads - huge commotion! This road is congested most of the time (road is being widened), as a result most of the buses take the service road of st.johns hospital and cut across back into the main road at the last minute through unofficial paths in the road. Solution - no buses to be allowed on the service road other than those turning left.

3) Unofficial stop just as one enters the intermediate ringroad (opposite mahindra showroom). Just as the traffic light changes to green, buses and other yellow board vehicles cross the intersection and stop and that creates chaos in the traffic. Solution - either push the stop futher out by another 75mts or make sure they dont stop.

4) Just after the traffic signal and the main strech of the Intermediate ring road (unofficial stop) - buses and yellow boards again stop illegally and block traffic - just after the traffic light. Solution - ban stopping at that point.

5) Illegal stop and the start of the flyover! - nowhere in the world is there a bus stop on a flyover and this point (where one goes towards indiranagar) has become a illegal stop for buses and yellowboards - again causing major chaos. Solution - ban stopping on the flyover. Have the stop well ahead of the flyover.

6) Illegal stop just after traffic light post allighting from the flyover on 100ft road (i'nagar).Buses and yellow boards stop there causing major chaos. Solution - ban stopping at this location. This intersection is a major bottleneck causing major backup of traffic on the flyover - solution - build a barrier post the flyover till the 100ft road barrier, preventing cross traffic (no right turn post flyover, no right turn from 100ft road before flyover and no traffic from the side road next to Maspar showroom to cross 100ft road). This will have a huge impact in improving the traffic throughput on the flyover and 100ft road.

These are few stops i have seen during my daily commute, and i am sure that most citizens will have come across similar ones. Overall there should be a simple rule for bus stop locations - do not place them where parking a vehicle would be against traffic rules. Most of the official bus stops violate this simple rule and the unofficial ones go on to make things worse.

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