Second day of trial run on BRT corridor: chaos persists

New Delhi, Apr 21 (UNI) For the second day in succession, chaos reigned on the roads of south Delhi as the trial run on the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor continued.

Massive traffic jams were witnessed during the day two of the trial run on the 5.8 km BRT corridor between Ambedkar Nagar and Moolchand.

The fact that today is a working day meant that the number of vehicles on the roads nearly tripled, leading to greater chaos on the roads compared to yesterday, the first day of the trial run.

The 5.6 km long Ambedkar Nagar-Moolchand opened yesterday for a trial run. The corridor on each side has four lanes, meant for the buses, scooters and cars, cyclists and pedestrians. The width of the bus lane is 3.5 metres, while that of the scooters-cars is seven metres; cyclists and pedestrians have a two metre lane each.

The Bus Rapid Transit system, which has been designed by the Delhi government to ease traffic woes, will have low-floor high capacity buses move in an exclusive central lane, followed by lighter vehicles on either side, and with two wheelers in the service lane.

Officials associated with the BRT said the traffic jams on the corridor is in large part due to the fact that those driving two wheelers and four wheelers are not aware about the division of lanes for different vehicles, thus resulting in traffic jams.

In fact, traffic police officials could be seen guiding cyclists, auto-rickshaws, scooters and cars to their respective corridors.

Claiming that there were some signal and signage problems, officials of the Delhi Integrated Multi-Model Transit System (DIMMTS) said they were working on its synchronisation with the traffic movement.

The trial run will continue till the corridor becomes operational in the first week of May.

UNI AR SP RK1902