BENGALURU: It may be the first bus priority lane (BPL) in Bengaluru, and citizens have been doing their part to ensure that they get it right. Conducting several campaigns to bring awareness about the lane since its inception on November 1, a few of them decided to calculate the time difference it takes to commute between a bus and a private vehicle.
From KR Puram railway station to Kadubesanahalli, travelling took 30 minutes by both the bus and car.
Yogeesh Prabhuswamy, member of Citizens for Bengaluru (CfB), took to social media about his experience. “It was like a race between both the car and bus. A friend of mine took his car, and I travelled on the bus. There were a couple of issues which I had noticed such as the bus has to slow down before reaching the next stop. In some areas, the stretches were free where the buses could have accelerated a bit more,” he told TNIE.
Some citizens also noticed that several of the buses did not take the Nekkundi flyover which had the bus lane. Last week, the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) had some of its officers on the ground instructing the buses to take the flyover. In addition this, some of the stretches such as EMZ Square, Marathahalli and Nekkundi lacked enforcement with private vehicles entering the lane.
Another citizen, T Jayna, said the travel time has not reduced significantly. “There needs to be a huge change in the time difference for people to shift from private to public transport. It will take time to observe those changes,” she added.
“There was a lack of signboards and a lot of people are still unaware of the bus lane,” Yogeesh said. Just two days ago, Bus Prayanikara Vedike, a citizen’s group, had volunteered to give some ground awareness to the people such as vendors, shopkeepers and commuters. “One of the commuters claimed that their travel time has reduced by 10 minutes,” the group tweeted on their experience.