The need of the hour is to encourage and strengthen the public transport so that there are few private vehicles in the city. A lack of reliable public transport is forcing citizens to buy vehicles of their own for faster commute.
The latest transport statistics has revealed that there are about 20 lakh vehicles in Mumbai now. This is not just leading to more traffic chaos on the city’s roads, but also pollution.
“If there is a strong and reliable public transport, citizens would not take out their vehicles,’’ a senior transport official said.
To improve the bus service, the Bus Rapid Transit System was worked out, but it never took shape. Separate lanes for BEST buses were proposed way back in 2006, but they are still under study and now there is a fight who will implement them. The BEST went ahead and bought buses for these lanes, which are now run in mixed traffic.
The basic idea behind these lanes was to have a faster and more reliable public transport system to encourage the system and cut down the number of private cars. The much-delayed trial run for the BRTS was further delayed and a trial run between the Jay Coach flyover at Andheri and the Kandivali highway that was scheduled last year was never carried out.
