New Delhi bus overhaul hits a bump in the road

India’s capital has put the brakes on a grand project to speed up New Delhi’s bus network that has caused massive traffic jams in the city of 18 million, officials said yesterday.

The red light came as protests swelled over 5.8km of experimental bus lanes that left tens of thousands of motorists stuck for hours this week in 40°C heat.

Delhi’s under-fire Chief Minister Sheila Dixit said plans to construct more such bus lanes — straight down the middle of main roads — were being shelved for the mean time.

“My government will not go in for the expansion of the project, which envisages five more corridors, until we make this corridor perfect,” said Dixit, who faces tough city elections later this year.

Commercial vehicles are banned from the strips during the day and the lanes are also out of bounds to the capital’s private Blueline bus service, notorious for reckless driving.

Dixit came under fire from her ruling Congress party after Delhi assembly speaker Chaudhary Prem Singh questioned the 1.2 billion rupee (US$30 million) Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) scheme.

“Since its inception [a] few days back, the BRT has malfunctioned, caused and created woes for the common masses,” Singh said in a letter to the national government.

“These difficulties have not only ruined the traffic but are also causing havoc for the people living in adjoining areas,” he said, as the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights also lashed out at the city government.

“Suitable measures must be taken to ensure that children do not become victims of accidents,” commission member Sandhya Bajaj said.

Police say a number of deaths have been caused as pedestrians have to cross congested traffic to reach the central bus lanes.

“People has to navigate through cars moving bumper-to-bumper to access buses and that’s what is causing these accidents,” traffic police inspector Rajinder Tomar said at a bus lane site.

Environmentalists are up in arms because thousands of trees have been felled for the schemes. Residents’ groups are also seething.

“We want to know who are the people foisting half-baked ideas on citizens,” said J. S. Chadda, coordinator of the residents’ movement against the BRT.

Delhi-based Geetam Tiwari, who spearheaded the scheme, defended the plan.

“Since we had been working on the project for the last 15 years, since its conceptualization, every detail has been taken care of,” Tiwari said.

“There is confusion among the people about this new traffic system as people are yet to be made aware about it,” she told a seminar last week.

The project had been seen as vital for city plans to host the Commonwealth Games in 2010 and create free-flowing traffic.

The chaos contrasts with lavish praise heaped on the city’s gleaming metro system, which was launched in 2002 and now smoothly handles hundreds of thousands of passengers daily.