Roads in Chennai, including the stretch from Chennai Central to Tambaram, are set to get bus priority lanes for better management of traffic and faster transportation.
A meeting to explore the feasibility of implementing bus priority lanes was held by senior officials of the State government on Thursday. Stretches maintained by the Highways Department and important bus route roads of the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) are expected to get bus priority measures.
Officials have started a study of routes, such as Chennai Central-Tambaram and Koyambedu-Guindy, for implementation of bus priority lanes in Chennai Metropolitan Area. Many of the 471 bus route roads of the GCC and ones recently handed over by the Highways Department to the civic body will get bus priority lanes, officials said.
As a simple measure towards this end, the GCC and the traffic police have already started creating extra boxes near bus bays to prevent buses from blocking roads and hindering the flow of traffic.
K. Kumar, Former Chief Planner, Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority, said bus priority measures could be introduced in stages. “For starters, it could be recessed bus bays at every bus stop. Lands for these could be assembled by transfer of development rights (TDR), if necessary. Reserving a kerb lane for buses (and high-occupancy vehicles or HOV) can be the next stage. The third stage can comprise priority for buses at traffic signals, which can then be upgraded to strip flyovers for buses at all road junctions.”
“For all of these, the current conventional bus fleet is adequate. For upgrading the whole system to a full-fledged Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS), contraflow lanes for buses in the central median with an ITES (information technology enabled services)-enabled high-tech fleet can be introduced. Janmarg in Ahmedabad boasts of such a sophisticated system,” he said.
Implementation of the Second Master Plan based on the Comprehensive Transportation Study for Chennai included the development of a BRTS network of 150 km, including for a stretch of Jawaharlal Nehru Salai from Padi to Madhavaram.
The feasibility studies carried out through consultants for a clutch of routes some 5 years ago have not yet been taken to execution mode. The 116-km second phase of Metro Rail has, however, rendered all or some of these projects redundant, sources said.
