Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao, BMTC MD C Shikha, BBMP Special Commissioner D Randeep also hopped onto a bus to drive home the message.
There was a sense of overwhelming optimism and proactiveness among those who gathered, shouting slogans on Wednesday morning at the busy Silk Board junction in Bengaluru ahead of the Bus Yatra, which was also attended by Bengaluru City Police Commissioner (CoP) Bhaskar Rao. Armed with placards, banners or on their cycles, activists gathered to promote the bus priority lane (BPL) system that has been put in place from Silk Board to KR Puram. “Left Lane, Bus Lane. Nimma Bus, Namma Bus Super Expressu. Saku Saku, Pollution Saku,..Beku Beku Nimbus,” volunteers of Citizens for Bengaluru, Bellandur Jothege, Go Green Initiative among many other citizen groups shouted. “Bengaluru fights back”, “Ditch the car, catch the bus”, read some of the placards. Other top government officials who joined the yatra were BMTC MD, C Shikha; BBMP Special Commissioner, D Randeep; and BMTC Director of Security and Vigilance, Anupam Agarwal. Top government officials including the CoP hopped on to a bus from Silk Board to Ecospace Tech Park on the Outer Ring Road, along with some activists and journalists. The CoP and other top officials even posed for photographs with placards, to drive the message home. Rather than complaining about the city’s perennial traffic problem, the activists vowed to make the plan work and offered their help to ensure implementation. There was music too as Swarathma, Bengaluru based popular folk-rock band also lent their support to the cause. Under this BPL system, the left lane of this entire stretch is reserved only for BMTC buses named as Nimbus (short for Nimma Bus, meaning your bus in Kannada). This is done to ensure that BMTC buses travel faster than the rest of the traffic and people are motivated to ditch private vehicles in favour of the bus, and, in the process, reduce congestion and pollution. Vehicles, other than ambulances and fire engines, are liable for fines if they stray onto this road, as per a notification issued by the Police Commissioner on November 15. The event was held in association with various citizen groups, working to create awareness among the road users about the new scheme and promote public transport usage as the most sustainable mode of intracity commute. At present, with low awareness and lack of sufficient enforcement, the bus lane system is yet to fully kick in as there are instances of non-BMTC vehicles in the bus lane. The Traffic Police are expected to levy fines of Rs 500 for the first offence and Rs 1,000 for subsequent offences from the next year for violating the bus lane rule. Currently, Traffic Police officials say that efforts are on to sensitise other vehicles about the initiative. Once fine-tuned, the authorities have said that BPL will be implemented in other high-density corridors of the city like that in Hosur Road, Old Madras Road among others. Activists hailed the promptness of the multiple departments to put in place the system in a relatively short period of time. With this, activists are also hopeful that other long-pending pro-public transport measures will also be accepted by the government. Some of them include lowering of bus fares, increasing the fleet and rationalisation of routes.
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