Delhi Bluelines: In praise of old buses

There's a lot not to like about Blueline buses, but this week the government is picking on them for all the wrong reasons

One night in mid-September, Mrs. Batti and I emerged from the Habitat Centre and started walking toward the Jor Bagh Metro station.  After a few minutes it began to rain lightly, and we realized we'd forgotten our umbrella.  When a Blueline bus came lumbering up the road, we flagged it down.

Mrs. Batti does not care much for Blueline buses--they are frequently crowded and in the late evening hours, men often outnumber women by as much as  40 to 1. Still, that night was very nearly perfect: the conductor smiled and gave us his seat; the bus made good time; and combination of old Bollywood tunes blaring inside--and rain sparkled streets outside--was nothing short of magical. By the time we got down and began the 10 minute walk home to our flat, we really didn't mind getting drenched.

You won't find a Blueline lumbering up that road this week or next--the Delhi government does not deem them to be worthy of our new 'world class' image, so they've banned them from coming anywhere near Commonwealth Games venues. The government says they've put plenty of new DTC buses on the road, but the newspapers report the waits at Delhi bus stops are longer this week, and I believe them; on Friday at 8:15pm, I waited nearly 30 minutes for a 419--unusual for that route and time on the BRT--and when it arrived, it was almost impossible to squeeze on, and harder still to exit. What happens after the CWG is anyone's guess, but my bet is that the days of Bluelines in central and south Delhi are numbered.  And I've got to say that a small part of me is going to miss them. 

The great thing about Bluelines--in addition to their unique character--has been that in recent years when you really needed a bus, more often than not it was a Blueline that came along and rescued you. Maybe you'd have to step out in the middle of the road to flag it down; maybe you'd even have to run alongside to jump on board, but Bluelines have moved lakhs of people every day for years in Delhi, and you have to give them credit for that much at least.

Having given credit where credit is due, let's be clear about something else: Blueline buses were a bad idea from the start.  Although I never liked the media's 'killer bus' campaign --it seemed to be too much of a 'call to riot'--there is no question that running a poorly regulated, for profit system alongside an underfunded public one was a recipe for disaster.

Safety has been the worst problem with Blueline fleet: in their drive to get more and more passengers, the drivers of these buses often go much too fast, and/or fail to stop properly while passengers get on and off. Of course, not all accidents are the result of rash driving; sometimes the buses can't stop in time because their breaks simply don't work due to poor maintenance. Our Delhi Struggle has an interesting analysis of the economics of Blueline safety problems, as does Rediff. But whatever the reasons, the results have often been horrifying.

The government has been promising to remove these buses for a long time, but so far, they've failed, in part because the Delhi Transport Corporation hasn't got nearly enough buses to move the number of people waiting at our bus stops. But Tehelka has also revealed that much of the Blueline buses' staying power has to do with the fact that some Blueline owners are very powerful and well connected.  Many people think that after the Games, Blueline operators will be shifted to the city's 'fringes', where they will be less visible to tourists and rich people, and where safety isn't such a concern.  In fact, this process is underway; the government has already begun issuing new permits for Blueline buses to operate on the edges of the city.

Yes there are many reasons to phase out the Blueline buses. But improving our 'image and look' for the Commonwealth Games is not one of them. A 'world class' bus system does not mean every bus must be sleek and new.  Rather, it requires some practical things: safe buses, well trained drivers, room to breathe, reasonable commute times, and facilities for people with disabilities. There is room in a good public transportation system for some well-maintained old buses.

We aren't a rich country, and banishing poor people and old buses to far away places won't change that, just as 'view cutters' won't change the slums they are designed to hide. Delhi is a great city.  It has a lot of real problems.  Let's get to work on fixing those--for real--rather spending our energy on whitewash.

Photo Essay: On the Delhi BRT

Delhi's Bus Rapid Transit System (BRT) has been running for just over two years now, connecting the 14.5 km corridor between Ambedkar Nagar and Delhi Gate. To see how the controversial project is faring, I spent some time on the BRT during the past few weeks, traveling by bus, foot, auto and cycle, mostly between Chirag Dilli and Moolchand.

From the very start, the BRT was declared a failure by much of the media.  Even today, news outlets and middle class citizen's groups regularly highlight the BRT's problems.  To be fair, traffic on the BRT is horrible, and it seems obvious that better planning could have--and perhaps even now could--address that more effectively. Maybe the new "intelligent" signals will help. Maybe they won't.   From the start, many people questioned whether it made sense to reserve the middle lanes for buses, especially given that it was impossible to widen the road without destroying trees.  In fact, many trees were lost in the construction of the BRT.  But in the end, its width was limited when residents of the posh colonies that border it successfully opposed even more tree cutting. Here is one of the many places where trees limited the width of the road:

In other places, trees were saved without impacting traffic.

And elsewhere, carelessness resulted in trees being damaged needlessly.

But it is not really fair to blame trees for the problems on the BRT corridor.  There is simply an enormous number of vehicles, both on the BRT and on the Outer Ring Road, which the BRT intersects.  The intersection at the Chirag Dilli flyover was difficult even before the BRT construction began; it is worse now--and it is likely to get even worse as more people buy private cars. So how has the BRT  survived such persistent problems?  Perhaps the answer lies in pictures like this:

Even mid-day traffic can be difficult on the BRT--for private vehicles.  But the bus lane that you see there in the foreground, is empty, which makes bus travel much faster on the BRT than anywhere else in the city. Interestingly enough, the BRT actually seems to have more support than you'd think from people who don't ride buses. But bus riders are its biggest backers--and why not? The BRT moves buses quickly.  And since about 60% of Delhi commuters travel by bus, it's not hard to see why the BRT is still going strong.

On the BRT, you have several options in buses.  The red AC bus, pictured here, starts at Rs. 15 per ticket, and offers the chance of some room to breathe, even during rush hour.

For a ticket that starts at Rs. 5, you can travel non-AC, either in one of the new, modern, green DTC buses or in an old Blueline bus.  Beware: at rush hour, most of these buses are tightly packed! There are many seats reserved for women, and women seem to be enforcing this rule effectively.  (Late at night, the story is different; many buses carry only one or two women out of 40-50 passengers.)

A large part of what makes commutes by bus difficult is the time spent waiting; changing buses takes even more time.  Buses also have to make many stops, of course, and then they have to rejoin traffic.  But the BRT partly compensates for all that, by giving buses those two center lanes.  I found that no matter when I traveled, direct trips on the BRT took about the same time--and sometimes even a little less--than a comparable trip by autorickshaw.

Waiting for the bus is rarely fun, but the BRT bus stops are a step up from what you get in most of Delhi.

For one thing, buses tend to stop at BRT stops, which means you have less of a need to run out into traffic and jump onto rolling Bluelines!

For a while, it looked like the police would refuse to enforce the BRT bus lanes, but that seems to have changed.  You will find an occasional  motorcyclist  pushing his luck, or even a car, but this is rare.  VIP vehicles bearing red lights, on the other hand, do not seem to worry about police--or the example they are setting, for that matter. They frequently travel by bus lane, even when there is no reason to do so.  It looked like there was a party going on in this VIP car a few months back.

Of course the BRT is not just for buses and private vehicles; it's also for cycles. Along the corridor, there are places where you can rent a cycle. It costs only Rs. 10 for four hours. The cycle rental stands are a private-public partnership, and they are a very good idea.

 

 

I'll write about this more later.  But for now let me say that business is slow, in part because you cannot take a cycle from one stand and return it to another.  As a result, these cycles can be used for recreation and for visiting friends in the neighborhood, but they won't help you get to work.  That is too bad, because I found it quite easy to cover the distance from Chirag Dilli to Moolchand by cycle in about 10 minutes, which is faster than bus or autorickshaw, if you include the wait time.  The same was true for the return trip. Rent-a-cycles could be a valuable part of the BRT system if only this project were taken a bit more seriously.

More significantly, the BRT boasts dedicated lanes for cycle traffic--something that seems almost unimaginable in Delhi, where "might makes right" is one of the unwritten--but best-understood--rules of the road, and cycles are relegated to place very near the bottom of the transportation heap. The cycle paths were a wonderful idea; and when traffic is flowing smoothly on the corridor, they provide welcome relief to those pedaling cycles and cycle rickshaws.(My 10 year old son shot this sequence during the last week of his summer holidays.)

But when traffic is really bad, many motor bikes find the cycle lanes a little too tempting.

Then a few more join the crowd, which begins to make it difficult on the cyclists.

Before you know it, things get completely out of hand.The BRT security guards are outnumbered and overpowered; they have too little authority; the police are nowhere to be seen. (Mrs. Batti once gave quite a tongue lashing to a fellow on a motorbike who was literally trying to drive through, or over, a security guard attempting to enforce the cycle lane rules. After some tamasha, biker gave in, but he never admitted he was wrong.) 

 

Having seen these pictures, you should have no trouble believing the results of the traffic survey my son and I recently conducted.  We counted the northbound vehicles on the BRT cycle path for 10 minutes during peak traffic one day during the last week in June.  We counted 84 cycles, which translates into a rate of of about 500 cycles per hour.  We counted 251 motorized two wheelers, which translates to rate of over 1500 per hour! (We also saw three autorickshaws, and a car blocked half the cycle lane for 5 minutes, significantly slowing the flow of both cycles and motor bikes.)  

This SUV, approaching in the cycle lane, arrived just after we completed our sample:

Motorcyclists have a tough time of it in Delhi roads, of course.  But they don't belong in the cycle lane.  I can tell you from personal experience that having a pack of two wheelers overtaking your cycle on a narrow lane is...unnerving, to say the least. The police need to take this more seriously, but having conceded as much ground as they already have to the motor bikes, one wonders how easy it would be to re-take the cycle lane for cyclists. It's a big problem, and I don't see it getting fixed soon. Still, you have to admit the cycle lane is probably better than the alternative.

That may not look so bad now, but wait until the light changes and those vehicles start moving.  Not a lot of fun, I can tell you that! Delhi roads are difficult for cyclists, where ever you go. And cycles are probably the most sustainable form of transportation, other than walking!

If you want to lean more about the BRT, you can check out the Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System Ltd, which is is "a Joint Venture Company set up with equal equity of the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) and Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC)."  In addition to having a really long name, the DIMMTS has a website with some very interesting publications and presentations about the BRT and public transportation generally. (Students wanting to write an essay about issues related to public transportation would find these resources useful.)

Better still, why not take a cycle or bus ride and see what you think!

Happy riding!

If you like what you've seen here, check out our photo essay page!

Farmers, Buses, Bookaroo: Three things that make Delhi a World Class City

OK, yesterday, was bad news Thursday--and I hope you all fired off letters to the CM like I did!   At the end of yesterday's post, I promised to give you one reason why I think Delhi is a World Class City.  And do you know what? I'm going to give you three!  How's that for a bargain?


1.  Farmers.  Last night as the auto I was in shot by Jantar Mantar, I saw the tail end of a huge mobilization of farmers who came to Delhi for the opening day of Parliament.  They were protesting sugar cane pricing, among other things.  It was a moving site. We don't see many farmers in Delhi, and sometimes it is easy to forget that there is nothing we depend on more than the millions of men and women who grow the food we eat every day.  Without them, there would be no city, World Class or no!

2.  Buses.  Last night, I caught one of the DTC's new AC buses home from CP at rush hour.  The trip took a little longer than a three wheeler would have taken, but even with the recent rate hike, it cost less than a third as much. Hey, I know there are plenty of problems with Delhi buses. (If you doubt that, just google "killer buses".  I did, and 8 of the fist 10 terms that came up were talking about our fair city.)   In addition to being dangerous, our buses are often over-crowded and uncomfortable, especially for women passengers.  But this presentation makes it clear that we need more, not fewer buses.  Bus ridership is actually declining in Delhi, but buses still carry more than 40 percent of our traffic, and they take up almost no room on the road compared to cars and two wheelers.   Imagine what the roads would be without them. Buses are part of what make Delhi a great city; more buses will make us even better.

3.  Bookaroo.   I've written at length about the weaknesses in our schools and argued that one of our problems is that our children are not asked to read enough. Reading is part of how children learn how to think, and today's children will need to do some very creative thinking to solve the problems we are leaving them.  Well, if you agree with that, and if you have a child, you really should not miss Delhi's one and only Children's Literary Festival, Bookaroo, November 28-29 at Sanskriti Anand Gram.  Like many things in Delhi, it's completely free.

Last year's festival was absolutely fantastic; I'm sure it will be this year, as well.  There are amazing authors coming, like Subhadra Sen Gupta, who we reviewed briefly at the end of this post.  Others include Anushka Ravi Shankar (Moin and the Monster), Andrew Cope (Spy Dog) and Sampurna Chatterji (The Fried Frog and Other Funny, Freaky, Feisty Poems).  Don't miss it. 

Most of the sessions do not require registration; just show up.  There are a few that do require registration; you can do that via email.  I was going to list a few "green picks."  But the two sessions I was going to recommend are two of the only ones where registration is already closed.  Too bad, but there is still great stuff going on. For more information, go here.

So there you have it folks: farmers, buses, and Bookaroo!  Three things that make Delhi a World Class City!