Court restores BRT to its old order, special lanes for buses

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday ordered that buses will start plying on the bus rapid transit corridor starting September 15 on lanes reserved for them on the 5.8-km-long Moolchand-Ambedkar Nagar stretch.

A bench of justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Manmohan Singh revoked its interim order of May 30 and July 5, which opened the bus lanes to all vehicles.

“We direct that till the writ petition is decided, traffic flow will revert to its movement/flow as per the BRT corridor traffic flow system, meaning thereby, the traffic arrangement which was in place before its flow was altered under the interim orders,” the bench said.

The bench passed the order after the counsel for parties agreed that the existing system of all vehicles plying on bus lanes needs to be changed, as after opening the reserved bus lanes to all vehicles, the traffic situation on the BRT corridor has only worsened.

The bench directed the transport department to implement its order from September 15.  The bench also recorded an assurance given by city government counsel KTS Tulsi, and said “necessary signages will be put into place and wide publicity will be given for the revised traffic flow management”. “Traffic marshals will be brought back and adequate number of traffic policemen will be stationed, at least for the first few days, lest chaos reigns on the BRT corridor.”

Rejecting the petitioner’s suggestion to allow motorised and non-motorised vehicles on the corridor with proper signages and signals, the bench said, “We are of the opinion that the suggestion, though workable, will be impractical, keeping in view indisciplined drivers in Delhi.”