JOIN USBus stop woes are city-wide, pushing commuters to a tough corner. Here’s a glimpse of such bus shelters or the lack of it across the city...
The bus stops at Agara on Outer Ring Road and near Koramangala Forum are similar in only one aspect: They are all in areas experiencing heavy traffic.
But if the one at Forum boasts of a rain shed and illuminated advertisement boards surrounding it, the Agara bus stop is devoid of even a basic shelter.
Probably, the big brands inside the Forum mall might be banking on the
billboards at the bus stop.
After all, the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) had chosen to place the stop right there to capitalise on the mall’s proximity.
But this stop does not measure up to the one in Agara because it is basically a market place.
The condition of bus stops at busy junctions such as Marathahalli and Silk Board is a bit complicated than the rest.
At both these junctions, the buses stop at multiple points.
So, boarding a bus here is quite confusing for the passengers who are not used to the place.
Also, at both the junctions, irrespective of the number of people that use this stop, there is just one weathered out shelter, with no lighting facility in sight.
No wonder, most of the time people opt to wait outside the shelter than under it. Laxmi Iyer, 26, a frequent commuter at Silk Board for the last two years has this to say: “Initially I had not even noticed this shelter. Only when it started raining and everyone tried to get under it, did I realise that it was there.”
The bus stop at Eco-Space, Outer Ring Road is distinguished by flyovers. The point at which two flyovers running parallel to each other end and another two
flyovers begin, mark the bus stop.
There is no structure constructed for the passengers and they often end up jostling from one end of a flyover to another in order to board a bus.
In the absence of a proper bus shelter here, the buses stop randomly among fast moving private vehicles, often creating traffic congestion. The lives of commuters are clearly put to risk.
“Near-collision incidents take place almost every day here and the risk is more during the night, when the vehicles run at top speed between the flyovers,” points out Rahul Raghunathan, a software engineer and a regular commuter.
His concerns find an echo among commuters across the city as they fight apathy, poor planning and civic agencies keen to boost advertisement revenues but not public safety!