For better traffic management and for faster transportation, Chennai roads would get bus priority lanes. On Thursday, 26th October, a meeting was held (for exploring the feasibility of implementing bus priority lanes) by senior officers from the TN govt. Point is that bus priority measures would be expected on the stretches maintained by the Highways dept and the important bus routes of GCC.
It is learnt that the officials have started study of important routes like Chennai central- Tambaram, Koyambedu-Guindy etc for the implementation of bus priority lanes under CMA. It was confirmed that many of the 471 bus routes of GCC and those routes handed over to GCC by the Highways dept would get priority bus lanes. To prevent buses from blocking the roads, extra boxes near the bus bays have been created now by GCC and GCTP.
Bus priority lanes could be introduced in stages and this was pointed out by Mr. Kumar, former chief planner, CMDA. Stage one would have recessed bus bays at every bus stop. Stage two would be reserving a kerb lane for the buses and HOV or high occupancy vehicles etc. Third stage would have priority of buses at traffic signals. It must be noted that for all these current conventional bus fleets would be enough.
The development of a BRTS network of 150km would be included in the second master plan based on the Comprehensive Transport Study. The sources mentioned that the feasibility studies carried out through consultants for a clutch of routes some 5 years ago were not considered for the execution mode.