This story is from February 3, 2018

BRT 2.0 likely from east Delhi to Mori Gate

BRT 2.0 likely from east Delhi to Mori Gate
NEW DELHI: The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor, which was dismantled in 2016, is all set to make a comeback in a new avatar — Express Bus Service.
The city got its first BRT corridor in 2008 between Moolchand and Ambedkar Nagar during the Congress regime. This 6-km stretch resulted in a huge traffic chaos leading Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to scrap the corridor, which was one of its poll promises.
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The AAP government now wants a new and improved version of the corridor and has chosen a 13-km stretch between Karawal Nagar in northeast Delhi and Mori Gate bus terminal for its implementation.

Learning from the drawbacks of BRT, the new project will ensure that previous mistakes are not repeated. The government is not even calling it a BRT corridor and the stretch has been rechristened Express Bus Service. The route was planned nearly a decade ago along with 13 other corridors, but it was put in the cold storage after the first BRT faced acute problems.
One of the major problems with the Moolchand to Ambedkar Nagar BRT corridor was that it was carved out of an existing road with heavy vehicular traffic. The road, however, had been expanded a little to accommodate cycle lanes and pedestrian pathways.

For BRT 2.0, Delhi government is planning capacity augmentation instead of creating a dedicated bus lane on existing roads. “The biggest difference between BRT and Express Bus Service would be that the existing roads connecting Karawal Nagar to Mori Gate terminal will not be touched. A parallel road would be built for high-speed bus movement,” said a transport department official.
The official added that there is adequate land available to build a parallel road, except from some points from where encroachments need to be removed. “The dedicated bus corridor would run along the Yamuna for a large part next to the Marginal Bund Road,” he said.
“Buses plying between Karawal Nagar and Mori Gate will travel via Khajuri Khas and other areas. We are also planning a branch towards Gandhi Nagar,” the official said.
Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System (DIMTS), which had built and operated the BRT corridor between Moolchand and Ambedkar Nagar, will be conducting a study of the route. On Thursday, a team of officials of transport department and DIMTS inspected the route of the proposed corridor. “A presentation will be made before the chief minister for approval soon,” said an official.
The previous BRT corridor started from the densely-populated Ambedkar Nagar, which has many bus users, but it terminated only six kilometres away at Moolchand and didn’t benefit many commuters. “The corridor between Karawal Nagar starts from thickly-populated areas that have a large number of bus users to go towards Mori Gate terminal, which is a major transport hub. Mori Gate is not only adjacent to the Kashmere Gate interchange metro station but also an inter-state bus terminal,” the official added.
“We expect a huge footfall on Express Bus Service because there is a huge demand for public transport on this route and bus services are not adequate,” he said. The route also sees a large number of cycle and two-wheeler users, who are expected to switch to buses if a fast service on a dedicated corridor is provided to them.
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