Bus lanes at Mumbai’s BKC are cutting down travel time, why don’t we have more of them?

At the busy business district of BKC, a dedicated bus lane has helped cut travel time by nearly half — from 37 minutes to cover a 3.6-km stretch to just 15, even during the peak hours.

At the busy business district of BKC, a dedicated bus lane has helped cut travel time by nearly half — from 37 minutes to cover a 3.6-km stretch to just 15, even during the peak hours.

The dedicated bus lanes handle 175 buses an hour (60 BEST buses and the others, contract buses ferrying company staffers), even with bikes and autos encroaching into the lanes. (HT File Photo)

The dedicated bus lanes handle 175 buses an hour (60 BEST buses and the others, contract buses ferrying company staffers), even with bikes and autos encroaching into the lanes. That’s 8,550 commuters an hour. The bus lane began as an experiment, and it was successful despite the half-hearted approach by the authorities implementing the project.

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Despite its success, the plan has not been replicated anywhere else in the city. “The BKC experiment shows how dedicated lanes use little space but carry several people,” said transport expert Ashok Datar. Another expert said a recent experiment that gave buses right of way between Mahalaxmi station and Haji Ali also worked. In this case, traffic cops allowed only buses on the bridge, diverting other vehicles under it.

“Where is the space for a corridor for just buses ? You saw what happened in Delhi,” said a bureaucrat.