Nah! It is a blog war between two factions on the BRTS.

First, Aman Sethi supports the BRTS.

Thus far, the government’s strategy has largely revolved around creating new roads, widening existing ones and building flyovers to span busy intersections. The increasing congestion has lead to fresh demands for an upgrade of road infrastructure; but this seems to be an increasingly unsustainable option. Delhi already has 21 per cent of its land area under roads, compared to only 11.5 per cent under green cover. Clearly, the future of urban transport cannot revolve around the private automobile; but if every attempt at improving public transport is termed “socialist”, “elitist”, or “rape”, this city may not have a future at all.

The response with some name calling.

To sum up, the BRT is great idea, of course, and the citizens of Delhi would have welcomed the project. If:

• Delhi had traffic which did things like stop at red lights, go on green lights and stuck to its lane – this means keeping in the right lane to turn right, and the left lane to turn left.
• Delhi had traffic which all kept to the left, and overook from the right, when NOT near an intersection.
• Delhi had traffic that drove at a constant speed that was actually EQUAL to the speed limit of 60 km/h, instead of the 25 km/h it chooses to drive at
• Delhi had less variation in its traffic
• The BRT didn’t involve turning a THREE-lane stretch of road usable by all into a TWO-lane stretch used by 4.5 million vehicles, and one lane given over to the use of only 7500 buses (using the author’s figures here)
• Pedestrians actually crossed at the designated pedestrian crossings, and not at any old point in the road
• Cyclists actually used the space dedicated for them, as opposed to the main road, wasting the money of that despicable, tax-paying middle-class.
• the law enforcers actually enforced the law. This means ticketing/fining/ prosecuting people who violate the segregation (by using the dedicated bus lane, or cycles who don’t stay in their area), jaywalk (yes the pedestrians should be punished as well, SHOCKING!) and also generally tried to impose some road sense like lane driving, and driving at a reasonably fast and constant speed.

Will Aman take the bait? He does!

To sum up, as he did, I am pleased that our critic has taken the pains to engage with my post in such detail. I hope he is similarly pleased with my ministrations to his text. It is always helpful to read well-meaning, but ultimately naïve vitriol. I may be a “bigoted idiot” (another one of his choice epithets), but at least I have the courage to put my name to what I write. I wish the same could be said for our agitated resident of the 2.5 world country.

Personally, I think our cities would be better served with improved public transport system. Considering the cities of India are nowhere like the suburbs of America with their wide open spaces and sparse populations, I see the increasing number of car drivers in the cities as a trend that would lead nowhere but to a lot more traffic congestion within a few years. If the BRTS makes the car drivers ditch their cars and jump into the bus to beat the traffic, then two thumbs up from me!