BMTC

The Bengaluru Bus Prayanikara Vedike and Citizens for Bengaluru met the Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday, demanding Bus Bhagya in the upcoming State Budget. He listened to our demands on 'Halve the Fares and Double the Fleet' and has agreed to consider our demands presented in the memorandum along with 'Janara Budget Goshti' conducted yesterday. With the budget coming up on Wednesday, it is important that the State Government considers our demands so that by encouraging public transport traffic congestion can be eased and air pollution reduced. We believe the Congress government can bring significant changes to the city by encouraging ordinary…

The Bengaluru Bus Prayanikara Vedike has launched a joint campaign with Citizens for Bengaluru called the 'Bus Bhagya Beku' campaign, that demands the State Government to provide financial support to BMTC to 'Halve the Fares, and Double the Fleet'. About 50 lakh commuters use BMTC services every day, thus making BMTC the backbone of Bangalore city. And yet, this mode of public transport is highly neglected, and too expensive for many to use. In addition, traffic congestion in Bangalore is caused by private vehicles, especially cars. And we feel that the only solution to reducing such congestion and air pollution…

The Bengaluru Bus Prayanikara Vedike has launched a joint campaign with Citizens for Bengaluru called the 'Bus Bhagya Beku' campaign, that demands the State Government to provide financial support to BMTC to 'Halve the Fares, and Double the Fleet'. About 50 lakh commuters use BMTC services every day, thus making BMTC the backbone of Bangalore city. And yet, this mode of public transport is highly neglected, and too expensive for many to use. In addition, traffic congestion in Bangalore is caused by private vehicles, especially cars. And we feel that the only solution to reducing such congestion and air pollution…

Citizens for Bengaluru (CfB) and Bengaluru Bus Prayanikara (BBPV) have initiated a public campaign - #BusBhagyaBeku - seeking ‘Half the Fares and Double the Fleet’. CfB and BBPV met with various organisations and conducted commuter surveys at garment factories on Mysore Road and at Shivaji Nagar, Jayanagar TTMCs and at Majestic to understand their concerns and to seek their support for #BusBhagyaBeku. CfB and BBPV, call upon all citizens of Bengaluru to take a bus to Shantinagar TTMC on Saturday 4th March at 11AM (incidentally, the monthly Bus Day) in an expression of support for public transport and ‘#BusBhagyaBeku’ to…

Citizens for Bengaluru (CfB) and Bengaluru Bus Prayanikara (BBPV) have initiated a public campaign - #BusBhagyaBeku - seeking ‘Half the Fares and Double the Fleet’. CfB and BBPV met with various organisations and conducted commuter surveys at garment factories on Mysore Road and at Shivaji Nagar, Jayanagar TTMCs and at Majestic to understand their concerns and to seek their support for #BusBhagyaBeku. CfB and BBPV, call upon all citizens of Bengaluru to take a bus to Shantinagar TTMC on Saturday 4th March at 11AM (incidentally, the monthly Bus Day) in an expression of support for public transport and ‘#BusBhagyaBeku’ to…

Bengaluru has a lot of flights landing and taking off in the early hours of the morning.  But if passengers are looking for Vayu Vajra buses, they will find that at precisely the hours when many international flights land or take off (and in order to get to and from the airport at the right time), there will be no Volvo buses plying. Let me take one example. British Airways out of Bengalurue departs at 7 am. This means that passengers must be at the airport by 5 am at the latest, preferably half-an-hour earlier. Let's say the passenger lives…

Bengaluru has a lot of flights landing and taking off in the early hours of the morning.  But if passengers are looking for Vayu Vajra buses, they will find that at precisely the hours when many international flights land or take off (and in order to get to and from the airport at the right time), there will be no Volvo buses plying. Let me take one example. British Airways out of Bengalurue departs at 7 am. This means that passengers must be at the airport by 5 am at the latest, preferably half-an-hour earlier. Let's say the passenger lives…

"Better than nothing" is not progress. It's just better than nothing. If we set our metrics so low, we can never develop. Take the example of buses. The city needs about 13,000 to 15,000 buses to reach the kind of service levels that are seen in places with excellent bus service globally (1,250 buses per million of population). Also, each year, as the population grows, the fleet strength has to grow by about 200-300. That's the need. The actual fleet strength now is 6,500. And each year, 600 buses are scrapped, so these need to be replaced to keep the…

"Better than nothing" is not progress. It's just better than nothing. If we set our metrics so low, we can never develop. Take the example of buses. The city needs about 13,000 to 15,000 buses to reach the kind of service levels that are seen in places with excellent bus service globally (1,250 buses per million of population). Also, each year, as the population grows, the fleet strength has to grow by about 200-300. That's the need. The actual fleet strength now is 6,500. And each year, 600 buses are scrapped, so these need to be replaced to keep the…

Half the city of Bengaluru travels using 6,500 buses. The other half uses 55 lakh vehicles. This data points so obviously to what we should be doing, but unfortunately, we insist on spending enormous amounts of money supporting private transport, and less than one-tenth of it supporting public transport and sustainable options. The illogic of financing urban mobility is that it is easy to get 30,000 crores for a full Metro system, or 1,000 crores each year endlessly for road-building, but we struggle to get 50 crores a year for footpaths and refuse to spend 200 crores for a Bus…