The crucial scientific study on the effectiveness of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Corridor enters the second phase with the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) conducting an opinion poll from Saturday. Starting April 21, the expert body will take the feedback from regular users of the Corridor and will gauge its positives and negatives. Chirag Dilli and Panchsheel Enclave intersections will be taken up first for ‘user feedback.’

The UP government has decided to review all Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects in the state, including the ongoing ones like the Yamuna Expressway. Uttar Pradesh Industrial Development Commissioner Anil Kumar Gupta on Monday said all PPP projects in the state would be reviewed and decision on their future taken on case-to-case basis.

Following a Delhi High Court order, Delhi government has decided to carry out a fresh study on the BRT corridor’s utility. The study will be carried out by Central Roads Research Institute (CRRI). The institute will be given six weeks to complete the study. The terms of reference for the study include guidelines such as number of vehicles and people using each of the lanes — dedicated bus lane, motorised vehicle lane and non-motorised vehicle lane — and suggestions, if any, for improving the BRT stretches.

NEW DELHI: Private vehicles may soon be allowed to run on the dedicated bus lanes of the BRT on a temporary basis. The Delhi high court on Thursday ordered a fresh study on the effectiveness of the BRT corridor, asking the government to throw open the bus lanes to private vehicles. Either National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) or Central Roads Research Institute (CRRI) will study if it is viable to allow private vehicles to use the lanes in the long run.

With reference to the series titled ‘Scrap the trap’, you have claimed that ‘people want their road back’. However, do the people here include cyclists and bus commuters or only car/bike users? Without considering the opinions of the first two categories of road users, it would be at best an assumption that the views of a certain privileged section of society is the opinion of all the users of the BRT stretch.

Travelling from Garia to Bongaon may just turn zippy, if the state government’s plan to connect the two with a 100km flyover, tipped to be India’s longest, succeeds. Urban development minister Firhad Hakim announced the project on the sidelines of a CII summit on Tuesday. He said a study had been initiated. “A wing of L&T is undertaking the survey. We are expecting a report in three to four months,” Hakim told Metro.

The Planning Commission cited shortage of funds as it punctured the Union Urban Development Ministry’s ambitious plans to popularise bicycle usage in metro cities. The Plan panel has refused to dole out Rs 150 crore to the Ministry for the Public Bicycle Scheme, which was proposed to be rolled out in ten cities from the next fiscal year

DIMTS Ready To Replicate Flawed Experiment Even As Govt Refuses To Allow People’s Participation In Decision-Making. The Delhi government decided to rechristen the bus rapid transit (BRT) corridor as integrated transit corridor in 2011, perhaps hoping to erase the memory of the ordeal Delhiites undergo everyday on the Ambedkar Nagar-Moolchand BRT.

NEW DELHI: Deteriorating air quality in the national capital can translate into 3,000 additional "premature deaths" annually due to air pollution related diseases, the Centre for Science and Environment has said in a report. The report, submitted to the Delhi government, estimated that about 55 per cent of Delhi's population is directly affected by air pollution as they live in a radius of 500 metre of "urban roads" where pollution level was found to be maximum.

Founder member and trustee of Parisar, Sujit Patwardhan, is working hard to bring the environment issues to the forefront through citizens’ campaigns and collaborative activism with other like-minded organisations. The aim is to ensure that industrial and urban development does not lead to damage and destruction of the environment. He speaks to Soumabha Nandi about the traffic woes that have engulfed the city of late.