By IANS,
New Delhi : The Delhi High Court Wednesday sought replies from the city government on a plea seeking contempt action against it for allegedly not allowing cars to use a road lane reserved for buses on the bus rapid transit (BRT) corridor here.
The notice was issued by a division bench of Acting Chief Justice A.K. Sikri and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw on a plea filed by NGO Nyay Bhoomi.
The court July 5 directed the transport department to retain till its final order an arrangement that allowed plying of all vehicles in the reserved lane.
The 5.8-km stretch of BRT corridor — between Moolchand and Ambedkar Nagar in south Delhi — was introduced in 2008 and designed on the model of Bogota city in Colombia to make bus and bicycle travel safer and faster, and encourage travel that did not involve cars.
The court also issued notice to Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System, which manages the corridor and sought a response within a week on the contempt petition.
The court would next hear the matter Aug 8.
The court earlier directed the government to continue with the arrangement made by the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) during a trial run on the corridor between May 12 and May 23 till the court’s final order. The CRRI model allowed all vehicles to use the reserved lane.
Nyay Bhoomi filed the contempt petition against the chief secretary and transport commissioner.
The NGO asked the court to direct the transport department to allow all vehicles to use all the lanes without any restriction.
It also expected proper signage at traffic junctions on the corridor.
The CRRI in its report, prepared after trial runs on the corridor, suggested that “no BRT” option yielded better benefits for this corridor with the given traffic conditions.
The petitioner said the BRT system had created more chaos and heavy traffic jams in car lanes, without any conspicuous advantage to bus users.