World Heritage Week 2016: How students perceive heritage...IV

Threat to Living Heritage: Case of BEST Buses

- By Yash Agrawal

I fear that drastic changes would occur in the infrastructure of the city in the name of development, that would lead to radical changes in our lifestyle. As I come across the various news articles about the plans that government has for various routes of metros to be built, while others may feel excited, I feel uneasy and disappointed. I don’t wish to give up the joy of travelling in buses with openable windows in exchange for travelling in the boring air-conditioned metros. I am disappointed that the government is spending enormous amounts of money for the construction of metros while neglecting the bus transport system and not implementing cheaper yet effective measures to improve transportation in the Mumbai region.

This has happened elsewhere too. In Delhi over focusing on building metro lines, the government neglected the Ring Rail, the local railway of Delhi. In Kolkata a lot of money has been spent on metro construction while the historic trams were ignored. Transport experts repeatedly opine that more money should be put into BEST by the government and it should take measures to improve bus services. This will be far more beneficial than the costly and time-consuming solution of constructing metro lines everywhere. Increasing population and income is leading to increasing number of private vehicles and consequently traffic. This also causes a lot of pollution. Over the past decades the government has prioritised private transport over public transport by constructing flyovers. This is beneficial to private vehicles only, as buses mostly don’t use them. Flyovers have also not solved the traffic problem.

One of the major measures to improve bus services is to reserve lanes on major roads especially for buses. This is called Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS). This has been successfully done in some cities in India such as Ahmedabad, Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad. In Mumbai this has been in planning since many years, however yet there is just one route on which bus lanes are in action - Bandra-Kurla Complex. If this is done successfully all over Mumbai traffic will reduce and public transportation will get encouragement.

This requires efforts, willingness and co-ordination on part of the authorities. If value of heritage is well understood and integrated within urban planning, it will surely contribute to sustainable development of the city as well.