Bangalore's Avenue Road hawkers put brakes on BMTC plans

The BMTC’s plan to bring buses to Avenue Road, in order to ease the traffic at Town Hall and Hudson Circle, may have hit a roadblock, thanks to hawkers on this stretch of the road.

According to a source in the BMTC, “These are powerful hawkers, who have been here for at least 40 years. We do not want another Gandhi Bazaar to happen. Although  opening the route will immensely cut traffic problems at Hudson Circle and Town Hall, the programme will not be initiated until an alternative arrangement is provided to the hawkers along Avenue Road.” Nevertheless, he said that if the hawkers are removed and parking is restricted to one side, buses could ply along the road without a problem.

MA Saleem, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) had made an announcement in this regard at the conference on Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), held last week. He had said that the BMTC and the traffic police were studying the feasibility of introducing bus services on Avenue Road, Brigade Road as well as MG Road, while answering to a question on why no buses were plying on certain roads in the city.

Post the announcement, though, the traffic police department has been forced to eat their words. According to shop keepers and hawkers on Avenue Road, the traffic police had tried to allow vehicles through Avenue Road last week, but it proved a non-starter, as it caused a jam for at least 2 hours. The shopkeepers on the road say the road is too narrow for buses to ply. According to Sandeep, a stationery shop owner, “There are way too many cross roads which enter the main road and this adds to the traffic. As it is the traffic is slow on the road, buses will only add to the chaos.”

Even MA Saleem seems to be having second thoughts, at least with regard to Avenue Road. “Avenue Road will be used only as an alternative when KG Road and Hudson circle are closed. In these emergencies, there will be enough number of policemen around to clear the hawkers in a matter of minutes, when the need arises,” he said. The ACP also felt that considering the pedestrian movement on the busy street, Avenue Road cannot be opened to the BMTC on a permanent basis.

‘Keep private vehicles away’
Muralidhar Rao of Praja RAAG, a non-profit organisation working towards easing city’s transportation woes, says that since the objective behind the thought of introducing buses along Avenue Road was to encourage public transport, perhaps private transport should be stopped along the road.

“When there are traffic problems, instead of banning buses off the road, it is time we thought of restricting private vehicles instead. This will help discourage the use of private vehicles, which will definitely take pressure off the roads,” he said. “By making the road more pedestrian friendly and keeping private vehicles off of it, we could introduce BMTC on this stretch and also ensure that the shopkeepers do not suffer any loss,” he said.

However, he added that the biggest glitch with this problem is that adequate parking facilities will have to be provided so that private vehicles can be parked somewhere and people can walk to Avenue Road.