Mumbai Traffic Police says its suggestion to park school buses in BEST depots will ease traffic congestion in the daytime and benefit schools and the undertaking as well
Mumbai Traffic Police says its suggestion to park school buses in BEST depots will ease traffic congestion in the daytime and benefit schools and the undertaking as well
The Mumbai traffic police seem to have hit upon a win-win idea to ease traffic congestion on busy roads during school hours.
In a letter to some swish city schools, the department has suggested that the authorities approach the BEST to let them park their school buses in the undertaking's depots, for a fee, while the school is in session.
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Parking school buses inside the BEST depots during
daytime will eliminate traffic jams near schools
This, say traffic officials, will a) Ease bottlenecks by eliminating buses parked on roads near the schools, b) Give the BEST an additional source of income and c) Give the schools dedicated parking spots for the buses.
"There are many schools across the city located on busy roads Bombay Scottish, J B Petit, Villa Teresa, Jamnabai Narsee School for instance which leads to buses and private cars, which ferry children to school, clogging the roads.
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Traffic cops find it difficult to manage traffic flow and double-parking on the streets adds to the problem," said a traffic official.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic-HQ) Nand-kumar Chougle confirmed that the parking of buses around many schools in the city is one of the major reasons for traffic jams. He said some schools do not allow buses to park on their premises despite having enough open space.
"We have written to schools and private bus operators asking them to approach the BEST with a request to allow them to park their school buses in nearby BEST depots at a fixed rate," said Chougle.
"If the BEST and bus operators agree and co-operate with the Mumbai traffic police, we can work wonders. We have been appealing to the parents to send their children to school in school buses, so that the number of private vehicles can be curtailed and roads can be decongested during school hours."
BEST Chairman Sunil Shinde said, "It is a good idea, but no school or bus contractor has approached us about it till now. If the proposal comes to us, we will surely discuss it in the BEST committee meeting and take a decision accordingly."
Former BEST chairman Sanjay Potnis said, "If it helps to generate revenue for BEST, I think the proposal should be viable, subject to BEST committee approval."
Anil Garg, chairman, School Bus Owners' Association, said, "The move is welcomed by all private school bus owners. But, we should get permission from the BEST authorities, who had denied it to us the last time citing security reasons."
Arundhati Chavan, president, PTA United Forum, said, "The committee had discussed a similar idea with former transport minister Vikhe Patil earlier.
We had suggested that unused playgrounds be used as parking lots for school buses.
But, if the plan now is to approach the BEST for parking school buses in their depots, we think it is a great idea to ease traffic congestion and we hope the schools will welcome the move."u00a0
Principals say
If the BEST is ready to cooperate and give parking space at nominal charges, we will be ready to work with the government to avoid traffic congestion.
We haven't, however, received any such letter yet and will take a call on it when we do.
Sudeshna Chatterjee, Principal, Jamnabai Narsee School
Providing parking space at BEST bus depots is a great idea. It will benefit the school as well as commuters. However, we will take up the initiative only if the depot is located close to the school. We have schools in Juhu, Kandivli and Ghatkopar and it would only cause more traffic congestion if the buses have to travel a long distance to and from the depots.
Barkha Gulani, u00a0Executive Principal, SERRA International Pre-schools
ADVERTISEMENT
When we are encouraging students to use school buses and not their private vehicles, people should encourage school buses being parked in BEST bus depots. The will definitely help decrease traffic congestion.
Vandana Lulla, Principal u00a0of Podar Internationalu00a0School, Santacruz
The number of private cars in the city has touched a dizzying two million, and the figures seem to be multiplying each day. To make matters worse, the city's car parks are ill-managed affairs, where vehicles jostle for space.
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Keeping this in mind, MiD DAY will be bringing you a series of reports on Mumbai's parking woes, trying to shed light on the various factors responsible for this growing crisis in the city. We will enquire into where, how and why commuters face parking problems.
1.7 lakh
The number of new vehicles registered with Mumbai's three RTOs in the last fiscal
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