Valley

Randomly parked buses major cause of city traffic chaos

The queue of long route buses, hesitating to be parked at the assigned station in Gongabu Bus park, have been haphazardly occupying roads and causing major traffic jams across the Captial. Randomly parked buses major cause of city traffic chaos

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Dipak Bayalkoti

Published at : July 7, 2014

Updated at : July 7, 2014 10:08

Kathmandu

The queue of long route buses, hesitating to be parked at the assigned station in Gongabu Bus park, have been haphazardly occupying roads and causing major traffic jams across the Captial.

Defying government regulation to use the permitted station, these buses are mostly parked in various areas — the major reason being strayed ticket counters catering the long route buses.

Major bus areas like Kalanki, Swayambu, Balkhu, Balaju, Machhapokhari, Chabbhil, Gaushala, Koteshawor and Jorpati among others face constant traffic congestion due the problem.

The govenment had, however, made it mandatory to park all long route public vehicles (running 150kms and above outside the Kathmandu Valley) at the New bus park in Gongabu in order to ease the traffic in the Capital.

“The long route buses parking everywhere have only worsened our job to control traffic,” said Keshav Adhikari, chief of Metropolitan Traffic Police Department (MTPD). “We have made attempts to charge them with fines.” The traffic is entitled to slap a fine of Rs 1000 for the non-designated parking.

The Department of Transport Management (DoTM) also makes it compulsory to pick and drop passengers of long route buses at the Gongabu bus park. Likewise, it is mandatory to use the assigned route via New bus park-Swayambu and Kalanki for both Kathmandu inbound and outbound buses. For other districts in the valley, DoTM has designated to use Koteswore-Satdobato-Balkhu- Kalanki road.

In 2000, the bus park was leased to Lotse Multipurpose by the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) on a public private partnership for 45 years. However, due to lesser than expected buses being parked at Gongabu, it has been difficult for Lotse Multipurpose to earn.

While the management could make over 1 million a month, it has been just making over Rs 350,000 from the parked vehicles. While the Metropolitan Traffic Police Department records around 1,670 passenger vehicles into Kathmandu everyday via various checkpoints, the Gongabu station is only used by around 20 percent of them. Lotse charges Rs 45 to each vehicle being stationed at the Bus Park.

Even when specific rules have been formulated to manage the buses, authorities have failed to monitor them. KMC officials say that the public transport entrepreneurs, themselves, should rather encourage the drivers to responsibly park the vehicles at the allocated place.

“Transport entrepreneurs have ignored the calls made by the government and concerned authorities for the purpose,” said Sanjay Raj Upadhaya, chief of the Physical Planning and Construction at KMC.

General Secretary of Federation of Nepalese National Transport Entrepreneurs (FNNTE) Dolnath Khanal said the vehicle entrepreneurs are positive on managing the parking problem of buses. We are working on it and hope to solve the problem soon by coordinating with other stakeholders,” said Khanal.