20 buses to ply BRT after corridor opening on March 23

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Tuesday declared that 20 buses would be run on the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor, which would be inaugurated on March 23.

“It would be a soft opening of the project and routine work would continue on the corridor even beyond March 23,” Provincial Minister Local Government Shahram Khan Tarakai told a press conference at the Civil Secretariat.

The provincial minister, who seemed not-so-sure about the March 23 deadline for the opening of the corridor, hastened to add that it might be March 30, but they have set March 23 as the deadline to themselves to inaugurate the project.

He said that 27 stations would be ready in the last week of February which would then be handed over to the TransPeshawar, the company assigned to operate the BRT, which would do the needful to operate the transit system.

Tarakai further said that 20 of the 220-bus fleet would arrive in the second week of February while the rest of the buses would be procured in a phased manner and by March 23 soft opening of the corridor would be carried out while routine work on the corridor would continue.

The minister said the government was trying to resolve the problems related to the BRT and ensure the smooth traffic flow along the corridor. He continued that around 900 of 1200 traffic police personnel deployed in the city were serving in an arduous environment from Chamkani to Hayatabad along the BRT under-construction corridor.

Flanked by Secretary Local Government Muhammad Zahir Shah and Director General (DG) Peshawar Development Authority (PDA), Israrul Haq, the minister Local Government said that daily 7 million vehicles enter and go out of the city and 215,000 vehicles use the road along the BRT corridor right from Chamkani to Hayatabad.

“All the bottlenecks along the corridor are being removed and soon the underpass in Hashtnagri would be reopened for the pedestrians in the next week of February, while underpass at Firdous Chowk opposite Balahisar Fort would be reopened at first week of March for the pedestrians,” Tarakai informed.

He added that the reopening of these underpasses would help smoothen both the vehicular and foot traffic at both the busy crossings.

Similarly, the flyover in front of Balahisar would be opened for the mixed traffic by the end of February, the minister continued.