Thiruvananthapuram city’s invisible bus stops

Thiruvananthapuram: A crowd waits by the roadside in front of a row of shops in Peroorkada, eyes fixed on incoming traffic. When they spot a KSRTC bus, they lunge forward into the carriageway. The driver swerves left and slams the brakes. A few people scurry away to avoid getting hit before rushing to board. The same dangerous choreography unfolds daily across most bus stops in the city. Commuters risking their lives for the sake of their daily ride has become an all-too-common sight, especially at key bus stops.Thiruvananthapuram has a robust public transport network—KSRTC and private buses—covering around 70% of the core area. What it lacks is something more basic: Bus shelters. Neither the city corporation, KSRTC, nor the govt agencies tasked with urban development seem to have made this a priority.
Many bus stops simply have no shelter at all, forcing passengers to stand exposed to the elements and encroach onto the carriageway. Where shelters do exist, they are often poorly designed, damaged, and badly maintained—some unchanged for a quarter century. The city corporation, responsible for maintaining bus shelters, does not follow a uniform policy for their design or funding. Many shelters are built using funds from elected representatives, often resembling crude sheds with no eye for commuter comfort or aesthetics.There are no shelters at bus stops in front of the public sector bank at Statue Junction, near the Govt Secretariat, at Bakery Junction towards Palayam, in front of the forest headquarters, at Kalabhavan, or near Cotton Hill LP School. The list extends across the city. For visitors to the city, locating a bus stop becomes an exercise in guesswork; scanning for clusters of people standing roadside becomes the only reliable indicator.Where shelters exist, many are unusable. The ceiling at the bus shelter opposite Palayam church hangs loose and dangerous. At Kowdiar, roof tiles have fallen off the shelter serving buses toward Vellayambalam. Resident associations have grown tired of petitioning but hope the new council will act. Paraniyam Devakumar, patron of Fraternity of Residents Association (FRAT) that coordinates around 1,000 associations, said, "We are pushing the corporation to maintain the bus shelters and formulate a uniform policy for the entire city. The shelters are not designed for the convenience of commuters. People suffer when there is rain and during summer." "The corporation promises action every time the issue is raised. It has become a routine," he added. The poor condition of shelters stems partly from the way they are funded. They are built using multiple funding mechanisms—money from the people's representatives, Smart City Mission, and sponsorship from different agencies. Nevertheless, the maintenance rests with the urban body.Sumesh Krishnan, a central committee member of Federation of Residents Associations- Coordination of Residents, pointed out that space for bus shelters is often not factored in when roads or pavements are designed. The Vellayambalam-Vazhuthacaud stretch was recently re-developed as a smart road with cycle tracks and a well-designed pavement, but bus shelters were not part of the plan.S N Raghuchandran Nair of Trivandrum Chamber of Commerce and Industry said, "The govt should do a scientific study and allot bus stops and build modern bus shelters. The shelters should provide information and commuter conveniences. They should be aesthetically designed in Kerala style so that they will give a character to the city."A KSRTC official said bus stops in the city are shared by govt and private buses, making it difficult for the corporation alone to assume responsibility. This is a peculiarity compared to many metro cities where private buses do not operate.The govt is now planning modern smart bus shelters at around 30 locations, covering most of the core areas, to be built by Smart City, KSRTC, or private agencies to integrate multimodal mobility and intelligent transport systems.