Abstract:

The designated bus lanes for the Public Transport in Bishkek were first introduced in July 2023. Such government measure intended to relieve traffic congestion especially during rush hours, has worsened the traffic conditions, instead. It has caused huge traffic stagnation problems across the city and led to ambiguous and conflicting opinions among the scientific community, the population, and especially the motorists and drivers.

My paper examines the weaknesses of the current measure the Kyrgyz government has taken and explores its potential strengths and adaptive strategies to make such government intervention work better for the public good. It is be based on my ongoing study on how designating bus lanes in Bishkek can be effective in facilitating traffic flow, using a comparative case study in Bishkek and Berlin. The study has observed that Bishkek needs to implement additional measures or strategies to complement the designated bus lanes. These measures can include but not limited to customized scheduling of bus lane usage, tailored to the specific needs and requests of individual roads. Notably, the schedule for bus lane usage varies for opposite directions on the same street, and each street has its own lane-usage schedule. They should take into consideration how these bus lanes work during weekends. Moreover, depending on the circumstances, other types of road users, such as emergency services and cyclists, should be allowed to use the lane.

The study proposes that these adaptive approaches among others suggests thoughtful ways of optimizing road efficiency and safety which will contribute to reducing traffic congestion and in turn reduces harmful emissions and improves the city's air quality. This experience can indeed be helpful not only in Bishkek but also be in other large cities of Central Asia, that have insufficient knowledge and experience of designated public transport lane policy implementation. Subsequent study of road network experiences in Central Asian cities can also strengthen cooperation in the field of organization and safety of urban traffic and the achievement of joint goals in improving the environmental situation caused by road transport.