Nov 21: A 10-year master plan of the Department of Urban Development and Engineering Service (DUDES) for transport system for the capital city to be funded by the World Bank has been put off for now.
The Environmentally Sustainable Transport (EST) project has been withdrawn for now saying officials of the concerned department are busy working on another project.
The department has surveyed major services like Thimphu Urban Transport Study (TUTS), household survey on vehicle ownership vis-à-vis household income, public transport users’ perception, taxi drivers’ and passengers’ survey, pedestrian survey and the total number of vehicles on Thimphu roads.
They have also studied the existing road network, geometry and traffic flow direction, but any analysis of the survey results has not been done yet, as they are involved the Bhutan Urban Development Project (BUDP), Phase II, in Dechencholing, Thimphu, funded by the World Bank.
According to Road Safety and Transport Authority (RSTA), 24,826 vehicles have been registered till September this year in Thimphu. The figure was around 22,000 in December 2008. But the capital’s population is only 14,000.
The present length of the roads in the Thimphu is about 70 km.
