Bengaluru ‘bicycle mayor’ Sathya Sankaran told that dedicated bike lanes would be a solution to Bengaluru traffic woes and a major share of cycle adoption should start with short trips in the neighbourhood.
The Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT) in Bengaluru has decided to come up with dedicated popup bike lanes on either side of the Outer Ring Road (ORR) between Silk Board Junction and Lowry Memorial College near KR Puram in order to reduce stress on the city’s traffic.
The development work is in progress on the 16 kilometres stretch and it said that 26 wards in the city will fall under the cycling district.
The wards are:-
1) Koramangala
2) Jakkasandra
3) HSR Layout
4) Bilekahalli
5) Ejipura
6) Shanti Nagar
7) Shanthala Nagar
8) Adugodi
9) Neelasandra
10) Varthur
11) Bellandur
12) Vannarpet
13) Agaram
14) Domlur
15) Marathahalli
16) Konena Agrahara
17) Doddanekundi
18) Vignenanagar
19) Hoysala Nagar
20) New Thippasandra
21) Jeevan Bhima Nagar
22) Jogupalya
23) HAL Airport
24) Ejipura
25) C.V. Raman Nagar
26) A. Narayanapura
In a bid to popularize this, Sankaran said that they chose to target ward level leadership to scale the adoption of bicycling and make an impact through interventions to encourage solutions to local commute needs at the local level. The increasing number of people getting involved will result in a greater impact on the city level. This solution will help in reducing woes in the City, resulting in clean air, bringing better health and increasing our daily productivity.
The Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) installed bicycle holders on 10 of its buses on an experimental basis as they are awaiting permission from the centre.
While the modification has the cost of Rs. 14000 per bus, BMTC officials said that it costed them only Rs. 4500 per bus.
With very few vehicles on the road, a lot of people of referring to use cycles to commute from one place to another.
Talking about the safety factor, the rack expands based on the size of the cycle and has a hook that latches on to the bicycle thereby helping in securing it. Sankaran shares that proper implementation of communication, design and penalties for traffic rule violators would make the situation better.