Difficulty in building separate tracks compels PMC to explore option of developing cycle lane

Indian Express

3 days ago

Facing hurdles in earmarking the ambitious Comprehensive Bicycle Plan on the Development Pan (DP) of the city, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is planning to provide a cycle lane segregated with painting on the road instead of developing separate tracks.
In 2017, the PMC adopted the Comprehensive Bicycle Plan prepared with the help of the Union government. According to the plan, the civic body planned to develop an 824 km long dedicated cycle track at an estimated cost of Rs 335 crore. However, only around 80km of the cycle track has been developed in the city so far.
The plan included retrofitting of the existing 54km track, new segregated cycle tracks spanning over 531km, 154 km long painted cycle lanes, 10km of merging footpath and cycle tracks and 75 km of greenways.
'The Comprehensive Bicycle Plan is ready but there are technical hurdles in mapping it on the DP of the city. However, this has not deterred us from implementing it on field,' said city engineer Prashant Waghmare.
Incharge of PMC's road department chief engineer Annirudha Pawaskar said the Comprehensive Bicycle Plan of Pune is the best plan for any city in the country. 'It's a fact that much of a dedicated cycle track could not be developed so far for lack of space on the road. We are committed to promote cycle use in the city,' said Pawaskar, who is an avid cyclist and rides every alternate day in the wee hours of the city.
The situation in the city has changed very fast and the rapid urbanisation has put stress on the existing road infrastructure. 'There is pressure to provide more carriage width for vehicles on roads so making provision for a cycle track is a task while developing roads. We have now decided to provide cycle lanes instead of cycle tracks wherever there is space constraint,' said Pawaskar.
He said there is not much of a demand for dedicated cycle tracks in the city but the PMC is committed to promote the non-motorised transport.
'Citizens worry about safety while using bicycles due to heavy traffic on roads. There are very few who use bicycles,' said Pawaskar adding that the best way to address the safety concern is providing greenways for citizens to cycles.
Commenting on the PMC's defence of its implementation of the Comprehensive Bicycle Plan, Ranjit Gadgil, a cycling enthusiast and program director at Parisar, an NGO working in the field of urban transport, said, 'The PMC is unfortunately looking at the issue the wrong way. By citing heavy traffic as a reason to reduce space for cycles (and pedestrians), they are in fact encouraging more vehicles and discouraging cycling. School children often want to cycle, but the PMC has failed to implement its own School Travel Improvement Program (STIP) that will ensure children can safely cycle to school. The PMC could at least improve the condition of the existing cycle tracks, make sure those are usable, but that has not happened. Greenways are indeed a good idea and 75km have been proposed in the Bicycle Plan, but there has been no progress on that either.'
Meanwhile, even the smallest steps to curb the growth of vehicles have not been taken, such as the parking policy which was approved in 2017.
'Cycle lanes on heavy traffic roads like Ganeshkhind Road are an eyewash, as they are not safe passages for cyclists, and even those are poorly implemented. Every single transport policy and plan has proposed non-motorized transport and public transport improvement and discouraged personal vehicles. This has to be done in earnest by the city if we are to see any improvement, not just for cyclists but for overall traffic,' said Gadgil.
Ajay Jadhav is an Assistant Editor with The Indian Express, Pune. He writes on Infrastructure, Politics, Civic issues, Sustainable Development and related stuff. He is a trekker and a sports enthusiast.
Ajay has written research articles on the Conservancy staff that created a nationwide impact in framing policy to improve the condition of workers handling waste.
Ajay has been consistently writing on politics and infrastructure. He brought to light the lack of basic infrastructure of school and hospital in the hometown of Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde even as two private helipads were developed by the leader who mostly commutes from Mumbai to Satara in helicopter.
Ajay has been reporting on sustainable development initiatives that protects the environment while ensuring infrastructure development. ... Read More