City of Joy braces for cycle corridors

C40 Cities is a network of the world's megacities committed to addressing climate change. Interestingly, Kolkata is already a C40 city

CYCLING corridors along the interior roads seem round the corner in the 'city of joy', much to the delight of the cyclists. And many parking spaces may eventually make room for safe cycling zones for this purpose, if things move the way it has been envisaged.

"We have already lined up plans to introduce 120 km cycling corridors along all the interior roads. The East-West corridor stretches only 5 km and the distances are very short giving cyclists the freedom to move within a distance 2-2.5 km from one point to another. Bi-cycle lanes of 2 metre width will also be planned at the edge of the roads using the area which was earlier used for car parking," said Shantanu Patra, Senior Superintendent Engineer from Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority's (KMDA).

Kolkata's civic authorities and the State administration had been working on ways to strengthen the urban mobility sector by all means. "The current mobility infrastructure in the city is not in favour of cars and hence building rapid mass transit systems would be an ideal step towards decongesting the city," said Dr Geetam Tiwari of IIT Delhi.

AV Venugopal, a Senior Research Associate at Institute of Institute of Transport and Development Policy (ITDP), on his parts, said, "There is an immediate need to break the stigma around cycling and build more cycle lanes by reducing motorised lanes on main roads and give priority to cycles in neighbourhood lanes."

Quite significantly, coinciding with these moves, multiple cyclist groups across Kolkata are coming together under the Bengal Clean Air Network (BengalCAN) for a Cyclist Awareness Campaign. Cyclists in Kolkata have always borne the brunt of heavy traffic in the streets, exposing them to injuries and deaths. Due to this concern a meeting was earlier held with DC Traffic, where a more sustainable solution was discussed to introduce cycle safe infrastructure and likewise a safe cycle space on Kolkata's roads.

City police had always argued that cyclists are unsafe for the road and the plying of cycles significantly slow the traffic down. To build an alternative to this and make cycling more effective and safe in Kolkata, the awareness programme is being done where cyclists are made aware about four road safety aspects : Stop at the traffic crossing, Ride to the left, Do not overtake a moving motor vehicle, Reflector sticker on the cycles.

Interestingly Kolkata is already a C40 city. C40 Cities is a network of the world's megacities committed to addressing climate change. C40 supports cities to collaborate effectively, share knowledge and drive meaningful, measurable and sustainable action on climate change. Dr. Shruti Naraya, Regional Director of East and West Asia, C40 cities, said that there is an urgent need that this old city enhances its efforts to drive policy level and implementation changes to bring safe cycling into the current mobility scenario of the city and make it build it into a 15 minute city like other international cities.