Going a step ahead in trying to make Bangalore a friendlier city for cyclists, BMTC has installed cycle stands to the front of their buses.
Managing Director of BMTC C Shikha said that the fabrication of the stand was done by employees at BMTC’s Central workshop at Shanthinagar. In a report for Times of India, Christin Mathew Philip says that the BMTC also plans a pop-up cycle lane for 16 km between Central Silk Board and Lowry Medical College where a bus priority lane has also been marked.
Here is what the new cycle racks look like.
This is the second time that the BMTC is experimenting with cycle racks on buses. The last time, Volvo had installed cycle racks on a few Volvo 8400 buses operated in and around Whitefield in 2011 but the experiment fizzled out after a while.
Apart from buses, Namma Metro too allows cyclists to carry their cycles on metro trains but only foldable cycles that can pass through the scanner ae allowed.
In a report for The Hindu, BMTC Chairman N.S. Nandiesha Reddy said that while 100 buses would initially be fitted with cycle stands, it would eventually be extended to the entire fleet.
Bangalore has experimented in many forms to get people to start cycling.
Between 2011 and 2012, the city partnered with Kerberon Automation to set up cycle stands across the city to promote the concept of rented cycles. Fixed cycle stands were set up in core areas (such as the Brigade Road bus stop where G-4 starts). Users would have to pay a deposit, get a smart card and then use the cycles. Around the same time, cycle lanes were made available in localities such as Jayanagar by demarcating the outermost section of major roads as cycle-only. However, these lanes were mostly used to park cars – which although a punishable offence was rarely punished. Eventually, they vanished, either after being dug up to lay utilities or when the road was resurfaced and the cycle lanes no longer marked.
By 2018, dockless cycles from private players such Yulu, Zoomcar PEDL and Ola Pedal had found a market in the city.
Let’s hope this time, the city learns from its past mistakes and promotes cycling in a big way.
Also Read: Emission-Free Last-Mile Connectivity: Why Bengaluru Must Build Safe Cycle Tracks Than Go After Pod Taxis by Srikanth Ramakrishnan on Swarajya.
P.S: If you’re planning to cycle around, do consider wearing a good mask. I’ve personally tried the 3M Aura Particulate Respirator to work well. It complies with NIOSH N-95 standards. Do check it out below. You can also try out the Savlon one if 3M masks are out of stock (which they are most of the time). Savlon is a good brand, owned by ITC (earlier Johnson and Johnson). Alternatively, you can try Wuerth, which was the first FFP1 standard mask that I tried.
Featured Image: Cycle Rack on a 500-D by Nihar Thakkar.
