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GMDA brings out new bicycle scheme for city

ByPrayag Arora-Desai, Gurugram
Dec 29, 2020 11:04 PM IST

The Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) has proposed to set up a city-wide public bike sharing (PBS) system to ease commuter’s last-mile connectivity.

The Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) has proposed to set up a city-wide public bike sharing (PBS) system to ease commuter’s last-mile connectivity.

The plan involves creating over 797 kilometres of dedicated bicycle lanes and deploying more than 8,000 bicycles in three phases by the year 2031. The project is estimated to cost 1,174.5 crore and will also involve strengthening pedestrian infrastructure in the city.

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The city’s Comprehensive Mobility Management Plan (CMMP), submitted on December 23, had said it had the potential to become a hub for non-motorised transport (NMT).

A study by the Delhi School of Planning and Architecture (SPA), which forms the basis of the CMMP, however, had noted that Gurugram currently suffered from a lack of NMT facilities, including poor coverage of tracks, lack of parking facilities and encroachments. The plan added that the infrastructure made it unsafe for bicycles.

SPA’s traffic surveys also revealed that over half of all trips undertaken in Gurugram were within a 5-km range.

“This distance can easily be covered by cycles, but we are not seeing more people make the switch because streets are not designed to include them, and more importantly ensure their safety,” said Sarika Panda Bhatt, a city-based mobility and transport planning expert.

At present, bicycles serve as the preferred mode of transportation for just four percent of all daily trips made in the city. “We want to ensure that minimum 15% of the total trips are made using bicycles,” said a GMDA official in the mobility department.

The 3-phase plan

Under the PBS plan, the GMDA will connect transit nodes, commercial areas and residential areas through dedicated lanes in order to provide direct connectivity between various land uses and activity nodes.

Phase-1, with a budget of 374 crore and a tentative deadline of 2023, will see retrofitting the core city network (Huda city centre, Rapid metro corridor and MG Road) for NMT infrastructure and provisioning of dedicated tracks on roads with a right of way (where GMDA can construct) of at least 45 m width. Phase 2, with 400 crore up to 2026, will have dedicated tracks in newly developed areas in and around Manesar. Phase 3, also with 400 crore and ending by 2031, will see NMT infrastructure beyond northern and southern peripheral roads.

Roads more than 24 metres wide will have 2.5 m to 5 m-wide cycle tracks based on availability, while narrower roads will have a track with a minimum width of 2.1 m. A minimum requirement of 5,416 bicycles has been estimated for launch in the base year 2023 and later augmented to 8,139 and 12,209 docking stations.

Earlier attempts

Similar smaller pilot projects had failed to take off in recent years.

Hindustan Times had reported in April last year that nearly 400 bicycles purchased by the municipal corporation of Gurugram in 2014 for Raahgiri (car-free days) in Gurugram were lying unused at the Sector 29 fire station.

Similarly, In October 2017, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) built “open” cycle tracks on service lanes from Signature Towers to Rajiv Chowk to IFFCO Chowk without any fencing or physical demarcation. Officials simply painted a white line, along with few cycle symbols, on the road that sees heavy movement of motorised vehicles at high speeds, resulting in sparse usage of these tracks.

Other dedicated cycle tracks, built along Bhagwan Mahaveer Marg and St Thomas Marg as part of the Green Raahgiri initiative (in 2016), and Dundahera Chowk and Mahavir Chowk, have also found few takers.

“This is largely because the infrastructure was developed in pockets. There is no interconnectivity or a city-wide network which would allow cyclists to travel beyond a certain area. That is what we are now aiming to create with the PBS proposal. We will initially be focusing on a catchment area of about 2kms radius around each of the Yellow Line and Rapid Metro stations in Gurugram in the first phase, and then expanding to other residential and commercial areas in the second and third phase,” said the GMDA official, preferring anonymity.

GMDA chief executive officer VS Kundu could not be reached for comment.

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