The Cycle Lane project in Jayanagar

It was a painful Monday morning when I rode along the familiar road to office. Monday blues had kicked in. But I still managed to notice something was different on the familiar roads. I quite literally stopped at the side of a road. A cycle track had now been carved out on both sides of many roads in Jayanagar 5th and 4th T-blocks. 
I stared at both sides of the road in wide astonishment and then continued on my way to office. That journey woke me up quite literally. I wondered who or what might have possibly triggered this kind of a project? Projects like these are generally triggered by a social cause and/or environmental triggers. I completely understand that Bangalore's face has gone a major re-structuring in the past 2 decades. 

Bangalore's population is at the moment bursting at the seams. And the water shortage in many areas is an indicator of the same. The pressure on the roads (read vehicular density) is increasing day by day. And in the midst of all this, this project to me seemed as a huge waste of money. 

Roads of Jayanagar 4th Block. 

                                  The cycle lanes are supposed to be dedicated paths at the sides of the roads. This is the condition of such designated places. 

    
As shown above, these are pics taken in Jayanagar 4th block. What you see marked as a thin white in pic 3 is the demarcated cycle lane.  

According to a source on the internet, the project was conceived in April 2009 and was named as Project Vidya Path (Path of Knowledge). It sounds an apt name considering that there are quite a few schools in the area. The basic idea of this project was to have a part of the road segregated and marked as exclusively for cyclists and kids. The idea is to ensure that the kids have a safe ride to school and back home. Very noble thought indeed. 
But, the first question that springs to my mind is .. Should we not first look at making the roads of a better quality than what they are in right now? Most turns on the cycle lane end up in gutters with or without dressed stone to cover them or in open garbage heaps. You can see the same in a video below. 
Shouldn't the project have involved doing a feasibility study on understand where the garbage heaps are, how should we stop them from overflowing on to the road and interfering on to the dedicated lane? Which areas are designated as parking spaces and should we re-align them to not clash with the lane? ... Sadly none of this seems to have as can been seen from the pics below. 

A car is parked right below the Give Way signs for the cyclists.

Another such example. One just needs to take a ride along Jayanagar to see for  themselves

A classic case of confusion. Who is the BBMP fooling is my question?  Should I park my car or give way to the cyclists? And many such parking signs show up all along the cycle track. 

Also seen is another classic case of the way things work in India. "Jidhar paint ka dibba khatam hua ... udhar cycle lane bhi khatam hui."  Work is patchy and incomplete in many places too. Mind you this is all money going from your pocket. For a project that was conceived in April 2009. This shoddy, patchy and incomplete work is what the BBMP has got to show in it's progress sheet for the neighborhood of Jayanagar. When I mentioned about this project on Facebook, I got a few comments not agreeing with me. The point made was that we need it since the pressure on the roads is increasing and that the cost of fuels is going up and this is going to be the way forward. Mind you, I am not against anything of that sort. I am in fact for it. But, I am a citizen of Bangalore, who is seeing blatant mis-use of tax payer's money for such lacklustre work from the civic body of a huge cosmopolitan city.    

 The questions that arise are ... What is the practical use of this track?  What is the growth in percentage of the number of people who have taken up cycling as a mode of transport in the city?  Should we not assess the quality of our road firsts before we kick start such projects? Does one size fit all? Will a 1.5 metre wide demarcation work on all roads? Many of the roads are less than 20 feet wide, should such streets also have the cycling tracks on them? 

I leave you with a video that we shot. Hope this clarifies my angst at the planning and execution of this project. The only hope is that BBMP pulls up its socks and does justice to this project. Just don't want the project to fall funded by the tax payer's money to fall by the way side just like the board that announces it proud inauguration details was found to be. 

Link to the video: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6U2cPXasSs&feature=youtu.be

Photos and video courtesy: Anitha Raj, my lovely wife.  :-)