GREEN DRIVE
City cyclists look to get on track……Pallavi Singh
City development authorities and citizen groups are working on making roads friendlier for cyclists in an effort to pull more people towards a mode of transport that is environment-friendly
City cyclists look to get on track……Pallavi Singh
City development authorities and citizen groups are working on making roads friendlier for cyclists in an effort to pull more people towards a mode of transport that is environment-friendly
Ranmal Singh Jhala is an angry man. At the mention of cycling, the graphic design graduate from National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, and an avowed environmental activist fu- riously proclaims that he is perhaps the only idiot in New Delhi’s upscale De- fence Colony who still cycles to move around town. Jhala’s indignation takes root in the very shape the national capital has taken over the years: bursting traffic on its streets fuelled by sale of almost a thousand private vehicles and nearly 146 million traffic violations every day, an average of 7,000 accidents annually and rising pollution levels.
Fifty years ago when Jhala began cycl- ing to his school as a seven-year-old, he says there were hardly any cars on the roads and women and children would peddle without fear. Today, Jhala’s cycl- ing experience is marred by what he calls criminal encroachment of urban space.
We have all sorts of vehicles on cycle tracks. People park cars there, vendors set up stalls. We are basically an uncivilized society which prioritizes cars, he says, adding, No one, none in the government, urban planning or Parliament thinks about the common man, people who walk and cycle, before making those policies that favour the motorists.