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Solution to hazards faced by bicycle riders

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murali772 - 14 January, 2013 | Bangalore | cycling | Road Works | Citizen Reports | cycle infrastructure | footpaths

I took a bicycle ride this past Sunday morning to Cubbon park and back. Starting from my residence in S T Bed layout, I went past Maharaja jn, Sony-World jn, down the Games Village rd, Austin town, Richmend rd, Lavelle rd, Vittal Mallya rd, and on to Cubbon Park. On the return, I took the St Mark's rd, Residency rd, MG rd, Trinity jn, Domlur, IRR, and back home.

What was noticeable almost all though (including the IRR - where the picture is taken) was the poor condition of the roads, specifically on the left side, which is the designated space for cyclists, as also for pedestrians, where the footpaths don't exist (like on Lavelle rd) or they have been taken over by all kinds of obstructions. The poor road conditions on the left side can be attributed largely to the poor quality of restoration work after the roads have been dug up for laying of utility lines.

Now, cycling calling for a delicate balancing act, the rider invariably tries to swerve around these bad patches, which, if the driver of say a VOLVO coming behind, is not careful about, can lead to disastrous consequences. Well, with sharpness of my senses limited by age, I did not want to take too many chances, leading invariably to my braking to a halt in such situations, and wheeling the bicycle past the obstacles.

Thinking about it, I am now proposing that all utility lines be laid in the middle of the carriage-way, where, even if the restoration work is done poorly, the 4-wheeler riders are not faced with any safety issues. They will have to slow down a bit; that's all. And, since these 4-wheeler riders will include even the chauffeur-driven Neta's and Babu's, perhaps, the need for better and faster restoration work will receive their attention too.

Muralidhar Rao

COMMENTS

Other irritants for Bicycle riders

Bangalore is Mine - 14 January, 2013 - 15:07

Hi,

I completely agree with Mr. Murali's suggestion. Some months back, I had started to travel to office in my cycle (ST.Bed to ORR-Belandur). However, I have stopped it now.

Three reasons for the same were:

  1. Bad roads (as outined by Murali)
  2. Bad street lighting (dangerous to drive post 6 P.M, despite placing a good headlight to the cycle)
  3. High beam usage by vehicles driving from opposite side. It nearly blinds you.

Bicycle riding should be an invigorating exercise. But the above irritants only make the rider get worked up and tired at the end of ride.

Not only the cycle case, but any slow moving 2-wheeler

dvsquare - 14 January, 2013 - 16:05

I would say, its not only the case with cycle or pedestrains.

Motorists, specially slow moving 2-wheelers also face the same problem, because all these obstructing and protruding makes rider swerve and may get imbalanced and risk their life.

Road is not motorable on the left side because of the various reasons -

(1) Not restoration of road after destruction

(2) Sand/debris deposited on the leftmost side of the road

(3) Illegally parked vehicles.

Because of above reasons, now a days, rightmost lane or rightmost corner is becoming the safe place to drive for slow moving cyclists, bike-riders, and its increasing. You can experience this while driving on any of the bangalore roads, you will agree with me.

BBMP has to take up road-restoration work, fixing of pot-holes properly, no protruding manhole covers or anything like that, illegally parked vehicles, all these have to done at the highest priority before sanctioning anything for the new work, then only it makes sense, otherwise we will be loosing lives of our dear and near one like this.

Deepak

Indeed a really good effort

srinidhi - 14 January, 2013 - 16:18

Indeed a really good effort from your end to make it all the way Murali Sir..coming to the points you mention..

About bad roads, the utility lines needs to be to the sides of the street and not towards the centre of it just because its not practical to do it..when ever there is maintenance the whole road would need to get dug up and its bound to create more mess..just because the different road agencies never work well together and there will be cost contraints too..

Instead having good road planning, which includes ducts for cables and dedicated lines for other utilities should help in having better cycle friendly roads..also these roads need to be white topped..tendersure has planned all this and only wish they could have used the 200 crores alloted in the last budjet to relay MG road as a pilot!

About the points from the above reply..would kindly request not to stop cycling..the bad roads and streetlights can be taken care of by getting to the local BBMP office or the corporator..Mr Manivannan from BESCOM who is on Praja as well as FB can address the lights issues..about bright lights from cars..glasses with polarizers should help easy!

 

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