Revisit Bicycling enablement approach?

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After sitting thru lessons from the Jayanagar cycle lanes rollout, the various DPR's that have been presented for different areas, polls by Praja both online & offline during mobilicity & practical experience riding on Bangalore streets we could be doing this a lot more effectively.

It has been established that the primary concern of safety & secutiry in a bad driving culture need both physically seperated lanes for NMT & a culture of sharing the road by motorized vehicles with Non motorized vehicles. People do 3 types of cycling broadly. Local trips to shop or reach a destination within the area, long distance or inter area/layout commute to work & ride for health/sport/leisure into/across the city & outside of city.

Because of the mixed use nature of the city I have found that local destinations & shopping is a start stop travel including crossing the roads quite frequently pushing the cycle to reach shops on either side of the road. If it is a destination like school  or a mall then I get to park inside. These movements can facilitated by making the road a shared space with both MT & NMT via various signboards & if needed painted lanes like jayanagar or other options discussed elsewhere on this site.

In the other 2 cases where longer rides are required it would be more useful to make physically seperated contra flow NMT tracks along main roads across city. We could choose the 11 or more raidal arterials going out ot the city & plan NMT lanes all the way to the ORR & beyond with cross connection tracks laid along ORR, a track between ORR & CBD called core ring track & then the CBD where all the radial arterial tracks meet. Kind of mimicking the Big 10 & the circle routes/HOHO route for NMT. So people can cross over to the different radial arterials at 3 different points, at ORR, core track & CBD tracks.

The radial arterial tracks & the ring tracks become the bicycling & NMT highways. All local area routes can then connect to their nearest radial arterial or circular tracks at the various points to provide connectivity to the other areas. Bottom line, what we are missing in the pursuit towards the network is a backbone master plan. Its time we drew up the backbone & allowed the various plans to connect to this backbone. What say?

Comments

approach..

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As I understand your proposal, I guess the NMT enablement can be broadly classified as the below 4 points:
  • 11 or more raidal arterials going out ot the city, all the way to the ORR
  • Cross connection tracks laid along ORR,
  • Tracks between ORR & CBD called core ring track
  • CBD where all the radial arterial tracks meet

I am not sure of how to approach the first point as the arterials are usually maintained by NHAI. However the other 3 mostly comes under the BDA/BBMP jurisdiction and we can work at getting the plans for them drawn up.

About addressing the route all along the ORR, there is a plan to do a BRT on the route..guess it would not be too difficult to club the NMT plan along with it too..because BRT cannot be seen in isolation as it will need pedestrians too to get to the busses

About the last point on CBD, I think its time to get the TenderSure to work..one implementation and we will be ready with what needs to be done for the 3rd point above, connecting the ORR to CBD

I think its high time we go on the overdrive for thsi..

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Correct understanding

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Sri, your understanding on the backbone is correct. Only some of these 11 radial arterials are owned by NHAI that too beyond ORR. Tendersure will take care of the CBD tracks if done properly, we have to ensure all radial tracks merge into the CBD tracks & connect one another within the CBD, so one can arrive into the city on one radial arterial track & go away from the city on any of the other 10 arterials from there to cross the city. He can also choose to cycle across one of the rings (outer & core) to avoid entering the city.

we talked this during our morning meet today

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Sathya - das/vvr/sri/myself talked this today morning. you are right, a picture of larger network is needed. however, we trying to draw the backbone for full city may be ambitious. We could take up an area, say east or north bangalore, and draw two sets of networks - one for the loca trips, and other for the larger network bits crossing through the area.

cycles for economic and social freedom?!

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Nice article on the simple bicycle which is changing lives around India especially here in Bihar.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/can-the-ride-take-them-further/article5180138.ece

As they say, when a man is educated, he can change his family but When you educate a girl, she’ll change the world!

More power to them!

Nice read

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When you educate a girl, she’ll change the world!

Very fine article & the quote above is also very true.

Byappanahalli Metro Terminus towards Whitefield and ORR

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Byappanahalli Metro Terminus is the place where we need better NMT to connect towards ITPL and ORR. Challenge is the KR Puram Hanging Bridge which is totally messy.

For travelling towards Outer Ring Road and  for the companies in Doddanekundi, Marathahalli , we have a shortcut route via Kaggadasapura where buses and cars cannot pass through. Even two wheelers have to struggle. If a plan is drawn for bicycling around the IT areas to connect to Metro station for last mile, it would not only increase Metro ridership, also save time for commuters.

People working in Bagmane Tech Park will also be benefitted with a bicycle rental scheme is started in Byappanahalli Metro Terminal with safe bicycle tracks around it.

 

available today

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bicycle rental's are already available at byp stn..this is at the entrance on the OMR side..the only problem is they do not have rental stations at any of the other destinations you mention..BTP etc so that the cycles can be dropped off after the ride..

So this is not popular yet and is still not an option for last mile!