Hyderabad Bicycling Club's bike station to open tomorrow

Station to focus on IT crowd at Gachibowli

A bike station will be opened at Gachibowli on Sunday.

With 300 bicycles, the Hyderabad Bicycling Club (HBC)’s bike station is all set to be thrown open at Gachibowli on Sunday morning.

To be inaugurated by Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan, the station intends to focus on the large young professional workforce of the IT zone. A bigger bike station with 1,000 cycles is being considered close to the Hitec City MMTS station, Mr. Manohar added.

A bicycle rally with over 1,000 participants would also be flagged-off on the occasion.

GHMC Commissioner M.T. Krishna Babu at a press conference stressed the need to promote bicycle usage towards checking the rising levels of vehicular pollution. The core area already has high pollution levels with most key environmental parameters affected and in absence of appropriate measures, the peripheries too would face a similar situation, he said.

The civic body along with APIIC is working towards developing safe cycling tracks running to 60 kms with 30 bike stations covering major IT areas and efforts are on to motivate young IT professionals towards cycling. Talks are on with corporate offices and companies on having them offer some incentives to employees coming to work on cycles, Mr. Krishna Babu said.

APIIC Executive Director B. Rahul stressed the need to provide safe bicycling tracks to ensure more people take up the concept of cycle to work.

HBC chairman D.V. Manohar said the first bike station was started at Necklace Road and the new station at Gachibowli would have 300 bicycles provided by the Hyderabad Metro Rail (HMR).