To promote bicycle riding, the Tiruchi Corporation has embarked upon a plan to identify dedicated bicycle lanes in the city.
As part of the plan, Minister for Tourism Vellamandi Natarajan, Minister for Backward Classes and Minority Welfare S. Valarmathi along with Collector S. Sivarasu, Commissioner of Police, J. Loganathan and Corporation Commissioner S. Sivasubramanian pedalled on bicycles along arterial roads on Saturday.
Christened India Cycles4, the Minister and the officials, followed by volunteers, rode bicycles with the intent of impressing upon the public the need for avoiding motorised transports as much as possible. To understand the response of people on switching back to bicycles, the civic body in association with the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) has carried out a survey to find out the interest of people on riding bicycles. About 5,000 people responded to the survey. Nearly 88% of them had answered that they knew bicycling. Eighty percentage of them further stated that they would use bicycles regularly if there were designated lanes for them.
In the next stage, it has begun “Handlebar Survey” among the people to sort out the difficulties faced by cyclists. The residents of Tiruchi can register their experience. They can point out the difficulties such as the condition of roads, traffic and suggestions to set up infrastructure for cyclists. Based on the findings, the ITDP will submit a report to the Corporation so as to take immediate steps to create basic infrastructure for cycle riders.
T.D. Achuthan, of ITDP, said that the idea was to create temporary infrastructure for bicycle riders within the second week of December. It would enable interested persons to use bicycles to visit various places instead of opting for motor transports.
The next stage would be to set up permanent and dedicated lanes for bicycle riders. The Corporation could create infrastructure by tapping funds from the smart city initiative.
