Where is the cycling - lane in jayanagar ? :-(

[Rahul S]

Hi, 

I was really excited to know that jayanagar had got it's cycling lane. But when i actually ventured on my bike i could hardly find any place, with cars parked right across the cycling lanes. I felt that it would have been better if they would have made the lanes on the foot-paths, cyclists and pedestrians have better understanding than the insensitive four-wheeler owners who get away with parking violations. I've heard from people who live abroad that some areas had cycling strips along the foot path , would that have been a better idea ?

- Rahul 

[Nagaraj mr]

Should be hidden somewhere in car parking . 

- Rahul 

--
biking conversations on the world famous "Bangalore Bikers Club" :)
 
are you a part of the bicycle racing scene?
Visit www.bangalorebicyclechampionships.com for more details
 
 

--
hash

[Rahul S]

I really hope they find a solution for this .

[soumya pm]

Exactly same question for me also...Happened to cycle around jayanagar area yesterday hoping to see the cycling lanes...but unfortunately all the lanes where filled with cars and bikes and used as parking area.not a single lane was free.If this is the condition it was better not having it at all :(

[deepakvrao]

And when I had predicted this, a few guys jumped on me saying that I am just a pessimist, only venting here etc. 

Cycling lanes will NEVER work in India. Waste of our money trying to implement this.

Of course the politicians and contractors have all made some money of course, and that is the reason they probably agreed to it.

On Monday, October 1, 2012 6:43:20 PM UTC+5:30, Kumbla Uday wrote:

Exactly felt the same here too. It is not only the parking of cars and bikes, but the whole lane is filled with drain man hole covers, shoulders of the roads which is highly dangerous if someone swipes you off the road and potholes where one needs to go around them making the riding highly dangerous. In some places, there are street light poles jutting out and the lane becomes as small as a 6 inch rather than the mentioned 6 feet in the newspapers.

[pradeep naidu]

Just now i saw one of the cycling lanes(death trap)... Dammn i shld have taken the pic... There was a 4 feet deep and atleast 3 feet wide ditch on the middle of the so called cycling lane...

On 1 Oct 2012 20:32, "deepakvrao" <deepa...@gmail.com> wrote:

And when I had predicted this, a few guys jumped on me saying that I am just a pessimist, only venting here etc. 

Cycling lanes will NEVER work in India. Waste of our money trying to implement this.

Of course the politicians and contractors have all made some money of course, and that is the reason they probably agreed to it.

On Monday, October 1, 2012 6:43:20 PM UTC+5:30, Kumbla Uday wrote:
>

> Exactly felt the same here ...

--
biking conversations on the world famous "Bangalore Bikers Club" :)
 

are you a part of the bi...

[Chidambaran Subramanian]

To be fair to the authorities, they don't single out Cycling lanes in
digging deep trenches :)

[pradeep naidu]

Ya agree atleast they shld think of closing it when they would have seen it while marking the cycling lanes.. Tht trench looked very old to me.. concrete or stone slabs were used to build it.

On 1 Oct 2012 22:36, "Chidambaran Subramanian" <chi...@gmail.com> wrote:

To be fair to the authorities, they don't single out Cycling lanes in
digging deep trenches :)

On Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 9:18 PM, pradeep naidu <pradee...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Just now i saw one...

> are you a part of the bicycle racing scene?

> Visit www.bangalorebicyclechampionships.com for more...

[KP]

I think I posted this before, but whoever thinks cycling lanes will do any good to the city in India is welcomed to come to Pune and have a look. They are here for almost a decade now and this city would be better off without them.

check this http://onourowntwowheels.com/tag/pune/

I was at one point of time quite hopeful about separate cycling tracks, but coming to Pune has changed my opinion.

PS : Same is true for BRT in Pune. Its horrible. The only thing it does in increase the chances of accidents.

--

biking conversations on the world famous "Bangalore Bikers Club" :)
 

are you a part of the bicycle racing scene?

Visit www.bangalorebicyclechampionships.com for more details
 
 

[Chidambaran Subramanian]

I differ , the problem is not in the concept but in the implementation.

The Pune lanes are designed to fail because they are all on highways
or main roads.
The Jayanagar ones, on paper , at least are ideal because they are in
a residential location with shopping amenities, so there is a real
need for somebody to go 2-3 km and buy something, they can do that on
a cycle. It does not cater to a long distance cyclist. The folks who
easily do 20-30km don't need cycling lanes, they can and will manage.
It is the person who can cycle a few km and would prefer to do so if
safety were to be assured , that would avail of the Jayanagar cycling
lanes. Folks like kids, housewifes who have to go for a quick errand ,
etc.

The issue with the BRT are the absurd right turns , that is a
downright brain-dead implementation. There have been successful
exclusive bus lanes in many places. I've seen the ones at Ottawa,
Canada and wondered why we can't do something like that.

Regards
Chiddu

[Deepak Rao]

No one said the concept was bad. Just that it can never be implemented correctly in India.

Therefore completely useless and a total waste of money.

[Shree Kumar]

IMO, what is needed in this context is some information about what would constitute "success" for this project. Are there any ways of measuring success in place ? (I don't think so!) Murali & others, do you have anything to say about this ?

Without that, most folks will say it's a failure -- and that's because they will have their own objectives for the bike lane :)

-- Shree
http://www.shreekumar.in/

On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 12:12 PM, Deepak Rao <dee...@rashminursinghome.com> wrote:

No one said the concept was bad. Just that it can never be implemented correctly in India.

Therefore completely useless and a total waste of money.

--

[Deepak Rao]

Success definition? Simple. Usable bike lanes. Nothing complicated there.

[Shree Kumar]

On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 12:31 PM, Deepak Rao <dee...@rashminursinghome.com> wrote:

Success definition? Simple. Usable bike lanes. Nothing complicated there.

It is complicated  - devil is in the details. What defines usable ? Usable for and by whom ? For how many people ? Over what duration of time will success be measured ?

I am not saying it's incorrect to have an opinion on the project (that's everyone's right :) ) - all I'm saying is that it's too soon to see any difference.

[KP]

Chidu - I agree with you in total. I have said sometime before; I have no complaints about the design of bike lanes in Pune. Its more or less fine. Even if they are on the main roads, they are usually divided by a strip of mud/bushes etc with dividers of about half to one meter width; a little elevated from rest of the road. Though there are lots of patches which have manholes, sudden broken concrete blocks, little maintenance can do good. But still, design is more or less fine.

Its their usage that sucks. Many times I have seen cops riding their motorbikes on it. What hope can it give to the rest of the vehicle commuters !!

BRT in Pune is absurd and ridiculous at its best. The BRT lanes are used by everyone; passenger cars, state transport buses, bikes, corporation garbage vans.. everyone. In my initial days in Pune I had no idea that they were BRT lanes looking at their use, and sometimes rode my motorcycle on them. Only later that I realised what they were and stopped doing it.
I doubt how many commuters in Pune actually have an idea what BRT lanes are.

But success stories in India do exist. Ahmadabad has wonderfully engineered and implemented BRT system. But again these stories are rare in India.

[deepakvrao]

Forget the 'details'. Form what I have seen, it is not cycle-able at all. If you cannot cycle in a cycling lane, it is a failure. Simple. If they manage to get the lanes cleared I will be amazed.

[Shree Kumar]

Sure sure - I'll be surprised too if the lanes can be cleared. And in many cases there are trees in the way too - hmmm....

At the moment there's no difference... lanes are painted on the existing road. Some wide humps have been made, and these have made it slightly easier to cross the road at some points (that's also part of this project, btw -- something that most folks aren't aware of - and its quite useful). But that's about it. I am least bothered by the traffic anyway and wouldn't expect myself to see much of a difference - unless there was some traffic segregation - which would be hard to achieve. But I remain hopeful that something better will come out of this.

[Rahul S]

Probably a strip along the walkers's path on the foot-paths should be provided wherever possible. I know, not many localities have broad foot-paths and roads, but a few areas and roads in Bangalore can be seen as bicycling zones. It is unrealistic to imagine all roads to have cycling lanes, Bangalore was never planned for this kinda population explosion , so we need to figure out a way around a lot of things as the root of this problem goes back in time. We need to set a lot of wrong plans right. Example of Bad planning , maybe seen as delibrate bad planning :

1. Adayar Anand bhavan in 5th block Jayanagar, that has come up recently, has a party hall, but the owner not need to provide a basement parking for the customers ? Isn't that mandatory for such a huge seating capacity ? Well, where do the people who visit this place park their vehicles? No marks for guessing where they park their vehicles. It's on my bicycle lane.

This is just one of the many  establishments that break the rules and cause trouble for  cyclists, pedestrians and everyone in general.

The fault doesn't lie in the system, the fault lies in not following the rules that the syatem lays down.

We'll never have cycling lanes till such uncivilized people/establishments exist.

[Sreepathi Pai]

On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 7:36 AM, Chidambaran Subramanian
<chi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The issue with the BRT are the absurd right turns , that is a
> downright brain-dead implementation. There have been successful
> exclusive bus lanes in many places. I've seen the ones at Ottawa,
> Canada and wondered why we can't do something like that.

We have apparently, in Ahmedabad.

Heard it from the guy who designed BRT in Brazil. Pune and Delhi
didn't even qualify as a BRT according to him.

--
Sreepathi Pai

[KP]

BRT is too far-fetched. in pune they dont even qualify as roads !!
it just sucks to see the your hard earned money,  that you honestly paid as tax, gets wasted like this !!