Can wereallyembracecyclingas a wayof life?

 

 

 

I had gone to Berlin, Germany for participating at Berlin Marathon - a World Marathon Major. European countries are known to provide the best cycling and pedestrian infrastructure across the world. Germany is no different and the city of Berlin host for Berlin Marathon presented me multiple opportunities to use public transport for my day-to-day travel and sight seeing across the city.

 

The Entire backbone of Public Transport is based on ease of cycling and walking across the city infrastructure. Using Google Maps and Public Transport one can reach any nook and corner of the city with ease.

 

One can buy Day Pass for Public Transport and travel as much as one wants across all the buses, metro trains and trams across the city. One of the most striking features of every Bus Station and Metro Train Station is facility of parking the cycle safely. People cycle from work or home to these metro or bus stations and very conveniently park their cycles and lock them and proceed to their bus or metro train.

 

There is separate marked lane for cycling almost on all the major roads of the city. In this lane, priority is given to the cyclist. Cars can also use this lane provided there is no cyclist using that particular stretch of road at that time. Cycling is a way of life for all most all the citizens of the city.

 

The infrastructure is planned in such a way that it is very easy to use cycle for commuting to bus or train stations or going to nearby markets.Imet many Indians in Berlin living for many years but they don’t need to ownacar or motorcycle, they can easily manage using public transport to travel for work or leisure.

 

When public transport system is very strong, neat and clean and works on time all the time, who needs a motorcycle or car for dayto-day transport.

 

All the traffic signals have red and green signals for cyclist as well as for pedestrians.Ihardly found any traffic violations or red signal jumping in a busy city like Berlin, Capital of Germany. The Day Pass for Public Transport is extremely cheap around 10 Euro (Rs 1000), which is nothing in front of the amount of travel one can do in a day across all the bus, tram and train services. If you use private cab services for local transport it will cost you 300 to 400 Euro per day (Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000).

 

Hence, using public transport is very cheap and convenient. There is bus or metro train every5mins or 10 mins towards a particular destination. Similarly, I travelled to Munich, which is financial capital of Germany and also home to headquarters of famous car maker BMW. I was surprised to see even better cycling and pedestrian infrastructure in the city of Munich. At many bus and metro train stations I could see twostoried cycling parking stands. People for all walks of life rich or not so rich use cycle as a primary means of transport.

 

I also visited the Headquarters and Factory of BMW cars, to my surprise most of the workers and staff at BMW headquarters use cycle to come to their workplace. I could see massive parking space for cycles at BMW Headquarters; it shows the inclusiveness of a car company like BMW promoting usage of cycle for its own staff. Similarly to Berlin, traveling in Munch is very easy using public transport. EverydayIused to make a list of places to visit and use public transport for my entire travel throughout the day.

 

One can even go as far as 30 to 40 km out of the city using public transport. The major principle of why people use cycle and Public Transport as a main mode of travel within the city is because it is easy to use, healthy to use and cheap to use. They have made the right choice as the easy choice.

 

The most important question whether Indian cities can embrace such way of transport is a very big question. One of the most important factor, there is no political will to promote cycling as a major mode of transport in our country. Cycling and person on cycle is seen as symbol of poverty or unsuccessful life in our country.

 

Most of the major metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai are too crowded with motorcycles and cars that there is no safe space for a person on cycle. Too much congestion, pollution and lack of safety on roads is making cycling one of the hardest things to pursue in metro cities.

 

The recent changes in GST taxes also are not making promotion of cycling easy. Due to reduction of GST on cars and motorcycles in India, the Government is promoting more sales of motorcycles, two-wheelers and cars. More sales of private vehicles will lead to more congestion and more pollution in Indian cities in coming years.

 

The private transport is being made more cheaper and very less emphasis on creating world class public transport system. The only major hope for promotion of cycling and cycling culture in India is its Tier II and Tier III cities. These smaller cities of India are far less congested and less polluted.

 

Cycling can be done with ease and safety in these cities. With right policies and political will these smaller cities can adopt cycling culture like European cities. ■