THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Adding a major push to the city life, residents can pedal through a 7-km stretch dedicated for cyclists, without fearing the traffic for four days starting October 1. Also the underutilised and littered corners would be beautified.
These are being launched by the Smart City Thiruvananthapuram Ltd (SCTL) as part of a campaign of central government’s ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ to celebrate the 75th anniversary of India’s Independence. “It’s akin to viewing an area the way you have never seen it,” said Vinay Goyal, CEO of SCTL.
The cycle tracks to be set up on the main road will be painted and cordoned off using traffic cones. The width of the cycling corridor will be 1.2 metres. “The road width is very less in capital city. It is difficult to get a cycling corridor as in cities in the north. I come from the north India and have done a lot of cycling there. I thought we could use this event as a precursor to set a permanent track in future,” says Vinay Goyal.
The cycling track will be a loop covering the corporation main office, Vellayambalam, Kowdiar, Pattom and PMG. “A lot of cyclists use these stretches. The tracks will be painted and citizens can use them afterwards also. In future, we can implement a mechanism to control traffic for a few hours in the morning, so that cyclists will feel very safe riding,” he said.
Apart from the cycle tracks, other programmes include ‘Place Making’, ‘Temple Tanks’, and the inauguration of an ‘Integrated Command and Control Centre’. Under Place Making, underutilised spaces in the city are identified and beautified. This is being held across all the 100 wards. “We thought of increasing the citizens’ participation and so spread it across the 100 wards. You will see that with people participation, the city can be facelifted in a day or two,” says Vinay Goyal.