Commute

Arshel Akhter, the newly-elected Bicycle Mayor of Guwahati, discovered his love for cycling as he explored his city on two wheels. Along with a healthy lifestyle, the software developer-turned-banker-turned-stocks investor found that with cycling came a supportive and active community of enthusiasts from across all professions and ages. Now his mission is to expand this community to include not just hobbyists but people across all walks of life as he works to invigorate cycling in his city. Arshel envisages a future where the coming generation will readily take to cycling without any apprehensions that prevail currently. “We need more cycling…

A passionate environmentalist and cyclist who has earned the nickname ‘Go Green Rao’ for his years of activism, another deeply inspired by the French culture of cycling and its implications for urban health, a sustainable mobility activist working with NGOs on various public transport campaigns, a corporate executive who quit his job to embark on a solo cycling tour across India, a cyclist inspired by the tales of his grandfather, and a 15-year-old student planning to use his love for cycling to generate greater awareness for social causes -- these six people are vying for a title that is a…

Calling all avid cyclists who believe cycling makes cities safer, better, cleaner and happier. Do you have what it takes to join the league of Bicycle Mayors across the globe and transform transportation in Bengaluru? The initiative, coordinated by ESAF, an NGO, a part of the Bengaluru Coalition for Open Streets (BCOS) will nominate a Bicycle Mayor in Bengaluru to evangelise cycling and put cycling on the city’s agenda. It is a voluntary position for a period of two years. The Bicycle Mayor is the public face of cycling in the city, and brings different stakeholders - both citizens, civil…

To provide seamless movement of vehicles at toll plazas, FASTag was launched  in the year 2014. The FASTag is a passive RFID tag affixed at the centre of the windscreen of vehicles. Vehicles can drive through the FASTag lanes at toll plazas after recharging their Tag accounts and the toll amount will be automatically deducted from the account. The rules made in 2014  also contained a provision that any non-FASTag vehicle entering the dedicated FASTag lane would have to pay two times the toll amount, i.e., 100% penalty. The progress of FASTag The government has now made it mandatory  for all vehicles manufactured or sold after…

For Tinku Biswas, the idea of attending a three-day training workshop in an IIT was like a dream. No, Tinku is not an engineer, though she is a sort of a trailblazer in her own way, being a rare woman owner and manager of a motor training school on the outskirts of Kolkata city. But she was not going to the premier technology institute for any tech training. Tinku was chosen to attend a workshop conducted for driving school owners and trainers as part of a programme jointly initiated by the Transport Department of the Government of West Bengal and…

Bengaluru is awaiting the release of Mater Plan 2031 (RMP 2031), after the draft master plan was closed to comments in January 2018. Many articles in the print media have discussed the highlights of the plan’s proposals related to transportation, housing, zonal regulations and other aspects, and provided a critique of the development strategies of the plan from various perspectives. Civil society groups and the media have made efforts to help citizens grapple with the complex contents of the plan, with the intent of explaining how to read and understand the plan in a bite-sized manner, and comment on it…

Pictures of the smoke-ridden Indian capital city with its choking pollution levels and roads chock-a-block with vehicles are the stuff of front page news every other day, but now Delhi's new parking policy approved by Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal is expected to jointly address both the congestion and the pollution to some extent. The Parking Management Area Plan (PMAP), which came into effect in the last week of February, proposes a number of variable charges for residential and commercial areas; these charges are envisioned to impact the demand for parking space in Delhi, and in turn influence the usage of personal vehicles. However,…

In a conversation with a colleague on the draft Revised Master Plan 2031, I was told that councilors of the BBMP (of the 198, less than thirty sat in on a presentation on the Draft RMP 2031) are convinced that the Master Plan is not a workable plan. When probed further, I was told that many councilors brought up issues that are technically not the concern/ mandate of the Master Plan. For instance, some mentioned that roads in their wards were in a bad condition. Others mentioned efficacy of water supply. Many others believe that the tool of Transfer of…

Every morning hundreds of tempo travellers traverse IT corridor routes including Outer Ring Road and Hosur Road in Bengaluru. On their way to picking up their customers’ employees, they also ferry commuters waiting on the way for public transport, illegally of course. It is no secret that there are many private buses too plying from K.R. Market or Anand Rao Circle, to the outskirts. Some of them have just a contract carriages license, and some service organisations. A colleague of mine reports college buses plying in the evening near Race Course Road, carrying regular passengers to pre-defined destinations within the…

In Part 1 of this series, Citizen Matters had talked about carpooling startups in various cities and how people are availing these facilities. Despite the emergence of a number of players in the field, however, there are various challenges that these companies are grappling with. The biggest challenge carpooling entrepreneurs face is that the concept itself is not yet so popular in India. Concerns about privacy and security are common, so is the general feeling of discomfort in travelling in a stranger’s car. Hence a large part of these entrepreneur’s efforts are invested in popularising the concept and getting the support of…