Those of you visiting this blog please also find time to visit Kolkata Cycle Samaj page on Faceook.
We have some really enthusiastic young activists who are fighting for a cause. If you are not able to join us directly, it will be nice to see your encouraging comments and/or constructive criticism.

Cycle Ramps

Providing smooth passage for motorized traffic is the effort of every city planner. In Kolkata, things are no different. As a result, underpasses and overbridges are being constructed.

Unfortunately none of the staircases of these overbridges or underpasses have a cycle ramp. It is therefore usual to find men and women, young and old, lifting up their bicycles, helplessly bent, as they climb these staircases. For those with heavy stuff like milk cans and gas cylinders, it often means several up and down trips. This goes on everyday, rain or sunshine. Sandals slip, ankles sprain, hips jolt. No one cares. The city planners inside the comfort of cars have a smooth ride.

For the old and disabled also,  a side-ramp on a staircase means a world of difference.

In this perspective, myself and Raghuda (Raghu Jana) visited the minister of labour of our state government with the plea to construct cycle ramps in the many underpasses across VIP Road and the overbridges connecting Salt Lake to VIP Road. After initial hesitation he at least kept the folio that contained pictures of cycle ramps.

A simple low-cost demand from the civic authorities. However, in this part of the world, no ministers ride bicycles. Neither do we have a bike-friendly traffic administration like London. Hence, the end result is anybody's guess!

I'm back after a long long time and I realize I've not done justice to this blog.

No doubt this has been an utter failure!

In the meanwhile Govt.s have changed (for the better since nothing could have been worse) and the powers that be have christened Kolkata to be the London of the East. But have any of you heard about cycling lanes yet?

Visit the site

http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Corporation/LGNL_Services/Transport_and_streets/Cycling/ if you have time and see how London is attempting to make the city more permeable to cyclists. And what are we doing? Imitating the gloss and the sheen without the essence!

I have finally suceeded to send the following e-mail to the Police Commissioner, Kolkata Police.

To
The Police Commissioner
Kolkata Police, Kolkata

Sir,
I am working at Science College, CU, and I regularly cycle to my workplace from Dumdum. This has on and off been my practice since 1982 when I first entered college.

I do accept the fact that this cosmopolitan city “poses unique challenges” to the police force, as your website declares, but that doesn't mean you should ban the greenest of vehicles, the innocent bicycle, from Calcutta streets. I regularly go about the city on my bicycle and it I fail to comprehend why cycling is being banned on most city roads. If you are at all concerned about our safety, then provide us with proper cycling lanes rather than opting for the short sighted measure of banning cycles from the city.

Since I live in the Dumdum area, I have to reach Shyambazar either via Belgachia bridge or the Tala bridge, both of which have recently been decorated with NO CYCLING signs. Fortunately cyclists and the traffic police ( in case there are any!) both turn a blind eye. An easy solution is to have one of the walkways on each of these bridges assigned as a cycling lane.

It is strange that when other cities are creating green lanes for cyclists, the KP is bent on eradicating cyclists from the city roads. If I am not wrong, there is a central govt. directive that I saw in the papers a few years back, which makes it mandatory for all roads under construction to have cycling lanes, and for all existing roads to provide separate lanes for people of my tribe, the cyclists of Kolkata. It pains me that Eastern Bypass is also out of bounds for cyclists. So is Central Avenue, Maulali and recently many other major roads of Kolkata. Who in KP is the master mind for this I don’t know, but its time that you look into the matter. I look forward to the day when Kolkata will also have cycling lanes on all major roads like the marvel city of Chandigarh.

Finally, why I cycle is that I find sense in using a form of transport that gives me my regular dose of excercise, I do not pollute the environment, I use no fuel which is not there to last forever and last but not the least, it takes less time to cycle from Dumdum Motijheel (my home) to Rajabazar Science College and I am not at the mercy of private bus conductors, traffic jams and errant police constables. I know atleast a hundred people who cycle for precisely the same reasons. I therefore appeal to you to look into the matter and treat my tribe (the cyclists of Kolkata) not like dirt on the face of Kolkata but as a segment of society that deeply values an ecofriendly mode of transport.

According to conservative estimates, the earth’s oil reserve will last at most three generations. Therefore, a little more than two generations hence, what will remain is the good old bicycle. If the myopic vision of our administrators remain, we will have to wait for that day when all red roads, green roads, flyovers and expressways will be ours with the remnants of KPs ‘NO CYCLING’ signs decorating the landscape as a tribute to a Quixotic police administration of a gone-by era!
With best regards,
A kolkata city cyclist

Its quite some time since my last post. This blog seems to be a flop as I find very few people interested in this city-cycling stuff. In the mean time more of Kolkata streets have become out-of-bounds for the kolkata city cyclists. No cycling signs are displayed on most arterial roads of the city, thanks to the short sightedness of our administrators! A united effort is required to stop this nuisance. How about organizing a cycle rally? All interested people please join hands. And be a member of this group so that we can fight for the cause together.

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and his bicycle

This years Nobel man, Indian born American working as a senior scientist in Cambridge, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan shares the prize with two others 'for studies on the structure and the function of the ribosome'. He does us proud for several reasons.

Of particular interest to this blog is the fact that he still cycles to work. We are told that his bicycle had a flat on that red letter day the prize was announced and that made him grumpy and doubt the news. We have also read that he is content with his bike and has no immediate plans for a car.

This is off-beat and therefore makes news. The modern day yardstick of success lies in the possession of the latest car, a bunglow with sprawling lawns and if there has to be a bicycle in the picture, its only for gym or pleasure riding.

Ramakrishnan inspite of having smacked in the face of all these is now one of the most successful men on earth!