MCG and GMDA to construct cycle tracks from HCC to Galleria Market and Vyapar Kendra

The Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) and the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) will construct two separate cycle tracks from Huda City Centre

The Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) and the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) will construct two separate cycle tracks from Huda City Centre (HCC) towards Galleria Market and Vyapar Kendra. This was announced by MCG commissioner Vinay Pratap Singh during a Raahgiri Day event held at the Netaji Subhash Marg on Saturday.

HT Image

Singh said that the construction of the cycle tracks on these two stretches, which run parallel to each other, will commence from this month itself. Overall, 25 kilometres of cycle tracks will be built across the city.

The first route — a three-kilometre-long stretch between HCC and Galleria Market in DLF-4 — will be built along the MF Husain Marg and Hamilton Court Road while the second route — a two-kilometre-long, yet-to-be-named stretch — will be built towards Vyapar Kendra in Sushant Lok-1.

Although the Hamilton Court Road and the two-kilometre-long stretch are both one-way for motorists, MCG and GMDA will build cycle tracks on both sides of these stretches.Both these stretches would end just before the points where Golf Course Road (GCR) starts.GMDA has plans for constructing cycle tracks along GCR as well.

Following the Raahgiri event, Singh along with senior MCG and GMDA officials also conducted a site inspection of both these stretches on cycles.

“It was important to conduct a site inspection, along with MCG and GMDA officials, as it gave us a first-hand experience about the problems faced by cyclists on these two stretches on a daily basis. We want to incorporate the lessons learnt from this experience while designing these two cycle tracks. We went ahead with this project only after receiving adequate feedback and observations from our first pilot project along Netaji Subhash Marg,” said Singh.

Apart from the residential areas of Sushant Lok-1, DLF-4, and the two markets, the two stretches also provide connectivity between the Golf Course Road and Gurgaon-Faridabad Road to commuters travelling towards HCC and Mehrauli-Gurgaon (MG) Road and vice versa, as a result of which there is constantly a high volume of traffic on both of them.

Last month, the city’s first cycle track was opened to the public on a 10-kilometre stretch between HCC and Subhash Chowk along Netaji Subhash Marg.

Regarding the construction of the other cycle tracks across the city, an MCG official privy to the matter said that after these two stretches, the MCG and GMDA are planning on constructing cycle tracks along the 2.5-kilometre St Thomas Marg, between Kanhai crossing and Genpact Chowk.

Incidentally, MCG has constructed cycle tracks along St Thomas Marg even before. During its green Raahgiri initiative, the MCG had built cycle tracks using bollards along the stretch in February 2016. However, just a month later, most of the bollards were broken and the track started to be used by motorists and auto-rickshaws.

Sarika Panda Bhatt, co-founder of Raahgiri, a body promoting non-motorised forms of transport said that 12-15% of commuters use cycle as a mode of daily transport by choice and, hence, building cycle tracks along major roads is of paramount importance.

“Thousands of residents risk their lives daily by cycling on Gurugram roads. As such, roads need to be accordingly re-engineered. By making roads cycle-friendly, more people can opt to use this as a mode of transport, thereby reducing air pollution levels as well,” said Bhatt.