Mumbai: Cycling enthusiasts living in Mumbai will soon have something to cheer. If all goes as planned, the Brihanamumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will unveil a cycling track from Mulund to Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road (JVLR) before Diwali.
The BMC and CycleKatta, a platform of cycling enthusiasts, plan to convert a 40-km stretch along the Tansa water pipelines into a dedicated corridor for cycling, jogging and walking.
Closed to 100 cyclists gathered to discuss issues in developing the corridor on Saturday, in the ninth such meeting on the project. The proposed cycling track will have 40 entry and exit points and will be connected to 19 railway, seven Metro and four monorail stations.
It will also have a Bollywood walk, a biodiversity corridor and a Mumbai books route. Starting in Mulund, the track will fork into two at Jogeshwari Vikhroli Link Road (JVLR), and run through Kurla, Bandra, Mahim and Antop Hill. The entire project will be taken up in phases. The first phase of the project will target a 4-5 km stretch along the pipeline from Mulund to JVLR.
“The onus is on us as citizens to make this a success,” said Pallavi Doke of EnviroDesigners, which is designing the track.
Some challenges
The ₹300-crore project, which was approved earlier this month by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, still faces a major problem of encroachment, as over half of the 40-km stretch is occupied by slum-dwellers. The Bombay High Court has since ordered the clearance of these encroachments.
The BMC has already identified more than 15,000 encroaching structures through an earlier survey conducted by the engineering department.
“The pilot project shall give us a clear understanding of the factors attached. The pilot project will connect Mulund to Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road, and shall be completed before Diwali and will be open for all cyclists,” Ms. Doke said.
Nitin Shukla of the BMC said the idea is to reduce the city’s carbon footprint, and also to secure the water pipelines by allowing people and cyclists to travel along them.
The BMC is also constructing a wall along the Tansa pipeline, which runs in two parts — from Mulund to Dharavi and from Ghatkopar to Sion — to protect the track from future encroachment.
Creating infrastructure
In his budget speech, Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta had also announced a cycling and pedestrian track between Bandra fort and the Bandra-Worli Sea Link. While this project comes under the BMC’s plan to beautify Mumbai’s forts, it is also a part of the civic body’s efforts to create infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists across.
The State government, on its part, plans to build similar tracks in Nagpur, Nashik, Pune, Solapur, Kolhapur, Amravati, Aurangabad, Jalgaon and Latur.