We cannot have a collective impact until all cycling lanes are connected: Bengaluru’s ‘Bicycle Mayor’ Sathya Sankaran

Sathya Sankaran receiving Bicycle Mayor title from Jaap Werner, Consul General of Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

As traffic conditions in Bangalore worsened, civic activist Sathya Sankaran decided to commute to work on a bicycle instead of driving a car. Also known as Bengaluru’s Bicycle Mayor, Sankaran has been active in promoting cycling awareness for over a decade. Speaking to Moneycontrol, he explained how the Bengaluru cycling community has evolved over the years.

It started 12 years ago

In 2010, the then 35-year-old Sankaran took up cycling for health purposes. Working in an IT company in Bengaluru, he preferred cycling to work rather than driving a car. “During that time, I had already cycled across Europe and was slowly understanding the health benefits it entails,” Sankaran said. “After I came back to India in 2010, I wanted to make more people aware of cycling’s benefits, and that's when it all started,” he added.

In the same year, Sankaran joined the Non-Motorized Transport Taskforce under the Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT). “We were measuring roads and footpaths across Bengaluru for cycle lanes,” Sankaran said. For the next few years, he worked on connecting people and spreading awareness about cycling. Sankaran claims he started Cycling Day, India’s first open street programme, in October 2013.

The cycling community in Bangalore (Credit: Sathya)

Reclaiming the streets

Once a month, each cycling community across Bengaluru chose a road and blocked it. Then people would hoist banners on cycling campaigns and cycle along the road. “That's like reclaiming the streets,” Sankaran said. “We would submit a request to DULT and claim the space. I believe neighbourhood streets should be lively and not just crammed with cars. The Cycling Day that we started went on for the next five years until the pandemic halted it. And to date, it has empowered a lot of people,” he added.

Sankaran believes that Cycling Day was a major catalyst in mobilising a movement — one that encouraged more people to take up cycling. And in hindsight, it gave him the confidence to apply for the position of Bicycle Mayor.

The first Bicycle Mayor in the city

Sankaran was introduced to BYCS, an Amsterdam-based NGO that promotes cycling awareness across the globe. The non-profit appoints Bicycle Mayors throughout the world to facilitate a growing change for a safer and greener planet.

"After my friends introduced me to the NGO, I applied for the Bicycle Mayor title. During that time, I was working on several campaigns, including a sustainable suburban railway campaign. And in 2017, when I was awarded the title of Bicycle Mayor, it helped to make a lot of difference,” he said.

Bicycle Mayors across the globe are changemakers — the “human face and voice of cycling." Later, Sankaran started an NGO, Council for Active Mobility (CFAM) to transform Bengaluru into a healthy and sustainable city.

“We did several programmes like Cycle to Work and 15 Minutes City that caused more and more people to come together to reclaim the space that belongs to us,” Sankaran said.

After the pandemic commenced, the campaigns halted. However, the CFAM members started delivering food and medicine supplies on bicycles. “We were most active during the first and the second wave. Starting from Bengaluru, we had made 725 rides across 12 cities delivering supplies to the people. This led to more people joining us and that’s when we decided to form ward councillors across the city,” Sankaran said.

Today, CFAM has 35 ward councillors working across Bengaluru. The councillors are each tasked with several campaigns aimed at making people aware of cycling and its benefits. In 2022, the CFAM team has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for its crusading work during the pandemic.

Sathya Sankaran receiving Bicycle Mayor title from Jaap Werner, Consul General of Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (Credit: Sathya)

Cycling lanes have been in an experiment for too long

A Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) drafted by DULT in 2020 is the first time the state government took the initiative to build cycling tracks across the city. The CMP suggests three phases to complete the tracks. It intends to build 50 km of cycling tracks in Phase 1, 250 km in Phase 2 and 300 km in Phase 3. The entire plan will allocate Rs 900 crore in building the tracks.

Sankaran says cycling tracks have been an experiment for a long time. “Our first experiment was in 2013 when we constructed the cycling lane in Jayanagar. It was a complete failure. We had just painted a footpath and turned it into a cycling track. Slowly, with time we learned and revisited the track designs,” he said.

Sankaran believes a cycling track should be separated from the road, elevated and safeguarded with bollards. “Isn't that what reclaiming space means?" he asked.

A network of cycling tracks is slowly being built throughout the city. However, several flaws in design and planning continue to attract criticism from cyclists and activists across the city. Amid the design flaws, the safety of the cyclists inside the lanes has been one of the major concerns.

At least two cyclists have met with an accident within the last month. In 2020, according to the Karnataka Police Department, there were 238 cycling accidents, including 73 deaths. Most cyclists today prefer to cycle outside the lanes or on the city’s outskirts.

Reclaiming the streets with cycles (Credit: Sathya)

“We have done 10 years of the campaigns, and a lot of people want to cycle, but we are not getting any infrastructure. Additionally, the implementation of the plans is at a slow pace. Unless there are bollards or segregated cycling lanes, we cannot reduce accidents,” he said.

In Bangalore, under the BBMP area, the city has about 14,000 km of road length and a 2,000 km stretch of major roads. To facilitate a proper cycling network, the city should have a 2000 km long connected cycling track, says Sankaran. However, the CMP proposes only 600 km of track, he added.

Sankaran said the collective impact could only be realised when the city lanes are well-connected. “The CMP draft does not mention connectivity. Today the cycling lanes we have appear and disappear suddenly. Often, we see two-wheelers riding inside the tracks or cars being parked right in the middle of a cycle track,” he added.

Law enforcement and government bodies should work together to make the cycling lanes safer for the cyclists, Sankaran said. “We already have the planning and the design. We just need to spearhead the process for faster completion,” he added.

To date, the campaigns conducted by CFAM have made 95,203 cycling trips, saving 90,059 litres of petrol. Bengaluru saw an offset of 175,998 kg of CO2 emission. “That is the environmental balance we can create through cycling. And by 2030, we aim for 50 percent bicycle usage in Bengaluru alone,” he added.