Dedicated cycle parking hubs soon at 271 locations

Moving closer to extending the ambitious Public Bicycle Sharing (PBS) system, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has identified spots for setting up cycle parking hubs at 271 locations in Central, North and East Bengaluru. A tender facilitating the construction of cycle parking hubs costing Rs 7.72 crore was rolled out by the corporation a few days ago.

Based on the recommendation and site report submitted by the Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT), the civic major will begin infrastructure works to construct three different types of bicycle parking hubs. Sources in the BBMP revealed to DH that all the 271 locations identified for parking hubs are spread over an area of 28 sq km. “Areas like MG Road, Vidhana Soudha, Koramangala, HSR Layout, Indiranagar, Banaswadi, HRBR Layout, HBR Layout and Kacharakanahalli will be part of the plan in the first phase of the project. In about six months’ time, the parking hubs will come up at these locations,” a senior technical officer at BBMP told DH.

The official added, “The proposed PBS system is a fully automated bicycle-sharing system where bicycles are parked using dock-less technology. The system allows users to take the cycle from a parking hub, use it as desired and return it to either the same or any other parking hub.” According to the recommendations by the DULT, the parking stations have been located at an average distance of 250 to 300 metres between each other depending on the availability of space and keeping in mind the high priority demand areas. A majority of them have been planned on the land owned by the state government.

“The high demand areas have been identified based on employment centres, transit centres, bus stations, parks, high-density residential pockets, townships and commercial areas,” the officer detailed. All the parking hubs will be geo-fenced and demarcated using different colours or attractive paving material facilitating easy identification of parking hubs.