The city of Kolkata has always had a wide and intriguing mix of transport options. The major north-south artery has India's oldest metro line; three-wheeled autorickshaws ply every east-west thoroughfare, feeding passengers to the metro stations. There are state-run buses, private buses, and minibuses. There are ferries across the Hooghly, and the antiquated but atmospheric and environment-friendly trams. There are the iconic, but still somewhat disturbing, hand-pulled rickshaws. There are cars and taxis. But, for the past few months, there are no bicycles.
As far back as April 2008, the Kolkata Police banned bicycles on 38 major roads in the centre of town. But bicyclists managed to get around that, keeping clear of the major arteries, and sticking to the bylanes with which the eighteenth-century city centre is so amply provided. The police department, like all police departments, did not like being thwarted thus. So, a few months ago, they banned cycling on 174 additional roads and have now begun enforcing that order diligently. What this has meant is that most of Kolkata is now a no-go area for cyclists - the only city in the world that has chosen to discriminate against the most healthy and environment-friendly form of transport known to humanity. Once, Kolkata claimed to lead the world in thinking about tomorrow. It is still unique in the world, but not quite in the same way. Every major city is urging people to dump their cars, and get on a cycle. But Kolkata is proudly thinking differently, if not exactly better.
The police's reason is that, of course, cyclists are slower than cars. This is not generally the case in congested Kolkata, where cars can go as slow as bicycles - the average speed of traffic in West Bengal's capital is around 16 kilometres an hour, as opposed to around 20 km/h on average in other Indian towns. The police would like to claim that this is all cyclists' fault, and they are getting in the way of all the shiny new cars that Kolkata's middle class would otherwise drive madly back and forth. This is quite laughably untrue, given that the reason for Kolkata's permanent traffic jam is well known: it has a much lower surface area dedicated to roads than is normal. Six per cent of the city's area is roads; compare that to Delhi's 21 per cent. Kolkata has always been more compact and more crowded; what is needed is a more compact and less intrusive form of transportation. Like, say, bicycles, instead of SUVs.
The blatant bias of the administration in first imposing and then extending this ban is visible from one basic point: according to the Centre's ministry for urban development, trips by bicycle are 11 per cent of all trips in the city, whereas trips by car constitute only 8 per cent. If congestion is the real reason, then why not ban cars instead of bicycles? Kolkata's hazy air will benefit, and its population will swiftly shed their sedentary reputation. As the activist Medha Patkar pointed out in a letter to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, banning all non-motorised transportation ran contrary to stated Indian policy - the National Urban Transport Policy of 2006 actually enjoined states to encourage non-motorised transport. The odd thing, in fact, is this measure - which will disproportionately affect the poor, who will now have to walk long distances instead of cycling them - has happened in a city ruled by Ms Banerjee, who has often enough come out with bad policy that is supposed to help the poor. But Ms Banerjee seems to be silent about this regressive measure. She had promised to make Kolkata like London. She might be interested to know that a quarter of all vehicles in London are cycles; in the centre of the City of London, half of all rush-hour traffic is on cycles.
