Urban News

But works are yet to begin and authorities claim that they are waiting for the final report to be submitted by the Chennai City Connect, the consultant for the project.

Mayor M Subramanian had announced that the project would be completed in a fortnight since its announcement.

“Consultants made an impressive presentation following which they were asked to conduct a detailed inspection and submit a final report. The works will begin once their report is submitted,” said J Attlee, Superintendent Engineer in the Corporation.

However, speaking to Express, Raj Cherubal, co-ordinator of Chennai City Connect, clarified that the final report would be submitted to the authorities within a week.

“In order to maintain the quality we had to spend some extra time in researching and inspecting the measures that need to be taken,” said Raj.

“We can’t design and plan the cycle track exclusively. By doing this, it may later be misused for other purposes like parking spaces. Hence we have designed an integrated plan with exclusive tracks for pedestrians, cycles, parking and fast-moving traffic,” he said.

“We are being careful in our design to separate the fast-moving vehicle section from the cycle tracks and pedestrian paths. Hence we are trying to place parking lots and greenery in a strategic manner so that they act as buffers between the cycle tracks and fast moving vehicle tracks to ensure safety,” Raj said.

A study conducted by the Chennai City Connect along with Institution for Transportation and Development Policy had found that 7,000 of the 33,000 school students in the locality used bicycles to commute to school. “We expect more students to take up cycling provided we give them a safe environment to commute,” he added.

The cycle track will be established along the 14-km stretch in Anna Nagar on a trial basis. While eight-km stretch of arterial roads would be covered for the pilot project, interior roads of six-km distance would get the track.