The invisible cyclists

The invisible cyclists

Noted environmentalist Sunita Narain’s unfortunate cycling accident last week in Delhi has brought back focus on the safety of cyclists in Indian cities. This pressing issue only makes news when someone well-known meets with a cycling accident or when the odd cyclothon makes it to the local pages at the behest of the sponsors, who don’t really care much for cycling, except for a media photo-op at the starting point.

While the concerns of urban middle-class/elite cyclists are back in the spotlight with the latest incident, sadly, this brouhaha shall die and the voices of those who don’t have a choice in commuting daily by cycle will remain unheard and lost. Checking my privilege, cyclists like me, who have a choice to use multiple modes of transport but choose to cycle, have strong opinions about what our cities should be like and vociferously advocate that everyone must cycle and that in our ideal world, everyone would be a cyclist.

The impracticality of modern day city life and the way our urban spaces are designed to exclude diverse modes of commuting that could be more beneficial, convenient and cheap are ignored when we urge people in light-hearted banter to dump their cars and get on the pedal. This is not making a case for either this or that, but finding a seamless way to assimilate and share our public spaces respectfully and by being mindful.

Unlike most daily cycling commuters in the capital who I share the road with, I pedal a mere six kilometres a day to commute to and from work. This is hardly anything in comparison to some working class folks who cycle dozens of kilometres everyday from one end of the city to another, no matter what season Delhi is hosting around the year.

The Indian weather isn’t the most cycling friendly, especially at the peak of summer or monsoon, but cycling can always act as a bridge between a more mass public transit system in our cities, and our public transport network could do so much more to make this possible.

As a privileged upper middle-class cyclist, I own a foldable, which gives me a choice to fold my cycle and carry it on my shoulders in a sling bag and hail an auto or take the metro (if the security personnel is either bewitched by the cycle or takes pity on my incessant pleads that other countries do allow bicycles on mass transit systems) and get back home with ease. This is not the case for the invisible cyclist commuter. How often do we consider the voice of this cyclist? There is an entire economy in the capital that operates on a bicycle and helps keep the costs of your essential goods down. The folks who provide these services remain invisible because we don’t really see them as cyclists, but as people who are out there to serve our needs. But they are cyclists too and their concerns are more, if not less, urgent than mine.

I really hope that we not only listen to their concerns but also actively look out for them on our roads. Be patient. Make space for them. Show respect. The invisible cyclists are not as invisible as you think they are. There are hundreds and thousands of them who go about pedalling their lives, earning a living. They make our cities tick on time – your driver, your househelp, your milkman, your newspaperwallah, the vegetable-seller. Most importantly, they subsidise your lifestyle.

This is not a plea for you to abandon your car and adopt a new eco-friendly lifestyle but an appeal to your good sense and judgement to be mindful of those who have no choice but to seek a mode of transport that is different than yours in a shared public space. Let’s keep cycling infrastructure aside for a bit and just be better human beings on the road.

This is not to say the sleek urban yuppies and cycling enthusiasts don’t have any concerns about cycling infrastructure. They all have a laundry list of needs that could make our cities cycling-friendly. What we have in the city today is vanity infrastructure for cycling. Someone had to check a to-do list before the Commonwealth Games in Delhi and one of them was to have x kilometres of cycling paths and another was to have cycle-sharing facilities for quick errands and commute as a connecting node of transport to create an air of matching global city standards. But how successful and sustainable are these paths and bike-sharing schemes in terms of the quality they offer in the long term?

The cycling paths have been encroached, yes you guessed right, by automobiles, and one look at the dusty cycles you get on rent outside some metro stations and you’ll wonder if you will be able to get from Point A to B with that kind of carelessly maintained contraption. What is one to do when the choices that are made available have no quality control to sustain it in the long run?

Lastly, a cyclist also has to be responsible. It is important we make it a point to stop at traffic signals and follow the laws of the road – we should learn to earn the respect of those we share road space with. Obeying the rules of the road is as much a responsibility of the cyclist as it has always been for the automobile user. I don’t have to feel entitled about my right to be on the road as a cyclist and pedal through red lights in the hope that the car speeding from the opposite direction has brakes.

Better cycling infrastructure is much needed and although there are transport bodies working on this, one hopes that as our cities get more globalised, these needs will become part of the urban planning process more meaningfully and in a sustained manner. For now, all that I seek, and many of my fellow cyclists would agree, is the toning down of aggression on the street. Stop honking if you see a cyclist in front of you and get used to the idea of sharing space on the roads with them. The invisible cyclist isn’t going anywhere