These ‘refurbished’ tracks were once again used for parking cars and other vehicles. Cyclists have almost never used the inconvenient tracks, disparagingly calling them ‘art installations’
An excavated cycle track at G Block in Bandra Kurla Complex on Monday. PIC/Satej Shinde
MMRDA has started work on dismantling cycle tracks in Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), a report in this paper stated. The reason given is to ease traffic movement in the busy office area. The 13-km stretch of cycle tracks, built at a cost of Rs 6.5 crore, was introduced in 2011. They were barely used for the purpose they were built. Yet, in 2021, the tracks were refurbished at a cost of Rs 6.25 crore.
These ‘refurbished’ tracks were once again used for parking cars and other vehicles. Cyclists have almost never used the inconvenient tracks, disparagingly calling them ‘art installations.’ And, now, the government has decided these tracks must finally go and will be spending Rs 25 crore to remove them.
It is interesting to note the alacrity with which the government sinks public money into building useless infrastructure and then spends some more demolishing it.
Another case in point is the skywalks, yet another wonder from the MMRDA stable. Of the 36 built across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region at a cost of R700 crore, a majority lie unused for the purpose they were built and have ended up either being drug-user dens or spaces for homeless people.
Reasons cited (after years of being underutilised) for their low utility value are lack of connectivity to key destinations, inconvenient entry and exit points, and safety concerns.
One wonders how such expensive infra even gets to the approval stage without basic research or surveys being done to explore the degree of need for it. It is worrying to think that no one in the planning department thought it necessary to find out whether certain infra is useful to the public or not.
Taxpayers need to ask the right questions and force the government to spend public money more responsibly. Else, we’ll be stuck with more useless, space-guzzling infrastructure, and with no one but ourselves to blame for it.
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