Top cop cycles for Car Free Thursdays

Supporting the ‘Car Free Thursdays’ cause, the Commissioner of Police, Cyberabad CV Anand cycled from Cyient Junction to Raheja Mindspace on Thursday.

Joining the Commissioner were about 200 industry leaders, volunteers and schoolchildren, who came together to create awareness about the campaign.

Sharing his views on the campaign Anand said, “It is concerning to see the growing number of vehicles, which is leading to major traffic jams and pollution. If this continues, the situation will be out of control, as we do not have the mechanism to handle it. Therefore, campaigns like Car Free Thursday will be able to make people use public transportation and cycle to work.

“We will be supporting this campaign by introducing makeshift cycle lanes (from IIIT junction till Wipro). In addition, we will also sensitise corporate companies to take this up in a big way and encourage employees for carpooling, cycling and walking,” he added.

Ramesh Loganathan, President of HYSEA said, “We were successful in building awareness among the citizens but the critical thing now is to create a framework that incentivizes more and more people to practice this regularly”.

“Over the past one year, SCSC has been very active on working on road safety issues by way of putting in more surveillance systems in place, enlisting traffic volunteers to work along with the traffic police to manage traffic and also by way of running SHE shuttles to facilitate travel of women employees,” said Bharani Aroll, Secretary SCSC.

Vishala, the founder director of Identcity who conceptualised the Campaign said, “The outreach on CFT is very grassroot and the focus is on bringing behavioural change for the long-term.”

“Traffic problem can be solved only if people choose more space-efficient travel. Travelling by bus is 18-20 times more space efficient than travelling by car. For those who feel buses are very inconvenient, they should at least carpool,” said Prashanth Bachu an Urban Transport specialist.