Onlykashmir.in News Desk
Dedicated cycle tracks developed across Srinagar under the Smart City initiative are increasingly being misused by two-wheelers, defeating their very purpose and raising serious concerns over the safety of cyclists and pedestrians who the corridors were originally designed to protect.
Despite clear lane markings and exclusive cycling corridors laid out along stretches of the Foreshore Road and other major roads in the city, motorcycles and scooters are routinely seen using these tracks to bypass regular traffic congestion, effectively turning designated non motorised transport lanes into informal shortcuts for motorised vehicles. The practice has become so common that many commuters now consider it a daily, almost unremarkable occurrence rather than an exception.
The latest instance of the violation, captured on camera, shows two-wheelers travelling freely along a designated cycle lane even as cyclists attempt to use the same stretch, underlining how routine the misuse has become on some of the city’s busiest corridors. Cyclists who use these tracks regularly alleged that the infrastructure, created at considerable public expense specifically to encourage eco-friendly mobility and ensure safer cycling conditions, has virtually become an alternative carriageway for motorcycles owing to poor and inconsistent enforcement on the ground.
Several residents said the problem is particularly pronounced along the Foreshore Road and other newly developed stretches where dedicated cycle lanes exist, alleging that the near total absence of regular monitoring by civic and traffic authorities has emboldened violators to treat the tracks as their own. They pointed out that occasional enforcement drives, when they do happen, tend to fade out within days, allowing the problem to resurface almost immediately.
Cyclists and concerned residents have urged the Srinagar Smart City authorities, the Traffic Police and the Srinagar Municipal Corporation to jointly launch sustained enforcement drives, impose meaningful penalties on repeat violators and install physical barriers at vulnerable entry points to prevent unauthorised entry of motor vehicles into the cycle tracks going forward.
Cyclists said that unless strict and sustained action is taken by the concerned authorities, the broader objective of promoting non-motorised transport and providing genuinely safe infrastructure for cyclists across Srinagar will remain unfulfilled, undermining the very intent behind the Smart City investment in these corridors.
