Parents of Bangalore’s first Bicycle Mayor injured in ‘city of cars, not people’

By Qamar ZJ

Despite cries for pedestrian-friendly roads and city infrastructure, Bengaluru continues to be mismanaged by an apathetic corporation and an even-more disoriented state government, irrespective of which party occupies the highest seat. The latest diatribe against such a bad road infrastructure came from the city’s first Bicycle Mayor Sathya Sankaran. Calling it the ‘city of cars, not people’, Sathya gave the examples of his parents who fell victims to Bengaluru’s appalling road infrastructure only recently. 

Tweeting to the city police and BBMP Commissioner, Sathya wrote: “After the bad fall my father had on Sanjaynagar Main Road, it was my mother’s turn near New BEL Road bus stand. (She) Tripped over construction material left all over the place. This is a city for cars not people.”

The twitterrati was quick to react to this latest development by wishing his parents speedy recovery. In addition, they shared their thoughts on the city’s civic woes.

Citizen activist Srinivas Alavilli, the co-founder of Citizens for Bangalore, said, “We have become a city of machines and people have no place left. We shall take it back.”

The proactive Whitefield Rising resident group agreed with Srinivas by stating, “Our streets are strewn with debris, garbage, potholes and missing slabs.”

Vinay Kamble wanted to know if the government can be sued for this terrible incident. If you have the same question, yes, you can, if the injury happened due to a pothole, an open manhole or drain. In a recent case, the Karnataka High Court ordered the BBMP to compensate one such victim.

Vinay Sreenivasa had a similar story to share. “My mum in law also hurt her knee on a badly-laid footpath on Malleswaram 15th Cross. Unless we fix our pavements, we fail all the elderly and differently-abled in our city, and all of ourselves.”

Rajkumar Dugar recommended one measure that could rectify this issue. “This problem will reduce the day we have names of BBMP engineers and contractors displayed at every road with penalty clause for any damage to road. Citizens are made to cough up for the slightest mistake. Why not these people too?

Reacting to the incident, a representative of Save Harlur campaign made a stark statement: “This city is not even made for cars”. Another resident asked chief minister YS Yeddiyurappa to “transfer all inefficient officers”.

Only Balaji had an ironic twist to the controversy by questioning Sathya’s mission of sustainable mobility by saying, “And you have been misleading gullible people to cycle on such dangerous roads.”