Cycling ban to be lifted on Szentendre Route 11

After years of being closed to cyclists, Route 11 in Szentendre will get advisory bike lanes.

It sounds as if the ban on cycling on Route 11 in Szentendre will finally be lifted. However, the timeline is murky and public authorities have made no public announcement on the matter.

Last week, a technical plan for the changes was presented in a closed-door meeting of stakeholders, including the Hungarian Cyclists' Club (MK).

As MK's staff engineer Miklós Radics explained in Facebook post, the ban will be lifted, but the road will be given only minimal cycling accommodations.

"They plan wide outside car lanes (at least 4.25m or more) with bike sharrows," Radics wrote.

Radics explained that the Szentendre section of Route 11 is not wide enough to accommodate the existing cars lanes and proper bike lanes. So the plan instead calls for sharrows, otherwise known as "advisory bike lanes", which motorists can drive on legally. An example of sharrows in Budapest are on Margit Bridge -- they're marked with chevrons and cycling pictograms rather than a solid line separating cyclists from motor traffic.

"It's not the best and most bike-friendly solution, but it's still a big step if we compare it with the nonsensical prohibition," Radics said.

"Moving the curbs and redesigning the whole road won't happen in the coming years. The municipality and the road maintenance company (Magyar Közút) will co-fund the budget for the repaint."

The plan was based on a study by the engineering consultancy Tandem Kft. on a commission by Szentendre City Hall.  Staff from Tandem revealed the study's results and recommendations last week to a group of select stakeholders, but neither City Hall or Magyar Közút have make any public announcement on the subject.

A representative from the Szentendre branch of the Hungarian Cyclists Club said they would prepare their own announcement on the scheme in the coming days.

Cyclists Should Speak Up on Szentendre Route 11

Szentendre City Hall's surveying for a scapegoat.

Apparently, Szentendre City Hall is trying to derail a years-long lobbying effort to allow cycling on the Szentendre section of Route 11.

Last month, City Hall commissioned a "technical study" to see if the 6.5 kilometer stretch of Route 11 inside Szentendre could be opened to bike traffic. This follows several years of lobbying by a handful of cycling activists in Szentendre who are fed up with being banned from the city's main public road because of their environment-friendly choice of transport.

Cyclists who ride on Route 11 (myself included, full disclosure) routinely get pulled over and scolded by police and some have been fined. You can get a fine for even crossing the road by bike, which is crazy, because you need to cross Route 11 to get from the Budapest bike path on the west side of the road to the Szentendre bike path just opposite. You can make this passage through an unlit service tunnel, but it's inconvenient and especially useless if you're carrying baggage (as touristic cyclists on Eurovelo 6 do in summer).

When cyclists first lobbied on the issue years ago, City Hall deflected the question to another entity, the Hungarian Road Authority (Magyar Közút Nonprofit Zrt.). But under sustained pressure by the local branch of the Hungarian Cyclists Club, the City Council agreed to appeal to Magyar Kozut to see if the ban could be lifted. The road authority, although reluctant to make the change, eventually agreed it would defer to the city's wishes. The local cycling lobby was told that the cycling ban had been lifted, and now it was just a matter of putting up signage and painting lanes to seal the deal.

But this isn't what has happened. Instead, the matter's is being subjected to a technical study and it's once again unclear whether cyclists will get their way. In fact, from the sound of the latest official communication, the new study is City Hall's way of deflecting responsibility yet again:

"Many would like to be able to cycle on Route 11, but according to others, the already busy, often congested road is not suitable for safe bicycle travel," the announcement states. City Hall, therefore, "takes no stance on the matter."

What's worse, according to inside sources, is that City Hall is pressuring the engineering firm undertaking the study to dampen the expectations of cyclists. Somebody at City Hall has actually scolded the firm for making "optimistic statements" about the study. The firm was told not to make any public statements on the study at all.

As far as I can see, the city had hoped deflect the question onto outside experts in the hope it could be rejected on technical grounds. This would relieve officials from making a political decision.

It's a ruse. The only thing that makes cycling unsafe on Route 11 is fast-moving car traffic. Barring big investments in separated bike paths (which will not happen), the city would need to make some on-road bike lanes and to reduce the road's speed limit, say to 40 km/h. This is not a technical challenge, it's a political one: Does the City Council support it or not?

A small glimmer of hope is that there is an element of stakeholder consultation in the study: It's being carried out in cooperation with Magyar Közút; City Hall officials and the Szentendre branch of Hungarian Cyclists Club.

Now would be a very good time for cyclists to speak up on the issue, telling the mayor they support the Cycling Club and its efforts to allow bike traffic on the street. If you agree, please send a note, in Hungarian if possible but no necessarily, to the mayor at polgarmester@szentendre.hu.

Bike Path Blockade

One man's commuting route is another man's parking lot. Bike path on east side of Road 11 just north of Szentendre Lidl.

Riding into Szentendre this morning (May 13), two vans from the electric utility, ELMŰ, were blocking the bike path. Not headline news, for sure. It seems that bike and pedestrian paths are the go-to parking solution for road-work and utility crews. They're not the only culprits, just some of more frequent offenders.

Parking on bike paths is standard practice and all the more annoying because of it. Although it happens all the time in Hungary, one can imagine a parallel universe, or even a nearby country, where cycling paths are taken seriously.

In this morning's instance, the utility trucks could have pulled onto the weedy strip between the path and the road. Easy, right? I've written a complaint letter to ELMŰ, asking them if they have any policy about this. I mean, their trucks almost never park on roadways. There must be regulations and guidelines about this. Is there no policy at all about bike paths? Or is this a non-issue for ELMŰ? We'll see what their response is.

UPDATE:
ELMŰ sent a response to my complaint. Give them credit for being prompt, although sadly it doesn't acknowledge the problem and mainly aggrandizes the urgency of ELMŰ's service: "As can be clearly seen in the photo you sent, our workers didn't park their vehicles on the bike path, but were using them to complete PUBLIC UTILITY work." It goes on to say the tasks are being done to ensure a safe supply of electricity for you all, and it's all being done in compliance with Hungarian rules and traffic regulations.

In my complaint letter, I noted that ELMŰ vehicles frequently block bike paths, and that there are normally convenient ways to avoid this. ELMŰ's reply doesn't acknowledge blocked bike paths as a problem, much less ways to address it.

For the record, here is the verbatim exchange in Hungarian (Thanks to Attila Katona for the editing!):

From: Greg Spencer [mailto:GSpencer@rec.org]
Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2015 10:59 AM
To: Elmű-Émász Ügyfélszolgálati Kft._Budapest
Subject: Panasz a kerékpárúton parkoló járművekről

Tisztelt Hölgyem/Uram!
Ma reggel a 11-es út mentén húzódó kerékpárúton, Szentendrén, két ELMŰ jármű blokkolta az utat. Annak ellenére, hogy van más parkolási lehetőség, ez mégis gyakran előfordul, és nagyon kellemetlen - gyakran kifejezetten veszélyes - a kerékpárral közlekedők számára. Kérem a jövőben vegyék figyelembe a kerékpárral utazókat. Az iránt szeretnék érdeklődni, hogy van-e az ELMŰnél erre vonatkozó előírás?

Üdvözlettel,
Greg Spencer

Tisztelt Greg Spencer!
Mint ahogyan a mellékletben, az Ön által elküldött képen is jól látható: A kerékpárúton tartózkodó gépjárművek nem parkolnak, hanem az ott tartózkodó munkatársaink munkaeszközeként, KÖZÜZEMI munkát végeznek. Azért dolgoznak, hogy biztosítsák Önök számára, a biztonságos villamos energia ellátást! Az ilyen munkavégzésekre a törvény is külön jogszabályokban foglalkozik. (KRESZ közüzemi munkavégzést ellátó gépjárművek)

Üdvözlettel:
Kovács János
osztályvezető
Gépjármű osztály
Budapesti Elektromos Művek Nyrt. 

Szentendre City Hall Turns Bike-Friendly

In 2014, a service road opened next the the Duna Korzó that provides for car-free cycling with a view.

Szentendre's local government has apparently turned a corner on the subject of utility cycling. City Hall wants to make the town more bike-friendly, and it's reaching out to cyclists to find out how to do it.

This is a big change from five years ago, when some local activists and I did a 'hotspot' analysis of local cycling infrastructure. We recommended some basic remedies to the then mayor, but he told us flat out that nothing could be done that cost money.

But Szentendre has a new mayor, 47-year-old Miklós Verseghi-Nagy, and the winds have changed. My company,  the Regional Enivironmental Center, recently initiated a feasibility study on introducing bike sharing here. Just a week after the study's kick off  at Szentendre City Hall, we were invited back to provide input on another bike-related matter: the installation of public bike racks around town.

Our colleague Attila Katona attended a meeting with a couple municipal officers, the owner of a local bike shop and representatives of the local chapter of the Hungarian Cyclists Club. The results were better than we'd hoped.  The main outcomes:

• The city agreed to install large portable bike racks (14-28 bike capacity) during the 5-6 warmest months of the year on the main square (Főtér) and the northern and southern ends of the riverfront cafe and restaurant strip (Duna Korzó). These could later become locations of permanent bike-share docking stations.
  
  
• The city will take steps to improve bike parking at the Szentendre HÉV station. Although transport operator BKK controls the property, City Hall will lobby for the changes.
• City Hall also wants to ensure bicycle parking is provided in front of high-traffic local businesses (grocery stores, banks, restaurants, etc.) The city might encourage this by offering subsidies, but may even compel owners to provide a certain level of parking based on the size of their properties (similar to the existing codes on car parking).

In general, city leadership is enthused about making Szentendre more bike and pedestrian friendly. A big first step will be expansion of the car-free city centre by banning cars during the summer on the korzó.

It's also eager to lift the ban of cycling on Route 11, the main north-south thoroughfare through town. Until now, cycling's been prohibited on Route 11 by the national road authority, Magyar Közút. At the urging of local activists, City Hall appealed to the authority to lift the ban and the petition has apparently succeeded.

According to the information Attila received this week, the legal barrier's been lifted and now it's a matter of following through with whatever signage and infrastructure that's needed. And their may be some personal motivation here: Szentendre's Vice-Mayor Dorottya Gyürk is a cyclist, and admits to a habit of riding illegally on Route 11.

Of course, to make Szentendre truly bike friendly, investments will be needed, and this is where many politicians balk. Even so, there's been a big attitude shift toward cycling at Szentendre City Hall, and this is great news.

Szentendre City Hall takes a stand for cyclists

Incredibly, this awkward underpass is part of the Eurovelo 6 bike touristic route. The public road authority forbids cyclists from crossing the road on the surface. Photo stolen from here.

The Szentendre local government is taking a stand against Hungary's public road authority in order to allow bicycling on the main road through town.

If you want to lend  personal support to this cause, you can sign a petition posted by a Szentendre subgroup of the Hungarian Cyclists Club.

This has a bit of history. Szentendre hasn't been terribly bike friendly over the years, and as someone who works and bikes there on a daily basis, I have ongoing issues with local cycling policy.

However, the local authorities in this case are trying to do something good for cyclists. For many years, the public road manager -- Közútkezelő Kft -- has banned bicycling on Route 11, despite it being the only option for many people to cross the town north to south. On the southern part, there's a shared bike/pedestrian path that cyclists are required to use. It's old and broken up, and not pleasant to ride on. And in order to get from this path to the dedicated bike path leading to Budakalász and Békésmegyer, you have to cross Route 11 through a horrible little underpass. Crossing on the surface is illegal.

From Szentendre's public transport junction (HÉV and Volan bus stop) to the north, there's no designated bikeway at all -- yet you're still banned from riding Route 11. One  local cyclist I've met has been cited by police for riding here -- and he successfully fought the ticket in court. Hungary's traffic code expressly permits cycling on public roads unless there's an adjacent bikeway provided. So Közútkezelő Kft.'s ban on cycling on the northern stretch of  Route 11 doesn't even accord with the law.

For years, Route 11 has not served as a local road at all, only as a high-volume, high-speed highway between Budapest and Visegrad (despite a posted speed limit of 50 km/hr in town). The local authorities are now wondering if maybe they can claim the Szentendre section for their own citizens, so that people can use it and cross it, by car, foot or bike, without cowering in fear of torrential through traffic. Allowing cycling here would be a good first step.

According to my local cycling contacts, the Route 11 initiative is part of a larger plan to prioritise cycling around the town. A couple years ago, a university student from Szentendre who had researched cycling in Denmark drafted a few relevant proposals for Szentendre. Apparently some of his ideas have caught on at City Hall. I think this is great. I have nothing against the use of cars for longer distance journeys between cities. But for local travel, cycling has an important role to play, and in Szentendre, there's huge untapped potential.