Children on Bikes Don't Count

I saw something that just broke my heart on my way home tonight. There was a guy about my age on a bike trying to cross rush-hour traffic on Route 11 on the south entrance to town. It's a crossing that, in high season, hundreds of people make every day, both locals and tourists on the Eurovelo 6 route. On the west side of the street is the purpose built bike path to Budapest. On the east side is the bike path into downtown Szentendre.

Despite the high bike traffic at this intersection, the only legal way to get across is via an inexplicably hard-to-find underpass that's accessible only by steep sets of stairs on both ends.

This poor father might not even have known where the underpass is -- it was dusk and there are NO signs pointing the way. And even if he knew, it wasn't a realistic option: he had a little boy on board -- couldn't have been more than two years old. He might have accomplished it by taking the little guy off the bike, carrying him through the bike tunnel, leaving him at the other end for a moment, then rushing back to get the bike. But what parent wants to leave his little child unattended along a traffic-choked roadside for even a minute?

So this father was trying to cross the road as best he could. When I saw him, he was pushing his bike through weeds on the side of the road, and coming up onto the tarmac through a gap in the metal guardrail. The father had an anxious look on his face as he was contemplating traversing four lanes of speeding traffic while ensuring the safety of the most precious thing in his life.

I'm a father of a boy just a couple years older. I empathised with this stranger. It made me want to tear someone's head off. Why in the hell isn't there a safe bicycle crossing at this intersection? Do Szentendre's transport managers have so little regard for people that they can't offer a simple and obvious street crossing for a father and his two year old boy? Unbelievable.