Stitching Together a Cycling Culture

With Budapest and the rest of Europe in the clutch of a cycling-averse cold snap, the only bike news I'm anticipating in the coming weeks is the prospect that we may soon be able to pedal across the surface of the Danube. In the meantime, I wanted to post this feature about the budding local industry in Budapest focused on cycling accessories and cycling fashion. It seems to me a rare example of capitalism going hand-in-hand with progressive social activism rather than merely exploiting it (apologies to fans of CSR).

Tamás Tűhegyi sewing bags as his mother taught him.

In Budapest, a cottage industry of cycling fashion and accessories has blossomed in recent years, one of the fruits of the local cycling and Critical Mass movement. It includes makers of clothing, accessories and small-production boutique bicycles. Not only has it given sustenance to those directly involved, it has helped drive an emerging DIY movement concerned with sustainable, local production; “buy-local” shopping and, of course, environmentally friendly mobility.

With each of its bags being handmade, Bagaboo can offer custom detailing.

The small bike-bag maker Bagaboo typifies the movement. The company started in 2006, a classic case of necessity as the mother of invention. Local bicycle courier Tamás Tűhegyi, then 25 and working for an outfit called Herce-Hurca (roughly, 'Much ado about nothing'), needed a new parcel bag, but the only manufacturer in Hungary was notoriously slow in filling orders. So Tűhegyi decided to make one himself on a home sewing machine. With the help of his mother, an accomplished seamstress, he produced a bag and the idea of a commercial enterprise was born.

Tűhegyi worked on design and manufacturing, his mother helped with custom embroidery and his sister pitched in by answering email orders and processing invoices. From the beginning, Bagaboo strived to fill a niche for durable, customizable bags that match the quality of established international brands while having the cost advantages of a Central European base. Initially, the company plied the Hungarian market, advertising on the Internet and through Tűhegyi’s social connections in the bike-messenger community. In time, he translated the website into English and began selling bags abroad, mainly in Japan, Germany and the UK, and recently in the Netherlands.

The company's product line began with a basic messenger bag and hip pouch, and was soon beefed up with a professional messenger bag called the "Workhorse". These days, the selection also incorporates double-strapped backpacks, tool pouches, iPad sleeves and U-lock cases. As evidence of Bagaboo's fashion focus, the website describes an item called the "Eco-bag" as ideal for customers "who like the style ... of messenger bags, but not always using their bag on a bicycle". Future bags will be designed especially for school children. (As I told Tűhegyi, considering the volume of stuff Hungarian school kids have to schlep back and forth from school, this is sure to be a lucrative market).

When I did an email interview with him last week, Tűhegyi said he didn't know how many bags he produced per month. He said he's only concerned whether the business is running smoothly, and that he doesn't keep track of things like production volume or growth forecasts. However, in a 2008 article, he indicated that the company was making approximately 100 bags per month at that time, with each of Bagaboo's five sewers turning out approximately one bag every three hours. These days, in addition to founding family members, Bagaboo employs six workers to cut fabric and sew bags, and production has moved from the family flat to a proper industrial space.

Although its markets have expanded beyond Hungary's borders, Bagaboo maintains a highly visible presence in the Budapest cycling community. Along with fellow Hungarian bag makers such as Bring a Bag and Lupusbag, Bagaboo highlights its products regularly at bicycle fashion shows in the capital city. A staple of the cycling community’s social calendar, these events provide a stage where traders of cycling paraphernalia can show off their wares in an entertaining, social atmosphere. Bike fashion shows have been held as side events for the twice annual Critical Mass and during closing parties for the national bike-to-work contest (Bringazz a munkaba). Always including participation of cycling activist groups, the events seem to be a simpatico blend of social activism and commerce.

Alongside other local businesses, Bagaboo partners with the Hungarian Cyclists Club, having an icon on the organisation’s homepage and an ongoing promotion in which club members can buy the company's products at a discount.

Despite evidence to the contrary, though, Tűhegyi gives a modest assessment of the industry’s role in popularising urban cycling. Having volunteered as an escort for one of Budapest’s first Critical Masses in the mid-aughts, Tűhegyi still believes that this highly popular social movement is the main driver of the local urban cycling movement. Other actors in the community, including Bagaboo, contribute relatively minor roles, he said.

I asked Janos Laszlo, president of the Hungarian Cyclists Club, about the contribution that companies like Bagaboo make to the popularising of everyday cycling. I was a little disappointed that he didn't give me the expected, agreeable quote that would neatly affirm my thesis. Instead he expressed a viewpoint that I'm familiar with from the CycleChic blog: that people shouldn't feel they need to have special equipment, clothing and accessories in order to cycle.

I agree with that. However, considering the success of dozens of cycle fashion shows over the years, not to mention the proliferation of fixi bikes, rolled-up pant cuffs and messenger (or pseudo-messenger) bags on Budapest streets, there's no question that these trends are part and parcel of the recent upsurge in everyday cycling in Budapest. So while I believe that vanity and consumerism underlie many of society's problems, I'm going to give a pass to cycling fashion.

Car Tax Dead but Congestion Charge Gets a Lift

A proposal to levy a flat monthly tax on Budapest car owners looked dead on arrival today. Budapest City Hall, grasping for a life line to pull BKV out of its financial quagmire, was considering a monthly tax of almost HUF 10,000 a month on car owners, which would raise an estimated HUF 32 billion per year. But the idea lasted about half a news cycle. Mayor Istvan Tarlos and just about everyone else denied having anything to do with introducing the proposal, and by Wednesday afternoon, the mayor was saying it was stillborn.

The encouraging news is that the idea of a congestion charge is still alive. Antal Rogan, mayor of District V and leader of the Fidesz faction in the City Assembly, pronouced that this would be would be a "more rational and reasonable solution."

I am in complete agreement. The reason a congestion charge would be better is because it would be levied only on drivers entering downtown. Car owners who don't come downtown or who come by another mode (public transport, foot, boat or bike) don't have to pay.

With congestion charges, the intent is to put a price on road use and thereby pressure some car owners to not drive downtown. The avoided traffic leads to reduced congestion, while the remaining traffic yields revenue that can be used to improve non-car mobility options (public transport, bike lanes and foot paths), which will lead to further reduction in car use. A virtuous cycle.

Congestion charges are very controversial because you're asking people to pay something that they currently get for free. However, the free-of-charge status quo does come with a price: travelers' time. It is partly because road use is free that they're so crowded. Putting a price on them will mean that those who don't really need to drive downtown will avoid the trip while those who do need to will be able to make the journey on less congested streets. This perspective prompted a New Zealand blogger to say that congestion charging should really be sold as a "congestion avoidance" scheme.

Some conservative bloggers have argued -- a bit disingenuously -- that such charges are unfair because they tax the poor so the rich can drive fast. But roadways are a valuable, limited resource and there's no reason why they should be free of charge to everyone at all times. And, in any case, a congestion charge can be implemented to include consideration for social fairness, including income-based discounts.

I imagine the flat, monthly tax seemed an attractive option to decision makers because it would be relatively simple and inexpensive to implement. A congestion charging scheme, by contrast, will involve a cordon of ANPR cameras that monitor every entry point into downtown along with enabling legislation at the national level and more. However, there's no sense in taxing every car owner regardless of their travel habits. I hope the city leadership can use the opportunity of the current crisis to push forward a sensible idea.

Courting the Cyclists

As part of my continuing series of occasional posts about how hip cyclists are, I offer this link about a hipster-targetted concert Saturday night by the Budapest Festival Orchestra.

Unusually for a BFO concert, this event is starting at 11:30 p.m. and is staged not in the hoity-toity Palace of Arts on Soroksari ut but at a venue that normally hosts shows by pop and folk bands and rock stars from the dark and distant past.

Also unusually for a BFO concert, the playbill features a picture of someone wearing a sleeveless denim vest, over-ear headphones and a big furry wolf's head. This plus the bold, paint-brush font for the lettering tells you straight away that the event is not targeted at the usual conservative crowd.

 

The cycling angle comes from a post on the Hungarian Cyclists Club website, where BFO Conductor Iván Fischer makes a direct invitation to the hipster elite. Fischer made his last splash in the cycling world in the fall, when he conducted a free concert at Heroes' Square on the occasion of the European Car-Free Day Critical Mass. 

Now he's doing another concert just for cyclists -- apparently he really loves us. Either that, or he wants people to believe he really loves us, which, of course, is only natural. Fischer writes this on the cycling club's site:

Dear Budapest cyclists,
When at Heroes' Square, I saw the raised bicycles and thought, it would be nice to hold a concert just for young people, late at night, when older people are asleep, and when, for a few minutes, there aren't so many cars on the streets, and it's possible to bike to the concert hall. Now it's a reality -- for you - on the night of Jan. 21 at the Millenáris Teatrum. Come one and all to Midnight Music. Tickets will be very cheap, only for a small contribution to the costs.

The tickets are extremely cheap by BFO standards -- just HUF 1,200. And if you belong the cyclists' club or come by bike, you get a further 30 percent discount.

So, along with the concessionaires at Liszt Ferenc Airport and the fabric store at Jaszai Mari ter, Iván Fischer joins the queue of Hungarian opinion leaders who are desperately trying to ingratiate themselves with cyclists just because we're so cool.

Good luck to you, maestro.

Crash Prevention Efforts Out of Focus

Although police have determined that car drivers caused more than five times as many crashes as cyclists last year, authorities intend to make "two-wheelers" the focus of accident prevention measures.

That's the counter-intuitive conclusion of the National Accident Prevention Committee (Országos Baleset-megelőzési Bizottság) in light of year-end road-crash data published this week in the Metropol newsaper.

The overall numbers are encouraging, showing that injurious or fatal road crashes in 2011 were down year on year from 16,308 to 15,800 -- a 3.1 percent drop. Fatal injuries were down from 649 to 571, or 12 percent.

Looking at the causes of accidents, Zsolt Halmos, vice-president of the committee (a body of the national police force), had this remarkable thing to say:

 "The National Accident Prevention Committee this year plans to put two-wheelers in the spotlight since last year's statistics show that while those who caused the accidents were predominantly drivers (61 percent), the second-ranking category was cyclists (12 percent)." 

Maybe I'm missing something, but why would the number-two category of offenders be the number-one target of enforcement efforts?

Halmos explained that there's a "misconception" that accidents caused by cyclists are harmful to cyclists only. On the contrary, he said, it's very often the case that a cyclist turns unexpectedly into the path of a car, causing the driver to steer into the opposite lane and get into a head-on collision.

I don't dispute that this sometimes happens. What's left unexamined is that such mishaps end disastrously because the others involved are in cars. 


Sure, there are freak instances when a serious injury or even death results from a cyclist-cyclist or cyclist pedestrian accident. But I would wager that more than 99 percent of road fatalities involve one or more cars. Death and injury in collisions depend on an excess of kinetic energy -- 1/2 mass times velocity squared -- and this is the magic ingredient that motor vehicles bring to road crashes.


That  being the case, why aren't cars in the committee's "spotlight"?

Diversion Time

BKV: Not a particularly diverting experience, either.

For the past several weeks, local news sites have been chronicling the financial crisis facing Budapest public transport company BKV. With payment deadlines on several huge loans coming up next month, a day of reckoning is drawing near, and BKV's prospects look dismal from every angle: they don't have enough money of their own and their would-be backstop, the Hungarian national government, can't handle its own problems, let alone Budapest's. And in any case, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has little incentive and far less good will to stick his neck out for political independent István Tarlos, the capital's mayor.

Anyway, Erik D'Amato lays out the state of play in a thoroughgoing post on caboodle.hu. The article sums up the financial and political aspects of the story, and takes the added step, seldom taken by Hungarian journalists, of considering the impacts on "you the reader." If the crisis does devolve into a transit worker strike and service shutdown, hundreds of thousands of people will be stuck without their usual mode of transport.

Erik mentions an index.hu survey on what mode of transport readers would use in case of a BKV shutdown. The #1 response (by a 2-1 margin over #2, a private car): the bicycle. Erik editorialises:

"(That's) something that might be a fun temporary diversion in summer, but hardly one in the dead of a Central European winter."

On the contrary, I imagine the Index readers fully appreciate the challenges of riding a bike in a Central European winter: You need to dress warmly and you need to beware of slippery spots when it's below freezing. Not a big deal. Commuters in Denmark and Sweden bike through winters that make the ones here seem like a trip to the Király baths: a little dank and gloomy, perhaps, but generally pretty warm.

I can imagine a Scandinavian reading Erik's comment about the fear of cycling in the "dead" of one of our winters, and thinking. "What a bunch of wussies!" Just the same thought occurred to me this morning as I was bumping down the tracks on the HÉV by Pannonia telep. I looked out the window and noticed a woman about 65-70 years of age bicycling along on the road next to us. She was bundled up in a scarf and big ski parka, and, although her determined expression did not suggest  she was having "a fun temporary diversion," neither did she seem in an advanced state of hypothermia. I imagine she was regarding all of us in the HÉV, and thinking, "What a bunch of wussies!"

That said, I don't look forward to a BKV shutdown. The system carries approximately 55-60 percent of city traffic in downtown Budapest, so you can't take it away without causing major problems.

On Friday, as a first condition of getting emergency government subsidies for BKV, Mayor Tarlos submitted a plan to secure the long-term financial sustainability of the public transport system. Along with fare hikes, the plan calls for the implementation of an inner-city congestion charge and the establishment of a network of park and rides on the congestion zone's periphery. These ideas were mooted several years ago by former Mayor Gábor Demszky, but there's never been any action on them. Just as the city has made no real attempt to achieve its stated goal of a 15% modal share for cycling by 2015.

If there will be a silver lining to the BKV crisis, it may be that it will finally kick-start some ad hoc action on the city transport system's strategic development.

Winter: It's not Just for Drinking Anymore

Winter in Copenhagen, a shot from the blog Copenhagen Cycle Chic.

I hate to start a new year on a negative note -- so I'll save that for post #2. This first post will focus on a little ray of sunshine from a place that doesn't have much of that this time of year -- Denmark. A photo exhibition of Copenhagen's renowned cycling culture will be held Thursday evening at the Európa Pont at Millenáris Park. It'll be a selection of 50 photos by Denmark's most prolific cycling shutterbug Mikael Colville-Anderson. Readers will know him as the blogger behind Copenhagenize.com and Copenhagen Cycle Chic.

Putting a local spin on the event, the Hungarian Cyclists' Club will follow up with a workshop on winter cycling. Very timely subject matter considering the threat of bankruptcy now facing Budapest public transport company, BKV. Those who haven't saddled up since September might consider pumping up their tires. At the workshop, bike club President János László and COWI Magyarország engineer and cycling expert Péter Dalos will preside.

After that, the local blog, Hungarian Cycle Chic, will host a fashion show featuring the clothes and cycling accessories of various local and international designers and manufacturers.

An English description of the photo exhibition, entitled "Monumental Motion" and being staged in various cities throughout the year, is here.

What: Cycling photo exhibition and winter cycling programme
When: 6-9 p.m. Thursday
Where: Európa Pont, Millenáris Park, 1024 Budapest, Lövőház u. 35.

We're going for ... a walk. God help us!!

Today at school, our boy got a gift from the II. District government: a fluorescent lime safety vest meant to wear whenever he's walking or bicycling in the city.

The II. District is looking out for me! But missing the point.

It came with a note, signed by the district mayor, explaining that "the safety of children is the responsibility of adults -- our responsibility." And continued that children get into accidents more easily and, regrettably, more frequently, and they make up the majority of those involved in accidents as cyclists or pedestrians.

And while noting that increased attention is needed on the part of motorists, the letter emphasized that it is necessary to develop proper travel behaviour among children in the interest of avoiding accidents.

The letter concludes by noting that because a parent "can't be next their child every second," this reflective vest can provide a useful, effective service by helping the little ones (a kicsik) to draw attention to themselves from motorists.

I feel bad whinging about this, because I believe this gesture came from a good place and, of course, I'm grateful that the local önkormányzat considers the safety of local children a priority.

At the same time, I feel myself recoiling from this unsolicited advice just as I do when older Hungarian women offer to help with our little daughter whenever we're out in public. If you're a parent, you're familiar with the issue. You're out with your baby on a perfectly pleasant summer day, but a square centimetre of her abdomen is exposed to the air -- the air!! -- and so an endless succession of kind-hearted women accost you to express pity for your child and ask if you don't think your baby's freezing.

It's the same thing with the protective vest. The sentiment is nice, I suppose, but it reflects a quaint, wrongheaded approach that doesn't do anything to help my child. If the mayor's really interested in helping, he needs to know that the main transport hazards that Lance faces on the streets of this district are from fast-moving cars. Of course both my wife and I work to instill safe walking and cycling behaviour in him, as we would anywhere. But this city, including this district, has a problem with traffic speeds. A city is no place for an expressway, but Budapest is full of urban expressways that don't allow for the slimmest margins of error for a rambunctious child on a sidewalk.

I love the small of a traffic jam in the morning!

 The main hazard Lance and I face everyday in District II is the traffic on Margit körút. This street is a typical four-lane, Budapest expressway, and it runs between our flat and the turnoff to Lance's school. Lining the street are dozens of apartment blocks, a park with playgrounds, restaurants and bakeries, a cinema, three grocery stores and the Mammut shopping mall -- places that attract droves of "little ones". The körút is also the route of the city's most heavily used tram line, which ferries hundreds of children and their parents to and from schools, kindergartens and daycare centres located just off the körút. This corridor teems with pedestrians of all ages every rush hour, and yet, the vast majority of space on the körút is devoted to car traffic and the cars rush by at ridiculous speeds.

In my view, the best way to enhance children's safety on the streets of II. District would be to calm the traffic. On the körút, the sidewalks could be widened, bike tracks added on both sides of the street and motor circulation restricted to one lane in each direction. But most importantly, the speeds could be slowed down to 30 kph. Studies have been shown that speed reduction is one of the most effective ways to avoid accidents and reduce the incidence of serious injuries and fatalities. 

Ironically, I occasionally don one of these ugly reflective vests while cycling at night in Budapest. And I see more and more cyclists in Budapest wearing these things -- during the night and day. I think this is profoundly wrong -- you shouldn't have to dress up like a emergency-services worker to ride a bike. And now, the district government is advising parents to put these things on their children whenever they set foot on a district sidewalk. Is this not a sign a problem?

Postscript: Despite my philosophical quibbles with the District II's child-safety scheme, Lance couldn't wait to put his new vest on this morning. Later,  I had cause to puzzle about this apparent enthusiasm. He wore it on our bike ride to school. But when I dropped him off at the front gate, he took off the vest and handed it to me. I didn't understand -- why didn't he just wear it into the school and take it off in the class room, along with his coat and mittens? He said he didn't want to -- he wanted me to take it home. Then I teased him: C'mon Lance, you're teachers will say you're a bright student. I can't resist stupid word plays. And it made Lance cross with me. At any rate, for some reason, he did not want his friends to see him in that vest. At seven years of age, he's more fashion conscious than he once was, and this vest apparently sets him apart in an unpleasing way. Maybe he thinks it makes him look like a momma's boy. I'm not sure, but he's definitely got some reservations about this thing.

Lance dons the safety vest. But will it be a
short flirtation with fluorescent fashion?