Still bike crazy after all these years

Is Central and Eastern Europe a hotbed of utility cycling? Conventional wisdom would say no, but a recent Eurobarometer survey on local travel paints another picture. Look at the graph below: There are 17 countries in Europe where at least 10 percent of inhabitants ride a bike on a daily basis. Not surprisingly, Scandinavia and the Low Countries dominate. But most of the others (Austria and Italy excepted) are "new member" EU states of Central and Eastern Europe.

This surprised a few of us who are taking part in an EU-funded project that is promoting cycling in Central and Eastern Europe. The mobile2020 project was predicated, partly, on the belief that the recent global fashion of "Cycle Chic" had not gained much ground here.

This is true, but the key thing to understand is that Cycle Chic is a big-city thing. It's all about popularizing bicycling as a fashionable, sexy mode of travel for urbanites. But in this region, big city cycling is a tiny part of the picture. The above study, based on surveys of 27,680 random households in the EU (about 1,000/country), shows that cycling levels are quite high in the region at the country level. There's little evidence of this in big cities. Clearly, smaller communities are picking up the slack.

Hungary is a good example. In Budapest, despite all the hoopla over Critical Mass and the significant increases in cycling in the city centre, the highest guesstimates of modal share are 4-5 percent. The countryside, comprising a handful of medium-size cities and scores of small towns and villages, is much more conducive to cycling. Distances are smaller, public transport options more scarce and motor traffic less stifling. Lots of people in the countryside go by bike, contributing to a nationwide portion of everyday cyclists of 25 percent.

It's no doubt true that a relative lack of economic development, and the inability of people to buy cars, is partly responsible. The Eurobarometer  survey notes that young people in Hungary generally aspire to have cars, even if car usage in Hungary is lower than anywhere else in Europe. So the danger is that as the job market picks up, more and more people will switch from bikes to cars.

In the mobile2020 project, our approach has been to transfer Dutch and German cycling know-how to Central and Eastern Europe. The fact that this region already has good cycling levels doesn't invalidate the approach. But it does narrow down what this region can learn from its northern neighbors: How to create conditions in which cycling is the preferred choice -- even when attractive alternatives are in the offing.

Bike to Work Launch Postponed

Despite driving rain, I popped down to Batthyányi tér for the launch breakfast of the Bike to Work campaign. A small group of organisers was huddled under a tent emblazoned with the "Bringazz a Munkaba" logo, and doling out "bio" cinnamon rolls and apples to anyone rolling by on the korzó bike path -- which wasn't very many people. Because of the low turnout, the organisers are holding another launch breakfast on Wednesday morning. It'll be at the same place, but this time starting a half hour earlier -- from 7:30-10 a.m. See www.kamba.hu.

Bike to Work Contest Starts Monday

Hungary's environment ministry is sponsoring its bike-to-work contest again, kicking off with a breakfast 8.30-10 a.m. at Batthyanyi ter on Monday, Sept. 8. (Check out criticalmass.hu for a tedious conversation between a bunch of people complaining that the timing of this event doesn't suit their work schedule.)

The "Bringazz a Munkaba" contest has been going for a few years. Check out an English-language description of it here. I participated when it was last held in the spring partly because the contest website promised a free gift for all participants. Noting that the sponsors ran the gamut from Merida bike manufacturer to the Flora margarine brand, I half suspected my free gift would be a tub of butter substitute. But several weeks after the contest's conclusion, I was pleasantly surprised to receive an envelope containing a certificate of completion, a bandana printed with the T-Mobile logo and a useful reflective band (pictured).

Anyway, the contest is very simple. You register on-line at http://www.kamba.hu/ -- you can do so as an individual or as a group -- and you write down how long your regular commute is. Each day you commute, you check off on your account calendar, and the site automatically tallies your cumulative kilometres. The way it worked last time was that you could retroactively tick off commuting days up to three days after the fact. But if you let it slide further, you lose it.

I did pretty well last time as I'm commuting virtually everyday from Budapest to Szentendre. But there were people with even longer commutes that that. At least in theory. The contest works on the honor system so you can cheat or stick to the straight and narrow at your pleasure.

Best Cycling Lanes, Yet

Some new cycling lanes on Alkotmány utca in District V are the best facilities that have been implemented in Budapest, perhaps showing the city is finally taking bicycles seriously as transport. The lanes are good for a number of reasons. First, they're on the street, rather than the sidewalk, and thus integrate cyclists with motor traffic, which, in an urban context, moves at roughly the same speed. Second, there's a separate lane on both sides of the street, allowing the cyclists to move in the same direction as other road users in adjacent lanes. This is in contrast to the shared-use paths that constitute most Budapest cycling facilities (as on nearby Bajcsy-Zsilinszky út) where a single, bidirectional track runs along only one side of the street).

The closest thing we've seen to this type of facility to date is Andrássy út. But the lanes on that street are flawed because they run down a narrow gap between parked cars and the sidewalk, putting cyclists in danger of getting "doored" by passengers exiting vehicles. Check out this video (Nine Reasons Why It's Great to Bicycle in Budapest). Reason No. 8 illustrates the problem nicely. (http://www.hirszerzo.hu/patroview.1.23)

The Alkotmány lanes are of a type referred to in some quarters as "share rows" because they can also be driven on by ("shared" with) motorists. It's a popular solution among many road departments because they provide accommodation for cyclists without taking space from motorists. Of course, Budapest City Hall has always feared the political backlash of taking space from motorists. But there's now an emerging, quickly growing constituency of city cyclists. So some compromise is needed. The NGO MKK (kerekparosklub.hu), which is partly funded by Budapest City Hall, successfully lobbied for share rows on a trial basis.

I have mixed feelings about share rows. I can understand that on very narrow streets, it's impossible to provide separate lanes for both motorists and cyclists. But when share rows are used out of simple political timidity, it is running the risk that motorists won't give the lanes any respect, at all. In the 1980s, the city of Paris installed share rows on a similar trial basis, and the experiment failed for this very reason. These days, Paris is building a combination of lanes as well as facilities that are separated with physical barriers such as curbs, posts and speed dots. Cyclists are now an accepted part of traffic there, but this can be credited, at least partly, to city's firm steps to stake out cycling territory.

Perhaps share rows will work better in Budapest. I say this because, in contrast to Paris in the 1980s, cyclists in Budapest have already insinuated themselves into traffic -- with virtually no help from the city. It's my feeling that if and when the city starts building decent infrastructure, cyclists will fill it up quickly and motorists won't be able to ignore them.

Cycling Entering Mainstream

If you're quick, you can still get a copy of the current copy of HVG (http://hvg.hu/default.aspx) with a 17-page special section on Hungary's bicycling phenomenon. The section leads off with some antedotes about a couple Budapest enthusiasts who put on crazy numbers of kilometers on their bikes week-in and week out, and then mentions the Critical Mass successes (60-80,000 riders last spring, the article recalls) and the frequent weekend traffic jams of cyclists entering and leaving Margit Sziget.

The section includes an article on the domestic bicycle manufacturing market, the annual bike race around the Balaton, and -- one of my favorite topics -- the example of Paris's cycling "Velorution." The focus of this last is on Velib, the massive bike-sharing scheme of Paris. I've written lots about Paris as a good example for Budapest in terms of cycling development. Check my master's thesis (http://www.greenmedia.hu/gspencer/) or an article in Hungarian that had a more narrow focus on Paris (http://epiteszforum.hu/node/9672.

I don't think there's much information in the article that hasn't already been widely circulated through Hungary's cycling blogosphere, but the fact that the subject merited such extensive treatment in Hungary's most prestigious news weekly (HVG is often said to be Hungary's version of the Economist) is just one more sign that cycling is becoming a popular movement. Now if we can get Budapest City Hall to give it the support that it deserves.

Bucharest launches city-bike scheme

Cicloteque is the name of Europe's latest municipal city-bike scheme, launched the first part of August in Bucharest. With just 100 bikes, it's much more modest in scale than the widely publicised schemes of cities such as Paris, Barcelona and Lyon -- yet it's encouraging to see a progressive step taken in a fellow new member state of the EU.

I wrote an earlier post on the possibility of Budapest getting a similar scheme rolling. http://cyclingsolution.blogspot.com/2008/07/free-bikes-in-budapest.html

The service is marketed as a means of transport, providing an alternative to cars and public transportation. It was created by the NGO Mai Mult Verde http://www.maimultverde.ro (director Dragos Bucurenci pictured left at Cicloteque's launch event) and UniCredit Tiriac bank. The first batch of 100 bikes was installed at the campus of the University of Bucharest. To use the bikes, you have to first pay an annual registration fee of 100 Lei (EUR 30) and an hourly 2 Lei (EUR 0.50) or daily 20 Lei (EUR 5) usage fee.

Mai Mult Verde's stated purpose was to improve urban mobility in the congested capital and to protect the environment. Bucharest has 1.2 private cars, which emit an estimated 125 tonnes of lead every year.

Just as Paris's Velib is financially backed by a commercial partner (JC Decaux advertising firm) Cicloteque got its money from a commercial partner who saw the venture as a good publicity tool. The local branch of Unicredit bank put up 100% of the initial investment of EUR 150,000, which covered the purchase of 100 bikes, the cost of the launch event, as well as the installation of 20 bike racks throughout Bucharest (The racks are just for short stops -- so far, the only place you can pick up and drop off bikes is at Cicloteque's single depot on the university campus.)

Just three weeks after the system's launch, there are 200 subscribers, according to Miruna Cugler, communications manager at Mai Mult Verde. Plans for the future include more bikes and more depots around the city.

In addition, Mai Mult Verde plans to lobby for more bike paths and routes around the city. At present, Bucharest has just a few bike paths, most of which are swarming with pedestrians and other users. The poor quality and quantity of paths mean that urban bike users have to jostle with motor traffic to get anywhere, a situation familiar to cyclists in Budapest.

New cycling master plan for Budapest

This month marked the release of a new cycling plan for Budapest. An English-language, thumbnail sketch of it can be found at http://www.eltis.org/show_news.phtml?newsid=1245&mainID=461.
The complete document (in Hungarian only) can be downloaded here http://kerekparosklub.hu/vitaanyag.

I haven't had time to give it a close look, but can say that it's an attractive, professional-looking document. And from my conversations with the people who put it together (staff at the Hungarian Cycling Club and experts from the Budapest Technical University and the COWI consulting company), it will no doubt represent a positive turn towards state-of-the-art planning, with several references to good international examples.

For example, the plan encourages a move away from segregated facilities toward lanes that integrate cyclists with motor traffic. On two-way streets, it encourages bike lanes on both sides of the street for both directions of traffic (with the exception of Andrassy, facilities in Budapest are generally single-track, shared-use, segregated facilities). And it stresses the importance of integrating cycling planning with general urban planning rather than introducing it as a retrofit or afterthought.

So, it'll be several days before I can read through the whole document, but it's already clear the underlying philosophy is a good one -- more enlightened than what we've seen before and one that treats cycling not just as a form of recreation but as a means of everyday transport.

Sziget festival angers, charms cyclist

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Oh brother. I realize that I've been duped by the Sziget Festival's slick communications. In my previous post, I praised the organisers for having a free-of-charge, attended parking facility for bicycles. Somehow, this little gesture distracted me from the bigger picture, which is that the Sziget's ticket booths at the main entrance completely block the main north-south bike path on the Buda side.

I don't know why I forgot to mention this -- I commute everyday between Budapest and Szentendre, and during the week of Sziget it becomes virtually impossible to get past the Filitorigat HÉV stop due to the logjam of humanity coming on and off the island. No exageration -- the line of people between the HÉV stop and the festival entrance fully occupies about 200 metres of the path, and the few times I tried to get through it with my bike, it took an eternity (well maybe 15-20 minutes -- but that's a hell of a long time to bike 200 metres).

Anyway, I hate being a crank -- especially as I know the Sziget Festival has been barraged by cranks from the day it started back in the early 1990s. Still, this is a serious inconvenience for those of us who commute on this path on a daily basis and I felt I should at least raise the issue just to make sure organisers know it IS an issue.

So I sent a non-cranky note of complaint, and two days later I got this thoughtful, non-cranky reply.

Dear Greg,

Thank you for contacting us.

I see what you are talking about. The problem is, that there is no other place where we could put the ticket offices (we can not build them on the highway, can we?). Unfortunatelly the bicycle road is by the bridge where our visitors comes in. So even, if our tents would not be there it would be a big problem to cross the junction with the bike, as people are crossing it non stop.

However, the bikers still can use the road in this junction. And than return to the bicycle route. (The police has closed the Jégtörő street for cars but not for bikers.)

There are 3,5 days left.... So please have patient. It will be over soon.

Thank you for your understanding.
Best wishes,
INFO

This note is really nice. My only quibble would be its unconscious, car-centric prejudice: "We can not build them on the highway, can we?" If it were up to me, that's EXACTLY where I'd build them. Afterall, the only thing the highway is used for is cars -- and I think I speak for about 9 people when I say -- who gives a damn about cars?

But other than that, this was an exceptionally conscientious reply and I'm inclined to drop the issue right here. For the week of the festival, I'm taking a detour out onto the highway, Route 11, which is very busy (read "choked with motor traffic") but I already ride on it for part of my commute so it's not a big deal.

Incidentally, the option that INFO suggested in his/her reply is a good one. Jégtörő út is the name of the quay road next to Filitorigat. With it being closed to motor traffic, it makes a convenient and scenic way to cycle between the festival and downtown Budapest.

Anyway, looks like with a little understanding, biking and rocking can still go hand in hand.

Cycling to the Sziget Festival

As in years past, you can bike out to the Sziget festival (August 13-18 at Hajogyari Island) and leave your bike in a free-of-charge, attended parking facility. In addition to secure parking, you can also get minor repairs and maintenance done. Check out the blurb on the English-language page at
http://www.sziget.hu/festival_english/travel

For those who've never biked out there, the Buda entrance at the Filatorigat HÉV stop is along a designated bike route. Get on the Budai rakpart path and follow the signs. After you pass the Aquincum Hotel, the path diverges from the HÉV tracks at Arpad hid and goes on cobblestones through Fô tér at Óbuda and the housing estate immediately to the north. After that, you're directed back toward the HÉV tracks and you'll soon see the massing crowds of Sziget revelers.

Sorry to say, I have no idea if there's an easy way to penetrate the crowd or whether you just have to line up with everyone else and find the bike park after you gain admittance. Presumably, you can get these directions when you finally get the head of the line. Best of luck!