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. 

Quality connection to Csepel

Here's downtown Csepel, aka District XXI, a community of more than 80,000 on the north end of Csepel Island.

Today, I did a bike-nerd thing: I went out to inspect a new piece of local cycling infrastructure. The 'infra' in question is a 2.9 km path running from the village center of Csepel to the northern tip of Csepel Island and then across Kvassay Bridge to southern Pest not far from the Rakoczi Bridge. Here's a map.

In the heart of Csepel, you'll find some attractive, Socialist-era housing estates with generous allotments
of green space and playgrounds and here, a bike path with connections to the town centre.

More characteristic are these much larger residential buildings.
Lots of green space, but these big buildings make for a heavy population density.

I'm glad I took the trip. This is a fine addition to the choice of day trips to quieter and greener places outside of downtown. And the quality of the path itself beats anything else I've seen in Budapest. Everything is done beautifully: Curb cuts and rail crossings are smooth as butter, a nice beveled concrete curb separates the sidewalk and the bike path, bright red and yellow paint highlights the crossings of all intersections and driveways, and the directional signs make finding your way a breeze.

Time will tell, the materials look good and the execution is top notch. It's a pleasure to ride on.

The rails on this level crossing are tucked away under a flat-as-a-pancake deck with a hard rubber surface.
State of the art stuff.

It's all a separate two-way path running on one side of the street -- Szabadkikötő út. In principle, 'best practice' in an urban setting would be to have one-way paths or lanes on both sides of the street. However, I was happy just to be on a separated path. Szabadkikötő út is a busy four-lane motor route and the traffic seemed to be moving well over the posted speed limit of 70 km/hr.

Although it makes for a nice pleasure ride, this path was built for commuting. It's one of six new paths built during the last year to connect outlying residential areas to the city centre. I'm curious how much traffic the path gets during a typical workday rush hour.

The few criticisms I'd have are the odd placement of bike racks, including these in the picture below. There was no store, transport stop or anything nearby that would merit a stop at this location. Either something is planned to built here, or these racks are just a waste of resources.

You can chain your bike up here -- if that's what you're into.

The other is the comparatively poor directional signage on the previously existing connecting path to Rakoczi Bridge. The new path is so good, it makes the rest of the network look bad.

The Kvassay Bridge

From here, there's no indication this underpass is for cyclists as well as for pedestrians -- no sign, no yellow markings next to the zebra. But you must go through this underpass to get from Rakoczi Bridge to the new Csepel bike path.

Here's a path toward Rakoczi Bridge, but it ends before it gets anywhere. Curiously, a sign indicates
the Eurovelo 6 route lies beyond the dead end.