Free Speech on Ice

I'm not a fan of the tag-type graffiti that pollutes so much of Budapest's landscape, but this mural of Ice-T is in another category. I noticed it last week along the bike path just south of the Filitorigát HÉV stop. It's an expertly rendered portrait of the American rapper alongside lyrics from his song, "It's on."

This song was at the centre of one of the first controversies concerning Hungary's draconian new media law. Local broadcaster Tilos Radio played the song during the daytime, provoking the newly established Media Council to threaten sanctions based on the law's protection of minors.

When I first heard about the Ice-T controversy, I thought, OK, playing an obscenity-filled song during daytime wouldn't be allowed in most European democracies.

But the lyrics excerpted in this graffito read as a direct and brazen rebuff to the Media Council. As words of political dissent, this kind of speech really does need to be protected, and I have to hand it to the artist for this pointed commentary.

I have to add, though, that the anti-obscenity stricture in the new media law is among its least objectionable parts. It's a sweeping piece of legislation (running more than 200 pages) restricting the public media in astonishing detail, and requiring media outlets to register with the government and report every year on their compliance. Among other things, the law requires news media to ensure "balanced" coverage, limits stories about crime to no more than 20 percent of content, and bans any published speech deemed to "infringe on human dignity." And the members of the arbitrating Media Council have all been elected by the Fidesz-dominated Parliament.

There have been two public protests against the law in Budapest, neither rivaling the crowds that gather twice annually for Critical Mass. I'd have to say it's been a tepid reaction, however every voice raised deserves credit.

Bicycling Firebrands

With Iran refusing to ship petrol to Afghanistan, hundreds of protesters in Kabul hit the streets on bicycles brandishing signs that said, "We can live without oil." And why not? In Hungary, at least, we can always use pig grease to lube our chains.

This follows right on the heels of another bit of bicycle protest news from the Middle East. Last month, an Israeli court gave a three-month jail sentence to a left-wing activist for riding in a mini-Critical Mass against the blockade of Gaza.
Somehow, bicycles are becoming the ride of choice for political firebrands the world over.

Bloggers under fire

So as of tomorrow, according to Hungary's Putin-esque new media law, some 250,000 bloggers in Hungary will be required to register themselves with the authorities.

The new law, the last bit of which was signed into law this past week, is a clamp down on freedom of independent speech by a right-wing government that has a better than two-thirds majority in Parliament. As a critical editorial in the Washington Post explains, the law:

"creates a powerful Media Council with the authority to regulate newspapers, television, radio and the Internet. The council may issue decrees and impose heavy fines - up to $950,000 - for news coverage it considers "unbalanced" or offensive to "human dignity."

It will also require bloggers and websites to be officially registered. I'm not sure what will be the repercussions of this part of the law. For instance, will bloggers who offend the government risk having their registrations revoked? Even if they aren't, the law stands to create a climate of self-censorship among those who should be speaking truth to power, as underscored by the OSCE.

As far as I can tell, this won't affect me, as it takes specific aim at electronic publishers in Hungarian language. I may write about Hungarian matters, but mainly in English language, which I reckon gets me off the hook. To be honest, it kind of feels like a snub, although I don't take it personally. It seems the government doesn't care much about the English language media or criticism from abroad. At any rate, with the law coming into effect on January 1, we'll soon see what sort of government oppression I'll be missing out on.

100,000 and counting

Barely four months after its installation, Hungary's first automatic bicycle counter hit the 100,000 mark.

As noted on the Kerekagy blog, the 100,000th cyclist who passed through was a perfect representative of today's cycling culture in Budapest: not a recreational cyclist out for a weekend spin, nor a road-biker on a training ride, but rather an everyday commuter. And, as the video makes clear, not a fair-weather one either, as this fellow was riding on in torrential rain after dark in the thick of evening rush hour.

According to Kerekagy, he was the 320th cyclist for the day. That's down from the average daily counts recorded at the end of summer (about 900/day during the workweek), but it might strike some as high for a mid-November day in worse-than-normal conditions.

The data captured by this EUR 5,000 counter is providing valuable empirical evidence of what local cyclists have known for years: biking is an important part of Budapest's transport system. Let's hope these results make an impression on the city's new administration.

Strained relations

Traffic cops handed out a total of HUF 839,000 (EUR 3,000) in on-the-spot fines to 110 participants in Wednesday's Critical Mass demonstration, according to the Budapest Police.

Police were out in force during the event, most of them stationed in small teams at intersections and flagging over cyclists for checks and interrogations. According to the police, most of the citations were given for running red lights and for riding on tram tracks.

In various news reports, organisers agreed that although many of the citations were probably deserved, they also had heard of reports of cyclists being hassled for not wearing reflective vests, which would be a misapplication of the law (reflective vests are required only for night-time riding on rural roads).

And considering the five-year record of very good cooperation between the city officials and Critical Mass organisers, it struck many as a disheartening change of tone.

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It's probably entirely unrelated, but I was interested to see that Hungarian Cyclists' Club János László was a participant in a separate demonstration just before Critical Mass but involving the same organisers -- leaders of the Hajtas Pajtas bike courier company.

This protest, which was filmed and posted here, concerned City Hall's use of a prime patch of 5th District property as their own personal parking lot. The property, big enough to accommodate two football pitches, sits between City Hall and the kiskörút and north of the Merlin Theatre. With its location in the dead centre of town, I wouldn't be surprised if it's the most expensive vacant lot in Hungary.

The area was once home to a row of shabby looking one-story shops and taverns. These were razed, opening up a vast lot from the kiskörút to City Hall. A couple years ago, a narrow strip along the kiskörút was turned in to a "temporary" park while the rest was sealed from the public with a three-metre fence and put at the mayor's disposal as free parking. (Street parking fees in the neighbourhood run more than HUF 400 per hour.)

The protesters' simple action involved jumping the fence and taking over the property for a short while to blow bubbles, skip rope, throw frisbees, and lay on the grass. They brandished a sign reading "Parkoló" with the "oló" crossed out. (In English "parking lot" with the "...ing lot" crossed out.)

They're right, of course. Downtown suffers from a terrible shortage of parks, which is part of the reason the newish public space at nearby Erzsébet tér got run down so quickly. The demand for open space in downtown greatly exceeds supply. (The other reason is that it was cheaply built, but that's another story.)

Anyway, the protesters made a pertinent point in a funny, clever way -- which seems to be their forté. But I was a little surprised to see János there considering the cycling club he leads gets a good part of its operating budget from City Hall. Biting the hand that feeds, I would have thought.

Then again, with Mayor Demszky out of contention in this season's election and his Free Democrats party in shreds, I suppose this is just one more sign of a closing chapter of city politics.

The Biking Bloc

This year's free-jazz approach to Critical Mass seemed to produce more harmony than discord as far as I could tell. And participation was once again huge, at least 10,000 according to the report by Hungarian wire service MTI. Certainly, Érzsébet tér was swamped with cyclists for the closing bike lift at 8 p.m.

My advance post on the ride was called "Critical Chaos," but this was not descriptive of the event as it happened. Despite having no fixed starting point, and only a crude script calling for people to ride on the Pest side of the Nagykörút starting at 6:30 p.m., most participants rode in an orderly fashion on schedule. There seemed to be heavy bike traffic in both directions over most of the length of the route.

From my limited vantage point, it appeared that the traffic going from Margit bridge to Oktogon was heaviest. The entire curbside lane was packed with cyclists and at some points, we even spilled into the second lane. On any other day, I wouldn't think of taking my 5-year-old boy on the körút. The traffic there is as fast and aggressive as it gets in Budapest. However, Critical Mass offers safety in numbers, so Lance accompanied me on my bike's luggage rack the whole way. Mind you, he has no patience for Critical Mass. To him, this is an event that looks from a distance like a festival, but then upon arrival you see it has no rides or toys. I explain to him that it's a political thing. Lance thinks it's BORING.

Despite the usual civility of the crowd and the effectiveness of the volunteer traffic directors, there were tonnes of police this year. MTI noted that there were police checks at at least 10 intersections and that they were handing out fines as high as HUF 15,000 for not having lights and/or spoke reflectors. Hungarian Cyclists' Club János László lamented a lapse in the traditional good cooperation between organisers and police.

Near Oktogon, I noticed a group of cops questioning some kids on trials bikes -- and I could see that main organiser Gábor Kürti had stopped to mediate. Further on, I observed a group of cops at Blaha Lujza tér stopping cyclists seemingly at random. I don't know if the guy below was guilty of anything, but the cops let him go after a couple minutes of interrogation.

I reckon the city would be remiss if it didn't exert some official control on a demonstration that routinely attracts tens of thousands of people. At any rate, I didn't see any acts of violence by either the cops or participants.

A little while later, we came across Justin Hyatt -- a member of the Young Greens (Zöfi) and a stalwart of the livable-cities movement. He and a fellow activist were in bunny outfits, which provided some welcome comic relief for Lance. They handed me a flier with this URL: www.placcc.hu. More political stuff, apparently, although I didn't tell Lance.

It was getting late so we turned off the körút and headed down Rákóczi út (maybe the only street downtown scarier than the körút) and eventually found our way to the closing bike lift at the Gödör klub. A couple guys with a three-wheel bike taxi emblazoned with a sign saying "Put some fun between your legs!" had some balloons. This salvaged the evening for Lance. It was a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd and Kristin had come with our 4-month-old daughter Sequoia (by stroller, not bike). This was Sequoia's first extra-utero (?) Critical Mass. She did the last one in utero.

Kristin didn't have a bike for the bike lift so she lifted Lance. It's hard to make out, but Lance is spread-eagled here, with one leg above Kristin and the other below. Reminds me of body-surfing photos from my grungy heyday back in Seattle.
After that, the family went home and I hung on to catch the start of the most overtly political part of the evening: mayoral candidates for the fall election were invited for a cycling-focused Q&A -- broadcast on a big screen facing the Gödör's terrace. Apparently, every party sent their candidate except for the odds-on favourite, Fidesz. That candidate, István Tarlos, is apparently confident enough of that he'll win that he didn't bother with a cycling rally of 10,000 people.

Along with the other major party candidates, the LMP's candidate Benedek Jávor was on hand. The kerékagy blog did a run-down of all the parties' cycling platforms and LMP's stood out as the most elaborate and thoughtful.

I don't know about the Socialists' cycling platform but their candidate, Csaba Horváth (below), was at Gödör giving press interviews ahead of the Q&A event. (He didn't take part in the Q&A-- see comments!)

Heavy traffic on Little Ring Road

The first results are in from the bicycle counter installed this summer on the kiskörút (Little Ring Road). It shows that the not-quite-year-old lanes already carry loads of bike traffic. On busy days, the northbound lane carried as many as 1,500 cyclists. On average, there's as much bike traffic there as on a similar street in Vienna.

The counter, installed above the north-bound bike path in front of the National Museum, was christened on July 2. There have been some teething problems with the system -- a week's worth of data was lost earlier this month -- but by now enough data's been collected to give a basic picture of traffic patterns on this principle downtown bike route.

The key numbers (as showing on the Hungarian Cyclists' Club website):

• average number of passing cyclists per workday: 981
  
• average number per weekend day: 479
• average hourly traffic during evening rush hour: 75
  
• Maximum daily traffic: 1,507
• Maximum cyclists per hour: 155

Along with this data, a spot check by human counters showed that the cyclists riding on the lane were just 85 percent of the total bike traffic. About 10 percent of cyclists ride on the sidewalk and the remaining 5 percent ride on the tram tracks. From this, we can deduce that the total average for northbound bike traffic on weekdays was about 1,150. And maybe a similar number going the other direction.

There are a couple things worth remarking on here. First, the fact that there are twice as many cyclists on weekdays as on weekends shows you that downtown bike traffic is mainly about commuting. The majority of cyclists aren't just goofing around (not that there's anything wrong with that) -- they're people going to work and school, running errands, going shopping, getting kids to daycare. This is the basic kind of circulation that keeps the city and its economy alive. City Hall should support it as such.

In regard to the scale of the traffic, it's hard to say anything without some benchmarks. These are the first official bike traffic counts ever made on the kiskörút, so although it's a safe bet the numbers are up substantially from before the lanes were created, we don't have the data to prove this.

One interesting comparison, though, is that the average daily traffic for this period is approximately the same as the traffic at a comparable spot in downtown Vienna: in front of city's West Train Station. And Vienna has six times as big a cycling network. The Austrian capital's also long been regarded by cycling advocates here in Budapest as a model to follow and emulate. It would be really something if Budapest cycling levels are already on par with those in the supposedly more advanced city.

But we can't conclude much yet. Not with a couple months of data from one counter. The value of this data stream will grow with time, as the numbers come in and year-to-year trends emerge. And hopefully, several more counters will be installed in various locations around the city (as in Vienna and many other cities). This would give a more complete picture of cycling in the city: where the greatest need is, what type of cycling infrastructure attracts more cyclists, how to get the most out of infrastructure investments.

With this data in hand, cyclists -- as well as our allies in city leadership -- will have a firmer basis on which to make our requests.