DONETSK – Is the initiative to develop the cycle infrastructure needed and opportune nowadays? Will the Ukrai-nian cyclists feel comfortable when riding the Ukrainian roads? We decided to discuss these questions with the initiators of the social and ecological project called VeloKraina [CycleLand. – Ed.].
The concept was created back in 2008-09 based on the analysis of the European countries’ experience in building bicycle lanes, parking lots and developing the social cycle infrastructure. On September 16, 2009 the concept was directed to the state authorities. A year later, when the Presidential Humanities Council made a decision to consider the bicycle lanes while building the new roads and reconstructing the old ones, the managers of ISD Sports Club reminded about their concept of VeloKraina project. There has been no reaction so far.
“It is extremely important to make bicycles one of the priorities of the Ukrainian cities’ development,” Vitalii KOVALCHUK, president of ISD Sports Club, says. “In this case they will follow the lead of the European cities that have developed the infrastructure for the most eco-friendly, mobile and useful urban transport which a bicycle is. The modern cities are overcrowded with cars. People’s desire to travel comfortably faces sooner or later the problem of the limited traffic capacity of megalopolises’ streets. The comfort expected when buying a car turns into headache for their owners... Have a look at the roads of Donetsk: they are being widened and sacrificed to the automobilists. The number of cars isn’t decreasing and the problem of traffic jams is unlikely to subside even after all these reconstructions. Drastic measures need to be taken.”
THE CONCEPT
VeloKraina concept is a system of measures that if successfully realized will adjust our roads for the safe and comfortable cycling. Thus, the number of cars will decrease and the air will get cleaner. The Ukrainians will get fitter as well: doctors assert that even slow and measured cycling of 15-20 kilometers per hour burns 400 to 500 extra calories per hour.
Cycling helps to maintain the vitality and keep lungs and cardiovascular system healthy. People who use bicycles to get to work come to their working places not “in foam” but in a good tone as if they’ve done morning exercises. In the evening after sitting at the computer all day long people have a possibility to have a cycle ride again instead of driving a car and intently watching the road. However, getting on a bicycle is not enough. We need to create favorable conditions so that cyclists could safely and comfortably ride our streets. This is what VeloKraina project suggests.
“Let’s stop at the first point of our concept which is the creation of bicycle lanes in the Ukrainian cities,” Kovalchuk says. “In the West, the system of joint traffic of cars, cyclists and people worked out years and years ago. We should keep to the beaten track in order to improve road safety: pavements are for pedestrians, roads – for cars, and cycle lanes – for cyclists. The lanes should make a comfortable system for the people who intend to use bicycles to travel to work, for business or pleasure. It should be noted that the decision of the Presidential Humanities Council of October 13, 2010 reads that bicycle lanes should be adapted for disabled people, too. It implies that the lanes should not have any obstacles: curbs, holes, signs or advertising pillars. Such lanes should have comfortable exits and flat road bed. Creating favorable conditions for wheelchair-bound invalids is a noble cause since the state has to care about this category of people. Moreover, it’s enough to give a glance at our roads to understand that the bicycle lanes will not only be the best help for the cyclists but the only possibility for wheelchair-bound invalids to move independently!
“The next point of the concept is the rent-a-bike system introduction. In many European countries the programs of the municipal bicycle rent have been working for years. When people who don’t have bicycles rent them they can really estimate this means of urban transport. It works the following way: in some places they organize automatic rental points with custom-designed bikes. None of their parts can be used for any other types of bikes and the bikes are of bright colors, so stealing them is senseless. Anyone, having paid a little money, can take a bicycle at a point situated in one part of the city and leave it at any other point. The rental points and bicycles are often used for advertising. And one more thing: a bicycle can become an efficient means of transport only if it can be kept somewhere. It means that when designing the bicycle lane system, we need to create bicycle parking lots near the shops, railway and bus stations. They can be automatic boxes, protected bike garages or simple constructions for bike fastening. Employers should be interested in creating corporate bike parking lots for their employees near the offices,” Kovalchuk explained.
FROM A BICYCLE LANE TO THE TRACK RECORDS
The development of the child and junior cycling has a special place in VeloKraina concept whose authors believe that it will guarantee that the project will evolve into a living standard in our country. It’s not a secret that the main problem of the cycling development in the sports schools is their [insufficient. – Ed.] financing. A lot of schools are closing down all over Ukraine and those who don’t want to surrender are dragging out a miserable existence.
The famed racing cyclist of the past, the 1985 world champion, Vasyl ZHDANOV, now one of the managers of the Italian-Ukrainian team Lampre-ISD has pointed at the main drawbacks in training of the Ukrainian young cyclists: “Except for the sportsmen physical conditions there’s a problem with equipment. The equipment is a bike and the coaches shouldn’t fear for children’s health when putting them on a bike. A lot of people know from their own experience that if a handle bar, a frame or a chain breaks it provokes traumas. The foreign cyclists don’t have such problems. We also should avoid such problems by purchasing the reliable equipment and timely changing it. Our teams also lack doctors and masseurs. A coach just cannot take care of everything… As for VeloKraina, it should be noted that this project not only supports young and promising sportsmen but also opens the gates of professional cycling and gives them opportunities to achieve the highest sport results.”
The situation in Donetsk oblast is not so bad as compared to other regions. There are 14 cycling schools working in the region including Serhii Bubka School of the Olympic Reserve, the School of the Sports Mastery, two specialized schools and sports schools for children and juniors.
“It’s good that our institution has been working systematically on the cycling development,” Mark BEYGELZIMER, ISD sports club director, comments. “In our club there are four team members of the International Cyclist Union [Union Cycliste Internationale or UCI. – Ed.], we support and educate the sportsmen from juniors to professional cyclists. One of the goals of VeloKraina is to encourage other regions to take similar steps. The young sportsmen will know what they should strive for in order to professionally develop and bring fame to Ukraine. They won’t search for [vacant. – Ed.] places in foreign clubs and won’t sign the disadvantageous contracts.”
The realization of the social and ecological project VeloKraina will entail the breakthrough in all spheres. It will allow repairing the international cycle racing tracks, paving the way for the cycling tourism, building new cycle tracks, organizing the production of the amateur and professional bicycles, arranging the national and international cycling races, opening new cycling schools for children and juniors and significantly helping the existing ones, promoting the cycling, etc. It sounds great.
“However, our concept does not add up to listing all those directions, it rather has a scheme of their practical realization,” continues Kovalchuk. “In order to do this the project has to be realized at the governmental level by the people who not only want but also can realize the good intentions. According to the concept, VeloKraina project will be supervised by a non-governmental body, namely the Board of Trustees which will provide the strategy and all the necessary conditions and comprise the representatives of the Council Cabinet and the Verkhovna Rada, the president of the Ukrainian National Olympic Committee, the president of the Ukrainian Cycling Federation, authoritative businessmen and politicians and the leaders of NGOs. The funds for the project realization will be accumulated in the specially created VeloKraina Foundation. By the way, the similar system has been tested in Russia. About 20 percent of the expenses are expected to be covered by the state budget, while 80 percent of money will be off-budget.”
WHY IS KYIV OR DONETSK WORSE THAN LONDON?
The fact that Europe is switching to the bicycles is no news. The care for the nation’s health, improvement of the ecological situation, relief of the megalopolises’ roads, attempts to diversify citizen’s leisure hours and help them get more “sporty” in our computer era – all this has led to the creation of the appropriate cycle infrastructure in many countries of the world. The governments usually don’t grudge.
Let us take the Great Britain as an example. In 2010, they opened in London the first city network of 400 bicycle parking lots where one can rent a bicycle (minimum 6,000 bicycles are available in different parts of the city), have a ride in the city and leave a bike at any other parking lot. The visitors of London are exited by this innovation! Similar schemes are being realized in many cities of the Great Britain.
Before the 2012 London Olympic Games the organizing committee called upon the visitors of the British capital to walk in the city or ride bikes. London cares for both its visitors (what can be worse than spending hours in the traffic jams during the Olympic Games!) and its citizens. This care is not only manifested in the appeals for using the bikes. The municipal authorities have invested over 10 million pounds into the improvement of the cycle routes that are connecting different districts of London. The Londoners will inherit all this after the Games fall into oblivion.
Let us now recall the event that millions of Ukrainians are looking forward to and that should open Ukraine for hundreds of thousands Europeans, the 2012 European football championship. The authorities of the cities hosting Euro 2012 care about hotels, stadiums, airports and traditional means of transports such as buses, subway and trolleybuses whereas they could follow London’s example and take into consideration the possibility to comfortably move around the cities [on bikes. – Ed.]. Our visitors won’t be just a crowd of football fans who have to be brought into a city, accommodated, fed, put into buses, taken to the stadium and brought back to their hotels after the game where they will stay until the next one. They will come to see our cities which are beautiful and unique. The best way to do this is to have a cycle ride around the city. It will be upsetting if the championship visitors remember Donetsk only owing to its gigantic traffic jams and the air polluted by the coal dust and car exhaust fumes.
If the national program VeloKraina does not fit into the program of sports development in Ukraine which will finish one “brand” project – Euro 2012, and get down to another one, namely the 2022 Winter Olympic Games (intended for western Ukraine with its ski resorts), we can start small. For example, start realizing this program in Donetsk and oblast since it has already become home for the ambitious and progressive projects.
The Day’s FACT FILE
In Germany, the bicycle lanes are integral part of the road network and the cyclists enjoy the same rights as other road users. The total length of lanes exceeds 70,000 kilometers. The Germans don’t stop at what has been accomplished: the municipal authorities of Berlin where the cyclists make 13 percent of the roads users has allocated 10 million euros for the development of the urban cycle infrastructure. In general, according to the latest information of the German Cyclist Club ADFC, over 2 million Germans use bicycles to travel to work and 82 millions of people living in Germany have 69 million bikes.
In 2010, the Swiss bought more bikes than cars: 351,000 new bicycles and only 294,000 new cars. The Zurich authorities plan to spend 2 million francs annually for the program on further introduction of bicycles in 2011-20.
In the Netherlands there are more bikes than people: 18 million bicycles and 16 million people; ten years ago there were 11 and 14 million of them respectively. Despite the growing number of private cars, bikes remain popular: on average, a Dutch rides about 900 kilometers a year.
The Baltic countries are also developing the bicycle infrastructure in their cities. Belarus has also got down to work. Russia is lagging behind so far: municipal authorities don’t believe that a bicycle can become an efficient urban transport since the lanes can’t be properly maintained during severe Russian winters. However, they seem to ignore the experience of neighboring Finland whose capital has over 1,300 kilometers of bicycle lanes and 560,000 residents (not to mention the suburban dwellers) have 400,000 bikes and only 200 cars. In order to resolve the transport problem in Helsinki 30 years ago they created a special bicycle department at the local municipality. Today the bikes have replaced both urban transport and private cars. Total length of the bicycle lanes in Finland is 4,830 kilometers.
