Description
The project includes a broad set of activities for more effective social participation in bicycle policy on the national and local levels. It is about supporting civic activity in order to achieve decisive and lasting change in the quality of intersectoral cooperation to improve management of bicycle policies. It is a response to the deficit in know-how on infrastructure building, bicycle policy management, as well as flawed social dialogue, resulting in ineffective use of public resources. The project includes activities such as performing general evaluation of bicycle policy implemented in 10 cities in order to set appropriate directives, creating a function of national speaker for cyclists to help NGOs to exert pressure on government institutions, launching a model nationwide cooperation platform and an Internet portal for exchange of experience and knowledge transfer. Direct recipients of the project are local governments, public institutions and bicycle organisations from 18 cities. Partnership with City for the Bicycles (the association that unite many bicycle organizations from whole country) will provide contacts on nationwide level.
Summary of project results
"Bicycles account for just a few percent of traffic in Polish cities, and cycling development is not sufficiently supported by the state at the level of national and local policies. The objective of the project was to introduce changes to state policies, in particular to ensure the participation and influence of NGOs upon the reform of regulations concerning construction of cycling infrastructure. The project also involved reforming the existing urban cycling policies, in particular in the area of participation, as well as strengthening cycling organisations. The legal changes introduced as the result of the project were in line with the suggestions made by the civil society organisations. This was a great achievement, as the new regulations have created massive opportunities for construction of cycling facilities, such as lanes, advanced stop lines, counterflow lanes, three-aspect traffic lights and legal upstream traffic on one-way streets. In the cities where the project was implemented, there was an improvement in the dialogue between authorities and the NGOs, and in the quality of performance by the NGOs themselves. In the three cities where the authorities approved the guidelines formulated during the project, there was a significant change in the quality of their cycling policies. Public audits of cycling policies were conducted in 10 large Polish cities, and the collected data were summarised in the final report. Meetings were held in those cities, between cycling activists and the authorities, devoted to local cycling policies. Other meetings were devoted to improving the performance of local organisations, with expert participation. The project financed the activities of the national cycling advocate, whose task was to act as intermediary between institutions of national and local government and NGOs. The project ended with the National Cycling Congress in Warsaw. The project's beneficiaries included members of local government, cycling activists, civil servants and MPs. The project's partner was the Cities for Bicycles Association (Miasta dla Rowerów), comprising local NGOs. The task of member organisations was to conduct the audit of cycling policies."
Summary of bilateral results