A cycling club’s professional working group

Background

The Hungarian Cyclists Club (Magyar Kerékpárosklub – MK) created its Transport Working Group in 2007. The aim was to pool professional expertise and viewpoints and apply this combined expertise for the betterment of everyday conditions for transport cycling. In a country where cycling has traditionally not been viewed as a practical, or even desirable, means of urban mobility, the group was needed as a reference for global best practice in integrated transport planning and infrastructure design. The group’s goal is to assist communities in creating transport systems that support bicycling as part of traffic, where every key destination can be safely and conveniently reachable by bike.

Implementation

The group serves as an advisory body tothe cycling club’s staff technical advisor, an engineer. Group membership is voluntary and open to anybody who is interested, but it has always been professional in nature and mainly includes engineers, urban planners and researchers and students.

Membership in the spring of 2012 numbered 61. Of these about 15-20 were active, with the rest following group correspondence only passively. It has generally not been a challenge attracting members, but it does take effort to sustain continued interest in activities so that at least a quorum of members is up-to-date when their advice is needed.

MK’s technical advisor coordinates the group, acting as its liaison with client cities, and setting the agenda for group work. The advisor moderates virtual discussion by email and organises meetings together with the club president.The group doesn’t meet regularly, but rather on an as-needed basis.

The Transport Working Group’s biggest area of activity is giving advice to municipal governments. This includes the facilitation of negotiations with NGOs, giving comments and tips on project tenders; assistance with general mobility plans or cycling concept papers; and the development of concrete cycling measures. An important part of their work is continuous assistance with the Municipality of Budapest, with which MK has a funded framework agreement.

Other areas of work include giving advice to businesses on how to create bike-friendly workplaces (e.g. placement of bike parking and other amenities), sharing of experience and examples, and helping with the club’s funded projects.

Among these areas, the biggest areas of work would be advice on plans and tenders. In fact, cities often have a financial incentive to seek out such assistance, as international donors such as the European Commission require that tender applications related to cycling investments include input from an officially acknowledged group representing cyclists’ interests. In Hungary, MK is one of two national NGOs that can supply such input. Due in part to this status, MK was enlisted to render its opinion on 43 different city plans and proposals in 2011 alone.

Conclusions

The Transport Working Group has become an indispensible resource for MK, enabling it to carry out fundamental work in ensuring the development and improvement of cycling conditions in Hungarian communities. In its main work of reviewing investment proposals, the working group will typically supply feedback on five queries a day to MK’s staff technical advisor.

Of all the various tasks supported by the group, the most important in recent years was probably the recommendations and proposals on cycling infrastructure standards contained in the Hungarian Traffic Code (KRESZ). The group’s work on a 2010 code update resulted in several important improvements for cyclists, including a new standard for bike boxes (street markings giving cyclists priority at controlled intersections), a simpler and clearer way to indicate contra-flow bike lanes on one-way streets, and a new marking for advisory bike lanes (sharrows). Advisory-lane markings opened up the possibility of a compromise between cyclists and BudapestCity Hall over a long-contested renovation of key city bridge.

Although the Working Group was created to help modernise transport planning approaches in Hungary, its achievements in this area have been limited. Although several cities are keen to become more cyclist-friendly and routinely consult MK in their efforts, many cities do so only when forced. A typical case is when a city applies for cycling subsidies only to piggyback another project on top of it, e.g. a sidewalk or storm gutter.

Ultimately,MK’s working group can help improve transport approaches only in those communities that are willing and interested.