Former mayor of Bogota, Enrique Penalosa, and mayor of Tuebingen, Boris Palmer, took part in VIP cycle tour in Prague last Friday. 

The VIP cycle tour was organized by Czech cycling strategy team and was part of the international conference on urbanism, public space and mobility, reSITE in Prague.  The conference  also played host to two prominent guests and worldwide known supporters of cycling, the  former mayor of Bogota, Enrique Penalosa, who transformed Colombian capital into a better place for cyclists and pedestrians and Boris Palmer, mayor of Tuebingen in Germany. They both  enjoyed riding Homeport public bikes and Enrique Penalosa recommended Prague officials to take similar steps by focusing on:

• more green spaces
• more bike parking
• better surface
• more suitable for city bikes
• creating an overall preference for pedestrians and cyclists.  

Pictures: Tomas Cach, Jitka Vrtalova

Boris Palmer pointed out that there was a large potential for last mile delivery and cargo bikes in the pedestrian zones of Prague’s old town and Wenceslas sq. The town of Tuebingen can show for a 23% modal split of bicycles and the mayor is promoting sustainable delivery systems and is aiming to make Tuebingen a town of short distances. The VIP tour participants, that also included guests from New York City, visited the publicly accessible river fronts that were flooded just few weeks earlier and cycled the newly pedestrianized city center. One of the highlights was riding the Vitkov rail trail with a 300m long tunnel that offers an unspoiled view to the Prague castle from the main train station or the calmer district of Karlin. At the end of the tour Mr. Penalosa added that any city needs to communicate its policies related to cycling through the  local NGOs and should support bicycle organizations financially.

Pictures: Tomas Cach, Jitka Vrtalova

 About the Author

Daniel Mourek, ECF vice-president, was born in Prague and have been working as the Central and East European Greenways coordinator at the Czech Environmental Partnership foundation (Nadace Partnerství, Prague) for more than a decade. He grew up with a bicycle and the passion for bikes became his professional life after studying at the Prague School of Economics and at the Sustainable tourism at the University of Bern. On the national level he is a member of Czech cycling strategy team (CzechMobil) coordinating long distance greenways and cycle routes (such as Elbe Trail, Iron Curtain Trail or EuroVelo routes) in the Czech Republic and CEE as well as being a member of Prague cycling committee. On cycling advocacy he helped to establish Prague Critical Mass in 2001 and co-founded Prague cycling advocacy group ‘Auto*Mat’ in 2004.