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Interregional NGO Bicycle Transportation Union (BTU) initiatives on popular campaigns for bicycling advocacy in Russia

ПТ, 15/05/2015 - 21:11 — superstas
  • In 2009 BTU arranged a Public competition for the best bicycle-friendly city in Russia. In 29 cities and towns of Russia bikers were asked to assess bicycle-friendliness of their communities on 9 criteria such as availability of bicycle-friendly routes and passes, cooperation of local authorities to meet the bikers’ requirements, bike-friendly infrastructure development and so on. At that moment, St. Petersburg, Moscow and Kazan were ranked as the most bicycle-friendly cities in Russia.
  • In 2010 BTU built up a campaign to appeal to then- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. BTU site address gained over 4000 signatures of bicyclists from 200 cities and towns throughout the country. A delegation of 20 bikers passed from the outskirts to the center of Moscow to deliver the petition to the Russian President Administration officials. The Ministry of Transport was charged to give a response and to pay a proper attention to the matter of bicycle transport in the RF.
  • In 2010 the draft federal law On The Bicycle Transport In The Russian Federation was worked out by BTU members together with bike activists from St. Petersburg and Novgorod. The draft law was discussed in The State Duma Transport Committee (http://velotransunion.ru/node/822). In 2012 the project got 1340 votes support on The Russian Social Initiative state site.
  • Bicycle articles of The Road Regulations In The Russian Federation (Traffic Rules) haven’t been renewed since 1973 and have for 40 years blocked the development of bicycle transport. The working group of the bicycle transport specialists, formed by BTU in 2012, involved bike activists from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novgorod. We volunteered to work out bicycle-friendly amendments to the road regulations. More than 1000 commentaries and remarks of bikers from 20 cities and towns of Russia had been accumulated and analyzed throughout the whole year. As a result, 20 most valuable amendments to The Road Regulations Of The Russian Federation were selected and submitted to the Government (http://velotransunion.ru/node/1177). Only 12 of them were adopted by then- Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, though.

All the initiatives, mentioned above, were carried out by the bicycle activists of the country at their own expense in terms of time and money.

Перевод С. Худатова