On the 14th of May town of Volkhov in the Leningrad Region hosted a cycling conference «Velo 47». At the event, the Directorate acted as an organizer of the seminar on cycling safety as part of the CBC project «Cycling» activities.
Within the seminar speakers shared interesting and useful information on creation of conditions for safe cycling, so that attendees, representatives of local administrations of the Leningrad Region could apply this new knowledge when developing cycling infrastructure in their districts. The Directorate’s main message is that cycling safety is achieved through a comprehensive approach from design and construction to regulations and education.
The seminar began with the video welcome from the founder of the leading Dutch mobility company «Loendersloot Groep» Ruben Loendersloot. He told the participants about the Dutch experience and approaches to development of safe cycling infrastructure. Viktoria Kalinina, Head of Transport infrastructure Development of the Stroyproject institute, shared the main rules of design of safe cycling infrastructure. The institute is experienced in designing cycle paths in Saint Petersburg and other cities. At the first stage, socio-economic characteristics of the territory must be studied, attraction spots for cyclists determined, existing equipped and unequipped cycling routes examined. Then, the design stage begins. All the restrictions and affecting factors as well as safety measures are considered. As Viktoria said, the main obstacle for more people to start cycling today is the lack of cycling infrastructure, low level of safety and poor information support.
Later, participants also learned about existing opportunities and resources for prevention of road accidents at the federal and regional level.
During her speech, leading PR manager of the expert center «Dvizheniye bez Opasnosti» Elena Bellis put emphasis on the federal programmes aimed at increasing road safety. The center has been involved in such programmes for 10 years and has implemented more than 30 thematic projects. Elena noted that during the last years considerable amounts of work have been done to increase road safety, including changes to regulatory documents. Nonetheless, there is still need to raise the level of awareness of cyclists about traffic rules. Lack of understanding about how to behave on the road among both kids and adults remains a serious problem.
Ladoga Center is one of those organizations that coordinate activities on reducing the level of road accidents involving kids and caused by them injuries in the Leningrad Region. The center’s representative Olga Dementieva told participants about the center’s activity and events it organizes for kids. Among those are support of the Young Road Traffic Inspectors movement, organization and participation in regional and all-Russia thematic events («Road and We», «Young Road Inspectors» and others), meetings, publishing of thematic manuals and other materials, implementation of educational programs «Young Road Inspectors», «Young Car Driver» and others. Every year events become more and more popular and more municipal districts join. She mentioned that their road safety movement has grown from 500 people to 15-20 thousands (kids, parents, teachers).
At the end of the section, Alexander Russkih, Deputy Chairman of the Commission on Education, Science, Culture, Tourism, Sports and Youth Affairs of the Legislative Assembly of the Leningrad Region, thanked the Directorate for organization of the event, noting great professionalism of speakers.
Apart from the section on safety, the Directorate also took part in the conference plenary session with a presentation about the Concept of Cycling Tourism Development in Saint-Petersburg and Leningrad Region.
Background information:
Project «Adaptation of new approaches to develop cycling and cycling routes between Russia and Finland to improve safety, mobility and environment, and to promote social development (the case: Svetogorsk – Imatra cycle track)» (project «Cycling») is implemented by the Directorate since 2018 in collaboration with the City of Imatra, Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment of the South-East Finland and City of Svetogorsk with financial support from the South-East Finland – Russia CBC Programme, Government of the Leningrad Region and the Ministry of Transport of Russia.
