Some 400 bikers and rollerbladers will converge on the streets of Tel Aviv on
Tuesday night as part of a green transportation week being celebrated by several
cities throughout Israel and the whole world, the Israel Bike Association said
on Monday.
The Tel Aviv event, joined by events on different days this
week in Jerusalem, Haifa, Kfar Saba, Ra’anana, Ramat Gan and Givatayim, will
begin in the city’s Cinematheque Plaza at 9 p.m., with wheels rolling by 10
p.m., for a 25-km. “green convoy” course around the city, according to a joint
statement from the Bike Association and Tel Aviv Roller.
“Dress code is
green,” said Alek Mintz, from Tel Aviv Roller, in the statement.
Donated
K2 Atlantis rollerblades will be awarded to the roller with the most exceptional
green appearance.
The event will be secured by a Police on Roller Blades
unit.
The Israel events are occurring concurrently with European Mobility
Week, in which over 2,000 cities across the continent will partake in a
“sustainable urban mobility” campaign organized by the European Coordination
Secretariat and initiated in 2002, to encourage the use of alternatives to cars
and which ultimately culminates in an “In Town Without My Car” day with carless
sections of the cities, according to the campaign’s website.
Also
occurring on that same September 22 day is World Car free Day, celebrated
throughout the world on that date since 2008, that event’s website
said.
Meanwhile, citizens of cities around the world are calling on their
government representatives participating in the upcoming December COP17 Climate
Conference in Durban to make “courageous decisions” that will in turn lead to
reductions in greenhouse gases and ameliorate the climate change crisis –
something that Israelis, as residents of the Middle East, suffer from
particularly acutely, Israel Bike Association and Tel Aviv roller said in a
statement.
While the World Car-free and European Mobility official carless
day is Thursday, Israel Bicycle Association director Yotam Avizohar told
The
Jerusalem Post on Monday that the Tel Aviv event will occur on Tuesday as this
was the preferred day for the police. Also part of the special week, however,
Jerusalem’s branch of the international Critical Mass biking group, which holds
rides on the last Friday of every month, will be holding its September ride this
Friday rather than next, Avizohar said.
The Critical Mass car-free day
will take place on Friday, from 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., gathering in front of the
Mashbir on the top of Ben Yehuda Street.
“In every city it’s a bit
different, but the idea is that they invite people to take part in green
environmentalist [modes of transportation] – like ponies, or bike or Segways or
rollerblades or whatever,” Avizohar told the
Post.
Avizohar sees the
Tuesday event as just a first in a series of positive steps that will likely be
taken in the next year toward achieving more convenience and safety measures for
Israeli bikers.
Israel Railways, for example, is currently in the process
of creating a tender for suppliers who provide bicycle hooks and holsters so
that it can launch a pilot program for bringing bikes on trains, Avizohar
explained.
“We invested a lot of time and energy in defining the specific
mechanism with the train company staff, so we are quite optimistic, but in
Israel, you can never know until it happens,” he said.
Another major
campaign that the Israel Bike Association hopes to see significant progress in
soon is a bill in the Knesset to encourage bike transportation, currently up for
a third reading, which would provide legislation for bikes on trains, as well as
installing parking racks and showers in workplaces and building bike lanes in
municipalities, according to Avizohar.
Contrary mayors, he said,
“shouldn’t have the possibility” to block the creation of bike infrastructure in
their cities, and the hope is that the legislation will go through its third
reading by the end of this year, or, probably more realistically, by the end of
2012.
Another major concern of the Bike Association is improving safety
for cyclists.
Among the group’s successes on this issue are a greater
presence of police officers on roads with many bikers, as well as an agreement
from the National Road Company (Ma’atz) to add messages to its electronic signs
on Saturdays warning of bikers ahead, Avizohar said.
“We’re working on a
campaign with the Road Safety Authority,” he added. “There is also a lot of work
to do with the cyclists.”
Despite touting environmental changes for the
better in Israel, Avizohar did not demonstrate as much confidence in the
upcoming Durban conference, as he took part in the conference in Copenhagen
about a year ago and recognizes that the decisions that must be made are not
easy ones, he said.
“Israel is not really the issue, but because Israel
is so compact we can actually made Israel a laboratory for technologies,”
Avizohar continued.
“Since Israel is so compact and 70 percent of its
citizens live in cities... and unfortunately the public transportation is not
that good, biking is really one of the options for tomorrow,” he added, noting
that cycling infrastructure is relatively inexpensive and awareness for
environmental and health issues is much improved throughout the country. “We are
really optimistic and hope that this year will be a breakthrough year for
cycling in Israel.”