Pedestrian & pedal power in Tel Aviv and its planned bicycle lanes
“Creating pedestrian streets in the city is part of an overall policy that places pedestrians, personal transportation vehicles and public transportation at the center,” Ron Huldai explains.
By BARRY DAVISCREATING PEDESTRIAN streets in the city is part of an overall policy that places pedestrians, their vehicles and public transportation at the center.(photo credit: TEL AVIV-JAFFA MUNICIPALITY)
There is no faking it. Being a cyclist in this country can be a frustrating matter.Yes, there are plenty of existential challenges in this part of the world, not least over the past two or three months or so. One can easily imagine that a café owner who, until recently, was unable to make a penny since mid-March, and who is on the verge of bankruptcy, would not be overly disposed to considering the lot of bicycle users here.But, as US Founding Father Benjamin Franklin noted back in the 18th century, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The pandemic times connection with cycling comes down to the simple matter that human-powered, nonpolluting modes of transport help keep our air cleaner, and our respiratory systems in good condition. Both of those benefits should interest us all, as we struggle to make our way through the era of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus which latches onto the lungs. Staying physically active is essential for pulmonary efficacy, as well as for our emotional welfare.Cognizant of all the above, the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality over the years has been making strides to facilitate the city’s residents’ efforts to keep fit and reduce the amount of pollutants they generate and release into the urban skies. And that certainly resonates in the recent municipal proclamations concerning the creation of a bunch of pedestrian streets across town, and plans to more than double the mileage of cycling-dedicated routes around the metropolis.In so doing, Tel Aviv is gradually joining the ranks of some of the world’s leading locations in environmental activism, including Paris, London, Copenhagen and even Los Angeles and Mexico City. The latter two have been notoriously poor at providing their inhabitants with decent quality air to inhale, but things are improving in both the Mexican megalopolis and LA, which in 2017 earned the dubious title of “the world’s most gridlocked city.”Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai spelled out the municipality’s multipronged approach to cutting down on carbon emissions in the country’s most heavily populated metropolitan area.“Creating pedestrian streets in the city is part of an overall policy that places pedestrians, personal transportation vehicles and public transportation at the center,” he explains.The city, he says, is addressing the green matter on several fronts. “As part of this policy, this year we are paving dozens of kilometers of new bicycle paths, developing light rail lines, expanding public transportation networks, improving shade and renovating dozens of kilometers of sidewalks. In the past year, we have converted Lewinsky Street into a pedestrian zone and shut Sheinkin Street to vehicle traffic on Fridays, and the public has voted with their feet – in both senses of the expression.”The municipality recently announced that it is prioritizing nonpolluting modes of getting around town – predominantly walking and cycling – by adding 11 more pedestrian streets to the urban mesh. Some will be converted on a permanent basis, while others will be closed to motorized traffic at specific times, such as in the evenings and on Fridays. The list of newly environmentally friendly thoroughfares includes Estori Haparhi Street, which connects with Basel Square; the section of Ha’arba’a Street between Carlebach Street and Leonardo da Vinci Street, and Florentin Street between Ben-Atar Street, Haim Vital and Cordovero streets and Frankel Street.The changeover will be implemented gradually over the coming months and will follow a set of guidelines, some of which are flexible. Cars will be allowed to drive through the intersecting streets, cyclists may ride in the pedestrian zones, loading and unloading spots for local businesses will be arranged on an ad hoc basis, and restaurants, cafés and bars will be able to place tables and chairs out on the streets, as per the set municipal guidelines. The latter, of course, is designed to provide eateries with a sorely needed clientele boost following the lockdown furlough.MEANWHILE, ON the cycling front, Meital Lehavi, deputy mayor responsible for transportation in the city, was keen to point out the user-friendly ethos governing city hall’s program to more than double the length of dedicated bike lanes, from 140 km. to 300 km., by 2025.And it is not just a matter of mileage. The municipal boffins, it seems, have followed a pragmatic philosophy and have actually taken into consideration the matter of how taxpayers can get from A to B by bicycle, without having to negotiate the perils of motorized traffic thoroughfares.“It is a revolutionary plan that for the first time turns segments of bike paths into one uninterrupted network,” Lehavi points out, although the use of the pioneering epithet, presumably, is meant in the parochial, local sense. There are quite a few cities around the world – Amsterdam, Copenhagen, London and Berlin, to mention but a few – with cycling lane networks that offer safe, comfortable and sequential health-inducing travel.THE TEL AVIV-JAFFA Municipality is looking to more than double the length of dedicated bike lanes, from 140 km to 300 km, by 2025.The deputy mayor says that the ambitious strategic plan is tailored to needs on the ground. “The program is based on models designed according to cyclers’ demands and needs of accessibility, while mapping the most crucial streets for bike paths, all in accordance with law enforcement guidelines.”Lehavi believes there is an abundance of benefits to be had all round. “There is no doubt that a good bicycle alternative can lower the cost of living and improve air quality and the environment for the city and its residents.”Tel Aviv got on the green-oriented bandwagon almost three decades ago.“The Environmental and Sustainability Authority has been around for 28 years,” Eitan Ben-Ami, the current head, notes proudly. “What is unique about it, in the country, is that it is an independent authority, rather than operating under the auspices of some municipal department. That gives us more power to enforce, and to work according to, environmental standards.”Ben-Ami’s purview accommodates numerous areas, including the installation of Stage II vapor recovery control systems at gas stations around the city, which capture volatile organic compound vapor releases during the refueling of motor vehicles. They then recycle that back into the fuel storage tanks, thereby preventing them from polluting the air.Ben-Ami says Tel Aviv’s green line of thought was not fueled by the COVID-19 outbreak, and that the municipal authority has been aware of the need to clean up the city’s act for some time. “The city didn’t wait for the coronavirus to understand we need to reduce the number of vehicle journeys in the city, and to greatly increase walking and the use of bicycles. In professional jargon we call it ‘reversing the pyramid.’ That means the pedestrian is at the apex, followed by nonmotorized two-wheeled vehicles, shared vehicles, public transport and so on, with private motorized vehicles right down on the lowest level.” Sounds like a healthy, sensible hierarchy.The ongoing light rail construction work also provides a golden opportunity to plan uninterrupted cycling routes that will enable locals to commute across town without having to use the busy roads.It is, says Ben-Ami, quite a challenge. “Tel Aviv was not planned as a cycling city either. There are many narrow streets, and that makes it difficult to accommodate cars, cyclists and pedestrians as separate moving entities. But we are planning to make the most of the light rail lines, to offer cyclists safe, flowing routes.”One can appreciate the logistical challenges involved, but Amsterdam, often called “the cycling capital of the world” – although there are quite a few Danes that claim that title for Copenhagen – was not planned as a cycling city. It took an inordinate number of fatal road accidents involving children to get Dutch mothers out on the streets protesting, which eventually sparked the cycling revolution in the Netherlands.Today it is hard to imagine places like Amsterdam, Utrecht and Rotterdam without the thousands of cyclists crisscrossing town – including parents with one child behind and one perched on a handlebar seat – making their way smoothly along dedicated safe and comfortably surfaced bicycle paths.And it is not only urban travel that has become safer and greener over the years in the Netherlands. A couple of years or so ago, I cycled from Amersfoort, which is more or less in the center of the country, to Schiedam, next to Rotterdam, in the southwest. On a journey of 90 km., I probably spent no more than a few minutes on relatively quiet roads used by motorized vehicles.It appears there are similar grand plans afoot in Tel Aviv, too.“We are looking at connecting satellite cities around Tel Aviv, like Bat Yam, Holon and Petah Tikva, to the urban cycling network,” Ben-Ami explains. “I hope that works out.”Another way of encouraging people to relinquish their hold on the steering wheel and grab bicycle handlebars is to make them more independent in terms of servicing and maintaining their bikes. Ben-Ami also notes that the municipality offers support to various activist groups, such as Bicycles for Tel Aviv, the local branch of the nationwide Israel Bicycle Association, and Pnimit, which provides repair facilities and runs workshops designed to enable cyclists to keep their two-wheelers in good working condition without having to shell out for service at some bicycle store.BEN-AMI TALKS about checking out what the major cycling cities around the world are up to, and seeing whether some of the ideas are adaptable to Tel Aviv.Pnimit – Pnimit Cooperative Bicycle Workshop, in full – was also inspired from afar.PNIMIT COOPERATIVE Bicycle Workshop – pictured in action – is fueled by a green ethos. (Lior Levy)“Netanel came with the idea from Paris, and I’m an economist by training, so I planned the venture,” explains Lior Levy, who, along with Netanel Singer, established Pnimit – Hebrew for inner tube – in Kfar Shalem, in south Tel Aviv in 2018.“It began from my late grandfather’s storeroom, and then my dad and others volunteered to help out,” Levy continues. “We should have opened our new place, with the help of the municipality, at the Noga Compound in Jaffa, a few months ago, but then the corona pandemic started.”The new spot finally opened for business a couple of weeks ago.Pnimit is fueled by a definitively green ethos.“Part of what we do is to bring old bicycles back to life and use,” Levy says. “That saves money and is sustainability-oriented.”It appears there is no shortage of bikes fallen into disrepair that end up in the capable hands of Levy, Singer and their 20-plus volunteers.“We get old bikes from all sorts of places, including from the municipality,” says Singer. “We have received dozens of bikes from people who left them rusting in their backyard or apartment building bomb shelter. That’s how we started, driving around at night and picking up bikes that had been left out to rot. We get most of them like that, and from individuals, and less from the municipality.”Levy and Singer, naturally, support the plans to create additional pedestrian streets and extend the cycling network across town.“That is great,” says Levy, “but we have to see how that works in practice. Hopefully, that – along with what we do – will encourage more and more people to commute by bicycle rather than using their car.”But there is still some way to go. There are places around the world, state bodies and private companies alike, that actually offer employees tax relief and other financial incentives to commute by bike.“There are some companies that do that here,” says Levy. “But the overriding thinking until now has been to offer people add-ons to their salary to cover car travel expenses, and that boosts their wages. We’d like that to change, especially in a post-corona world.”
