December

According to the minutes (No.56) of KAUET meeting of 2009 12 02

www.kamane.lt, 2009 12 11

In brief: As long as we live in Kaunas, we may observe investments of the city municipality into projects of bicycle roads. They are washed away by rain again and again, and cyclers continue feeling unsafe. Now a new project is offered: the municipality has ordered a special bicycle road plan which was analysed by Kaunas Architecture and City Planning Experts’ Council (KAUET).

Thus, KAUET considered the project Special Plan of Kaunas City Bicycle Road. Customer – Kaunas city municipality administration, designer – public institution Institute of Transport and Roads Research on the 2nd of December of 2009.

The meeting of KAUET was headed by Vygintas Merkevičius.

According to J. Venclauskaitė, the Institute of Transport and Roads Research performed the work along with VGTU Scientific Research Institute. The Culture Heritage Department of Kaunas Municipality recommended to present the special plan of the bicycle road of Kaunas city to KAUET, and the City Planning Department has already approved of the special plan prepared by the Institute.

The main task of the project was to divide the present and planned bicycle roads into 5 types of unmotorised vehicle routes: green roads; bicycle roads near streets; bicycle roads on carriageways; unmotorised vehicle routes in streets without marked lay-bys; bicycle roads on pavements, in pedestrian zones, on pedestrian and bicycle roads.

The aim of the project is to create an integral network of bicycle roads system, to connect places of visits by the shortest roads, to foresee cognitive-tourist routes, to plan parking lots for bicycles, to create the list of priority places for constructing bicycle roads, to divide bicycle roads according to their purpose: recreational roads, regional roads, main roads; to evaluate the perspective street development plans while preparing the special plan.

The plan is based on the old bicycle road scheme. It was coordinated with the general city plan, the preparers of the project communicated much with cyclists and Kaunas society.

After discussing the offered plan and expressing their opinions, the council members came to the conclusion that the preparer of the project should take into regard the following notices expressed by experts:

1.1. It is offered to replenish the special plan by schemes of its implementation stages (7 experts).

1.2. It is recommended to point out recreational trips by bicycle more and to focus on the landscape more (6 experts).

1.3. The lack of analysis and priorities is evident in the work (6 experts).

1.4. Places of interest and problematic places should be marked in the special plan (6 experts).

1.5. The special plan is not related with EUROVELO plan, plan of Lithuania, county, general plans of the district (3 experts).

1.6. Tourist routes should be pointed out connecting various places of interest (e.g., the system of forts) (2 experts).

1.7. It is offered to search for the ring system surrounding the city (2 experts).

Prepared by Jūratė Merkevičienė