The Nivy shopping mall in Bratislava. (source: SME - Marko Erd)
Slovakia, we learned recentlyin these pages, is on the verge of spending more than €80 million on designing and building cycle paths.
Their absence is regarded by the government as one of the main reasons why cycling is seen as an ‘add-on’ rather than a serious urban transport alternative.
(Not coincidentally, these schemes will also soak up earmarked EU funds: along with corruption, the constant pressure to spend European money – something that Slovakiafailschronically to do – helps explain a depressing amount of ill-judged public investment.)
Even without the new spending, separated cycle ways already exist in many places. The rapidly redeveloping area around the Nivy and Eurovea developments in Bratislava – the capital’s ‘new centre’ as it likes to call itself – is blanketed by such paths.
The local authorities and developers deserve some credit for including these in their plans, but they all suffer from the same problems:
