Tel Aviv cycling paths set for major expansion
The Tel Aviv District Planning and Building Committee this week will discuss the master plan for cycling paths in the Tel Aviv district.
The plan, details of which have reached Globes, calls for the paving of 758 kilometers (488 miles) of cycling paths, and is one of several plans being promoted as part of a general national plan. The test, however, will be in the execution of the projects in the urban space at the expense of lanes for private cars and parking spots, something in which the Transportation Ministry has not excelled up to now.
The plan is meant to achieve the goals set for the breakdown of the use of different means of transportation, according to which 12% of journeys in the Tel Aviv district should be by bicycle, which compares with 3% today. For Tel Aviv itself, the target is 20%, which compares with 7% today. For other local authorities in the district – Azor, Ramat Gan, Ramat Hasharon, Or Yehuda, Holon, Bat Yam, Herzliya, Kiryat Ono, Givatayim, Kfar Shmaryahu, and Bnei Brak – the targets are substantially higher than the current rate of bicycle usage. The planned 758 km. of cycling paths are in addition to the existing 251 km. (156 miles), and mostly in Tel Aviv.
According to the plan, Tel Aviv will gain 283 km. (176 miles), Ramat Gan 69 km. (43 miles), Herzliya 90 km. (56 miles) and Holon 75 km. (47 miles), with the rest spread over the remaining local authorities. The paths will cross 146 bridges, some of them already in existence and some approved for construction. The plan proposes
adding another 19 bridges for bicycles, based on surveys of existing traffic and forecasts of future demand.
Priority will be given to streets in which bicycle traffic is above the regional average, and streets that will complement an efficient network of paths without dead ends and that connect to the Ofnidan network of long-range bicycle paths and that have advanced planning status. The network’s coverage is meant to bring buildings within 250 meters (820 feet) of cycling infrastructure. Coverage on that basis will rise from 42% today to nearly 90%.
The existing rate of bicycle use varies widely between one local authority and another, with Tel Aviv in the lead by a long way. An international comparison presented in the plan shows Tel Aviv toward the top of cities promoting cycling infrastructure, however, the rest of the Dan region lags far behind.
THE PLAN was drawn up by the Transportation Ministry, the Planning Administration and
consultants Planet and Eshed, and is part of a more comprehensive national plan that sets out how many kilometers of cycle paths are required in the built-up areas in all of Israel. The budget estimate for the whole network is NIS 8 billion, divided into five-year portions, NIS 2b. for each five-year period.
This substantially raises the investment per capita in cycling infrastructure in Israel, and unlike various other master plans, this one rests on a budget that has already been partly passed. Cycling networks for the other metropolitan areas – Haifa, Jerusalem, and Beersheba – will be derived from the national master plan, and a network will be completed to cover the central district.
The goal is to eventually have 10 times more journeys by bicycle.
The working assumption behind the national master plan is that it is possible to reach a proportion of 10% of journeys being made by bicycle, compared with just 1% today. The general rate at which bicycle paths are being paved in Israel is low, at just 32 km. (20 miles) annually, whereas in Tel Aviv cycle paths are being paved fairly rapidly; half the national total for 2020 was in Tel Aviv.
To reach the national target of over 3,700 km. (2,300 miles) of cycle paths will cost nearly NIS 8b. over 20 years. The budget for the next five years works out at about NIS 39 annually per resident, up from NIS 10 previously. In the leading cycling countries, the budgets are higher, even though they already have well-developed cycle path networks. The UK, for example, invests the equivalent of about NIS 50 annually per resident in cycling infrastructure, Germany invests NIS 32-70, and the Netherlands NIS 138.
The plan represents a considerable advance in both planning and budgeting, but the test will be execution, in which the Transportation Ministry is weak, as demonstrated by many previous transportation initiatives.
Even agreements with the local authorities are no guarantee of performance. In 2016, for example, the Transportation Ministry signed a series of agreements with local authorities on paving preferential traffic lanes for buses. Many of the authorities, however, caused difficulties at the execution stage. In some cases, mayors changed, and in others, planning boards created roadblocks to the plan.
Another initiative is Ofnidan, which the Transportation Ministry undertook, unrealistically, to complete in 2021. In fact, the project is still incomplete, after being frozen during Miri Regev’s period as transportation minister. (Globes/TNS)