Another important linkage is bicycling and walking. Currently, walking captures 24% while bicycle
captures only 1% of people traveling in urban areas of the city. Given the relative flat terrains
outside the city centers, bicycle use should be encouraged. The Masterplan places importance
for bicycle network expansion but provides few details. To use limited resources efficiently,
investments in bicycle lanes can focus on linkages to transit stations and parking systems.
Transit services can capture bicyclers who can ride 2-3 km to a transit station while walking may
be limited to a 500m radius. Biking and walking should be well-integrated with public transport
planning. Bicycle sharing should be explored to create a new IT venture as well as to increase its
share as a mode of public transit. --World Bank Group, Towards a Transit Oriented Development Approach for Belgrade (2018)
As I mentioned in my last post, commuter cycling in Belgrade is difficult. In downtown there are wide sidewalks, sometimes with designated bike lanes...
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| Bike lane on sidewalk along Nemanjina (street) |
...though here as everywhere in town space is negotiated on an ad hoc basis and all parts of the walk are used by everyone. In the surrounding neighborhoods, streets are simply too narrow and too full of cars to allow comfortable cycling. There it is only attempted by the most daring of souls.
In the New Belgrade area west of the Sava River, however, streets are wide, and there is much open space for an extensive trail system.
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| Trail along Bulevar Mihajla Pupina |
This facilitated a group ride on a lovely Sunday afternoon, arranged by our fearless leader. I Bike Belgrade, which operates out of this shop on the east side of the river...
...supplied bikes, helmets (optional), and three brilliant guides who provided all manner of assistance as well as some history lessons along the way. The cycling was easy, such interactions with traffic as we had were predominantly friendly, but other than the object lessons of New Belgrade for the young urbanist there weren't a lot of highlights west of the river.
We began our route out of downtown along the east bank of the Sava River.
We passed by the controversial Waterfront, where construction continues on what the city hopes will be an affluent development.
We found a small trailside bike shop!
...with a whimsical drinking fountain.
We crossed the Sava on ferry boats to the New Belgrade side.
New Belgrade was tentatively begun during the interwar monarchy, but it was the Communist government under Marshal Tito that went all in, draining the swampy area and building some rather severe-looking towers in the park recognizable to anyone familiar with American public housing of the period.
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| Near the Sava River |
These towers in the park were surrounded, Le Corbusier-style, by vast swaths of green space.
Today over 200,000 of Belgrade's 1.3 million residents live in New Belgrade, making it the largest municipality in the city. Sloba, our lead tour guide, told us that the 1940s plans for New Belgrade included cultural centers that never got built. Towers are pretty terrible at providing "eyes on the street," but having public space nearby would provide reasons for people to encounter each other walking places. (We saw hardly anyone walking except around bus stops.) Now Sloba reports plans afoot for more residential development. A biologist by profession, he regrets the ensuing loss of green space. Either way, more residential development on top of a suburban street pattern means more of Belgrade will be car-dependent.
Developers will have to work around white elephants like the Gamex towers...
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| In Block 33. Down the street is a Mercedes-Benz dealer |
...the Palace of Serbia built for the Yugoslav government back in the day...
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| Block 13 |
...and the former Phillips Exhibition Hall from the 1930s (later used as a prison camp for Jews and Roma during Nazi occupation).
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| Note the Renault dealership across the street |
We did find some attractive places to cycle in Belgrade, principally the trails along the Sava. Within the downtown area commuter cycling seems do-able. Elsewhere design works against it, for a variety of reasons. I'd like to think that if car traffic were reduced, more streets beyond Knez Mihailova could be shifted to pedestrian/bike thoroughfares. But the old city lacks much of the grid pattern required to engineer this. So progress if it's possible at all will be bumpy.
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| Separated bike lane in Novi Sad |
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