Moscow's authorities plan to build parking places for bicycles at major transport hubs in the city and almost 73 kilometres of bike tracks by 2016.
According to the draft programme "Development of Moscow's Transport System in 2012-2016" published at the city government's official website, a network of bicycle parking facilities will provide the basis for bicycle infrastructure in the city. They will be built at major transfer hubs: near subway stations, railway stations and platforms, bus stations.
In addition, bicycle parking areas will also appear at "social infrastructure facilities, educational institutions, and recreational places for young people". The city authorities are planning to create a network of 72.8 kilometres of bike tracks, both combined and separate, in 2012-2016. Several routes have been proposed. One of them will be built from Biryulovo Vostochnoye in the south of the city to the nearest Tsaritsyno subway station, which is 6 kilometers away.
Another bike path will run to the Orekhovo and Tsaritsyno subway stations (11.5 kilometres) in the same area.
A bike track will be built from the Chukhlinka platform on the Gorkovskaya railway line in the east of the city to the Tekstilshchiki subway station in the southeast and farther to the Lyublino platform on the Kurskaya railway line.
Bike tracks will also link the Veshnyaki railway station with Kuzminki Park, Pechatniki and Lyublino districts. Bicycle tracks will be built to Zhulebino, a sprawling residential neighbourhood in the southeast of Moscow, link Profsoyuznaya Street in the southwest to Bitsa Park, connect the town of Vostochnya with the Pervomaiskaya subway station in the east, as well as the Universitet and Konkovo subway stations (13.7 kilometres). The latter route will cover nine higher educational institutions.
Bike maps indicating the safest and fastest routes will be made available on stands near bike tracks. They will also be published as booklets and interactive Internet maps compatible with mobile devices.
Muscovites have more than 3 million bicycles, but less than 0.01 percent of people use them for moving around the city because of the total lack of necessary infrastructure, heavy traffic and lack of interest in this mode of transportation.
The average speed of above-ground public transport at rush hours is 11 kilometres per hour, while a bicycle can move on dedicated lanes at a speed of 15.5 kilometres per hour.
Copyright 2008 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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