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Cycle paths for Tbilisi, Georgia





Tbilisi will soon have its own cycle paths and infrastructure, enabling riders to safely navigate the city in designated lanes. By the end of this year, the Mayor’s Office of Tbilisi will launch trial routes for cyclists. Construction of the cycle lanes are already in progress.

Eight-kilometre lanes will be placed on the right and left banks of the Mtkvari River. Cyclists will be able to travel from the Mother Tongue Garden along the right bank of the Mtkvari River and up to Vakhushti Bridge, then down the left bank of the river and back to the Garden.

A second lane will run from Saarbrücken Square (Dry Bridge) to Freedom Square and a three-kilometre lane will also be finished this year in Digomi settlement on Mirian Mepe Street, said representatives of the Urban Management Agency.

“In order to promote cycling, around 20 bicycle parking lots will be set up throughout the city and several more traffic lights will be installed on streets to ensure cyclist safety,” City Hall claims.

Founder of the Bicycle Amateurs’ Club in Georgia, Tamaz Tikanadze, has been cycling around the capital of Tbilisi for four years. He says that at present it is not safe to ride in the streets due to the absence of special lanes and infrastructure. “There are many streets in the capital where lanes could be immediately arranged. The streets and public transport are very busy nowadays and the best solution to this issue is developing bicycle infrastructure,” Tikanadze said.

City Hall’s Transport Service Department says that after laying the first bicycle lanes, they will have a better picture of where other such infrastructure can be arranged, but that the decision to lay bicycle infrastructure should be based on demand.

“Such projects need finances and the Mayor’s Office will make decisions regarding further infrastructure only based on demand from the population,” Mamuka Mumladze from the transport Service Department said.

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are calling on the government to promote cycling and a healthy lifestyle across the country. They also say that the use of bicycles will help people’s budgets as well as protecting the environment.








http://www.georgianjournal.ge/society/33535-bicycle-lanes-to-be-laid-in-tbilisi.html



MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).


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