Alison's trip to VeloCity

My Cycle Shrewsbury poster VeloCity is an international cycle planning conference, started in 1980, and now taking place every year in a different European city. I was lucky to have the opportunity to attend 2 days of last week's VeloCity 2009 conference in Brussels. I was also selected to display a poster, so Cycle Shrewsbury is now international!

My highlights from the conference include:

Learning about the work of Gehl Architects from Copehagen in creating a 'people city' out of heavily trafficked avenues in New York and Mexico City
Finding out about car-free housing in Cologne, Germany
Hearing of the 600% increase in cycling in Portland, USA, in the last 15 years without any increase in bike 'crashes'
Seeing the 'kindertaxi' project in Germany, which loans tandems to parents with older children, a bit like Woodfield School's cycle trailer loan scheme
Visiting the European Parliament building and seeing the European Commission pool bikes (they're not as nice as ours!)
Seeing the Mayors of Seville, Copenhagen and Tartu (Estonia) and representatives from other cities sign the Charter of Brussels to support cycling
Hearing the Mayor of Seville state that high levels of cycle use in a city are an indicator of a modern, developed, advanced society

Brussles city bikes I also got to try out one of Brussels new city bikes, which can be hired at locations around the city, as in Paris. It was a bit scary at first, riding on the right, through heavy traffic, across tram tracks and on cobbled streets, but Belgian drivers were surprisingly courteous.

The best part of VeloCity was being taken on a cycle tour of facilities in a suburb of Brussels. The tour followed some torrential rain so we had to start by avoiding some flooded roads, just like Shropshire!

However, we explored a wide area, using local roads, cycle-only short cuts, Home Zones and contraflow cycle lanes.

Cycle contraflow in Brussels We also checked out the cycle parking and information boards for cyclists. Brussels is certainly trying hard to cater for cyclists, but cycles are still small in number, compared to cars.