4th partner meeting of Danube Cycle Plans project took place in Ruse, Bulgaria.

At the meeting, individual partners presented the outputs of the project. In addition, they also agreed on a programme of the project's closest planned events. National Cycling Conferences are already planned for Austria (April 3-5 in Vienna) and the Czech Republic (May 17-18 in Jihlava). A workshop at the Velo-city international conference in Ljubljana, which will take place on June 14-17, is also in preparation.

Photo: Ondrej MARTINEK, Partnership for Urban Mobility

The partners also planned the closest tasks related to the three main pillars of cycling promotion:

• Facilitate the development of cycling policies at national and transnational level supported by National Cycling Plans based on a common transnational Danube Cycling Strategy;
• Support the provision of adequate cycling infrastructure by defining the Danube Cycle Route Network, developing common standards and deriving an investment plan to upgrade current conditions;
• Increase the awareness of relevant stakeholders for the needs of cyclists and increase their capacity to promote cycling in the whole Danube region by implementing a mentoring system, inspiration events and national cycling conferences.

Representatives of each partner underwent route inspectors and action planning training in the following days,which was prepared with the cooperation of the European Cyclists' Federation. The partners got to know Ruse and its immediate surroundings better, especially cycling infrastructure and other measures.

Photo: Ionut MAFTEI, Bike in time

Photo: Ionut MAFTEI, Bike in time

About the city

Ruse is the main city on the Danube River in Bulgaria. It has 150 000 inhabitants. Because of the great importance of river transport during 19th century. Ruse is highly influenced by European technological and cultural progress. This is the reason why Ruse is called ‘the city of first things in Bulgaria” with the first railway between Ruse and Varna being only one of the examples. Another name of the city is the “little Vienna”, because of the architecture of the buildings downtown.