The inaugural meeting of the Group of Experts on Cycling Infrastructure at the Working Party on Transport Trends and Economics at UNECE took place on 2-3 June. Thus, the group was created as one of the concrete outputs of the Pan-European Master Plan for Cycling promotion, which was adopted on May 18, 2021.

Master Plan calls for expansion and improvement of cycling infrastructure. It recognises the challenges associated with infrastructure development, in particular: Deficient collaboration at various administrative levels in constructing, managing, maintaining, and promoting cycling infrastructure; and Insufficient or lack of design standards to construct safe, harmonized, and attractive cycling infrastructure.

These tasks stand at the creation of the just-established working group.

From the very beginning, UNECE has been working closely with the Danube Cycle Plans project, which has brought together organizations from 9 European countries. Martin Eder, National Cycling Officer of Austria from the Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology, initiator and supporter of the Danube Cycle Plans project, was elected as the Chair of a new group. Gregor Steklačič, National Cycling Coordinator of Slovenia from the Ministry of Infrastructure then became Vice-Chair.

The first task of the group was to revise the existing cycling infrastructure definitions and standards, and to create working structures for the next period.

MARTIN EDER

• Chair of the UNECE Group of Experts on Cycling Infrastructure 
• Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology of Austria 
• National Cycling Officer of Austria

Born and grown up in Federal State of Salzburg, Martin Eder studied Regional and Town Planning at Vienna University of Technology. After his master degree he worked as a transport planer at Austrian Postbus, IPE -iC Consulenten and Siemens  Austria. Since 2008 Martin Eder is National Cycling Officer at the Austrian Federal Ministry of Climate Action the development and implementation of the austrian Masterplan Cycling, which aims to increase the national cycling share from 7% to 13% until 2025.  Within klimaaktiv mobil – the Austrian climate protection initative for the transport sector – Martin Eder is responsible for cycling promotion measures. He i salso involved in the development of the Pan-European Master plan Cycling under the umbrella of UNECE/WHO Transport, Health, Environment, Pan-European Programme (THE PEP)

GREGOR STEKLAČIČ

• Vice-Chair of the UNECE Group of Experts on Cycling Infrastructure 
• Ministry of Infrastructure of Slovenia
• National Cycling Coordinator of Slovenia

Gregor Steklačič joined the Ministry of Infrastructure of Slovenia in 2016. He works as an Undersecretary in the Sustainable Mobility and Transport Policy Directorate and is appointed as national cycling coordinator since 2019. His main tasks include coordination of the cycling issues on ministerial and inter-ministerial levels, coordination of EU-funded investments in cycling infrastructure and supporting regional and local authorities in the promotion of cycling.

Prior to joining the ministry, Gregor spent several years working in the private sector as well as public administration, focusing on sustainable mobility topics since 2012. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Geography from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is an avid everyday and recreational cyclist who did more kilometres with his bike than his car in the past two years.