Bicycle Seminar in Cesis

The members of Transportation Commission came to Cesis in Latvia in mid-September, where a Bicycle Seminar took place. More than 40 participants from 20 different cities in the Baltic Sea Region participated. They discussed how to plan cycling in terms of recreation and transportation.

The programme took origin in the traffic situation in the former Eastern European countries where car traffic is rapidly growing, and where the public transport faces enormous challenges and where bicycles are not traditionally part of city transportation.

The speakers came from national, regional and local levels in Latvia. They presented the Latvian Cycling Development Programme, the Cycle Route Network Development in the Riga Region and the Bicycle Transport Development Plan of Riga. There were also Scandinavian speakers from Copenhagen in Denmark and Orebro and Malmo in Sweden talking about the cycling policy and route planning in those cities. After the presentations there was a discussion about how to plan for cycling, the benefits and possible change of people's attitudes.

During the second day a bicycle excursion was planned along the cycling tracks outside Cesis, but because of the weather the participants switched to bus.

The organisers also had a pre-seminar bicycle excursion in and around Riga the day before the seminar. The Commission on Transportation thanks all participants, the City of Copenhagen for preparing a good program and the City of Cesis for hosting the seminar.