The shadow of what appears to be a drawing of a bike. Then, next to it, a tar blob covering part of the dotted line and a discolored directional arrow. We are in Piazza Ravenna, in Gavinanaand a bit like archaeologists searching for rock paintings we begin ours tour among the cycle lanes.
Post-pandemic good resolutions
Or rather: among what remains of it. In Florence, in 2020, 11 kilometers were built. These were stripes drawn on the right of the road – where cyclists must be, according to the highway code – to remind motorists to give priority to bicycles. The initiative arrived at the height of the pandemic: it was used to quickly encourage the use of bicycles at a time when traveling on buses and public transport could represent a risk.
The inevitable controversies
Immediately they were there several controversies. For safety, first and foremost. In the side streets of viale Europafor example, cars reversing out of the parking lots were considered a danger to the passage of bicycles on the new lanes.
And then the question of resources, with more than one insinuation on social media: “They made two stripes on the asphalt just to obtain European funds.” «It’s not like that – was the reply from Palazzo Vecchio – it’s 400 thousand euros from the National Operational Program for Metropolitan Cities. It was allowed, by the management authority, to allocate them for the Covid emergency: the Municipality requested to put them on the lanes, introduced by the relaunch decree”.
But 4 years later…
Four years later, however, almost all of them have disappeared. Some — as in via Torre degli Agli and in the last stretch of Redi Avenue towards Piazza Puccini – because they have been transformed in the meantime into real slopes with their own headquarters. Others – the majority – because they were canceled by the rain and the passage of tyres.
In viale Giannotti where the bikes passed there is again a car park
In viale Giannotti the now former cycle lanes have once again become a car park. It was already happening before 2020, with wild parking on the side of the road. Then the construction of the lanes had made evident the age-old problem of cars in double rows – or parked illegally, with the rear invading the roadways – and fines had poured in to reverse the trend. Just a memory today.
In Oltrarno they can’t even be seen with a microscope
Similar situation to Roman Gate. The “ghost” of the stripes is barely noticeable between asphalt and stones, while in viale Petrarca and piazza Tasso several features can no longer be seen with the naked eye and perhaps not even with a microscope. In the avenue Aleardi few, very few bikes and scooters continue to use the cycle path mixed with cars: the perception of safety is almost nil and the president of Fable Florence Cycle Path Tiziano Carducci announces that «in our Florence by bike map 2024-2025 we have removed all the cycle lanes. So they are barely visible and create confusion.”
What Fiab thinks
The organisation, although it preferred classic tracks with curbs, had always defended the lanes: «They were a tool for calming traffic, especially useful on secondary roads: motorists had become accustomed to leaving space on their right. For this reason we had asked to expand them in areas such as the centre, while in roads with high traffic of motor vehicles, such as Viale Petrarca, we considered them not very suitable, but they still gave visibility to the cyclist”.
Florence – unlike cities like Bologna and Milan, which in the last four years have continued to focus on lanes – has abandoned the “light tracks”. «It’s a technical choice – he says Carducci — after the first regulation, the Government released another one which created ambiguity on various aspects, such as the width of the lanes in certain conditions or the continuity of the stripes. The Palazzo Vecchio technicians have opted not to continue.”
Save few exceptions: «For example in via Foggini, which was recently resurfaced: there they took the opportunity to repaint them and we know that also in via Giannotti the pictograms will be redone at the same time as the parking stalls are repainted».
