On Monday evening we hosted an open discussion here at Jazdów welcoming any interested guests to come and share their opinions on the new cycling bridge proposals for Warsaw. What we were most interested in was suggestions on possible locations and any problems we could encounter during the creation process.

We were joined by city activists, who provided us with valuable insights on the geography of Warsaw and other information. Everyone got involved in the exchange of ideas both in English and in Polish and after some time of heated discussion we had a few important points to consider.

One of them was the existence of an escarpment in Warsaw. Its height varies from around 10 meters above sea level to 25 meters in the region surrounding the river banks. It is also the reason why we need to consider two possible settings of starting and ending points of a bridge – either connect only the shores of the river on the lower level or connect directly the higher parts of the escarpment omitting the areas directly adjacent to the water. We were also talking about the type of a bridge that is most needed – only recreational which then should be located lower to connect the riverbank boulevards or a means of commuting for everyday people – and this one would have to be significantly taller. Another thing we need to consider is the average speed of a cyclist which may influence the local accessibility of a connection. We also talked about whether the bridge should only be suitable for bikes or for both bikes and pedestrians, we tried and failed to establish a profile of an average cyclist in Warsaw and wondered how to encourage more people to switch to bikes in the future.

Finally, most of us agreed to the conclusion that we might need more than one bridge to solve the problem of commuting by bicycle in Warsaw.

In closing, we have established some points to consider:

  1. the Warsaw escarpment
  2. connection of river banks or higher locations
  3. type of the bridge (recreation/commute)
  4. average cycling speed
  5. bike only or bike and pedestrian
  6. multiple bridges