42 države Evrope, 475 ideja i 49745 korisnika.

https://advocate-europe.eu/ideas/streets-for-cyclists/

Ulice za bicikliste (Streets for cyclists) is an independent organization aiming to improve biking conditions and increase the visibility of cyclists in the highly-trafficked areas of Belgrade. We hope to see both cycling and walking cultures overtaking the car culture, which is outdated and is threatening citizens’ well-being in many ways.

Ulice za bicikliste was created on the basis of the monthly Critical Mass events. We are proud to be an example of grassroots activism in Belgrade. Our activities take place locally, based on the interests and engagement of the community.

The goals of the organization Ulice za bicikliste include changing the mindset of Belgrade citizens, which we think is possible with a lot of positive energy that we have and little willingness from our fellow residents. However, developing a pedestrian and bike-friendly infrastructure will require a great change in the minds of local authorities.

We want to change the city’s development policy to create Belgrade for people, not for cars, pedestrianized squares, bicycle paths, lanes and parking lots, the city center without being polluted by traffic, better public transport and public bicycles as a public transport subsystem, etc.

The organization was officially registered on the 15th of December 2012 because at that time a new need for further progress was recognized.

The founders are the participants of the Critical Mass, the citizens of Belgrade who learned about this event, joined the organization and got involved in this ride, so that future activities would grow into a somewhat broader civic activism and the fight for sustainable mobility.

With this project, we want to connect the artistic tendencies of the Applied Theater with a bicycle community, which will be expanded by the choice of theater tools as we hope. The applied theater will enable trainees to use both drama methods and methods of interactive theater in raising the awareness of the idea of sustainable development.

We cyclists in Belgrade often feel oppressed, and the theater is a subversive media, which could jeopardize existing attitudes (We do not need new bike lanes. What we do need is more parking lots so that people can go to work. We do not need closed street for pedestrians, etc.) and create a room for new perspectives. This kind of theater is accessible, everyone can deal with drama. There is neither mental nor physical condition nor characteristic of people that would affect in such a way that certain people wouldn’t be able to get engaged in drama. Since such a theater signifies returning to the ordinary, everyday experience as the main material for the scene, the exercise, the process, the performance. Every life experience, as well as the cyclists in a city where the government first sees cars, can endanger the existing attitudes and create space for new perspectives. Our goal is certainly to increase the number of cyclists and change the perspective of city authorities. Since in the applied theater there is no comprehensive and universal methodology that could be applied in every situation, we are planning eight workshops specific to the cycling community – from those who would raise the awareness of their importance to urban mobility to those who would teach us better behavior in traffic. The principle of the applied theater means returning to the ordinary, everyday experience as the main material for the scene, exercise, process, performance. Every life experience presented at a drama workshop is valuable both for the group and for the possible content of a possible performance that is not an end in itself. What is more important to us is the process itself. It’s about deepening the sensibility that the participants would show and transform it into something greater than them. These drama workshops will be more effective if the group itself assumes the role of the story creator.

The project is conceived as a bicycle theater workshop. It would last for two months, next spring once a week (on Sundays) in May and June (the total of 8 workshops). Optionally, if the weather conditions are not good (the rain and cold weather in May, which may happen in Belgrade), the workshops will be relocated during June, August (3 workshops) and September (two workshops). In Serbia, annual vacations, as well as summer holidays of high school students and students start at the end of June and cover the whole July. They would be held outdoors, at places near the biking trails, at the foot of Belgrade bridges, which cyclists find unsatisfactory due to the poor infrastructure, the inadequate number of tracks and lack of lifts. The target group would be a bicycle community, and the overall goal and expected outcome would be to pay attention to the wider community as well as city leaders. What needs to be done is to broaden the thinking, interest and concern for bicycling problems, to inform people on how to solve specific problems, to explore the area of cycling to get insights into how to solve pedestrian squares in a better way, trails, bands and bicycle parking lots, pollution-free center, better public transport and public bicycles as a subsystem of public transport.

Empowering the cycling community would be a benefit, of course. Seven workshops would be a prerequisite to have a bike ride included in the workshop. The same would be advertised on Twitter and created as a Facebook event that could be reported to 30 cyclists maximum (age group 16+). The eighth workshop would be demonstrative, and it would take place in the Magacin area in Kraljevica Marka Street where the headquarters of the association are. After each workshop that lasts for 90 minutes, a common cycling tour of bike user would also be organized.

Apart from the three of us, I will present in this project, I will include one photographer / cameraman and a visiting drama pedagogue, who will lead one of the workshops of association of which I am an associate.

The material that would be accompanying is certainly badges of the association, as well as T-shirts with its logo. Each workshop would be filmed, and at the end we would make a short documentary film that we would be broadcast at the Green Fest in Belgrade in 2018. I also collaborated with them.

The three-member team consists of Nebojsa Stojkovic, the marketing, digital member, project manager, Zoran Bukvic, the president of the Association for cycling, long-time cycling activist, a consultant on cycling topics and Aleksandra Nikolic Matic MA, the art director and a longtime teacher at the Transportation and Traffic Engineering School in Zemun. All three of us are longtime cyclists. In the winter of 2017, apart from the lectures from my blog about smog destruction, I taught people and organized workshops where I applied drama techniques at the conference New Technologies in Education. The idea Connect everything you love and be able to work stems from the very event.

Association of citizens „Streets for cyclists“