Data Card – Cycling mobility in projects monitored by the ASOC2021 team

BikeItalia Day, 2 June

The awareness of the secondary-school students who took part in the 2020-2021 edition of A Scuola di OpenCoesione is an indicator of the attention of both individuals and civil society on promoting cycling mobility. 

In Italy, this year’s World Bicycle Day was celebrated a day early, taking advantage of the Italian national holiday on 2 June to organise BIKEITALIA DAY in some 60 cities around the country. The event featured a 10-15 kilometre ride that began at 4:00 PM on 2 June from the various town halls in order to bring together all cycling enthusiasts who believe that the bicycle can be the solution to a great many problems, but also to promote cycling among all those who have yet to discover how fast and fun it can be to get around town by bike.

The event was promoted by Bikeitalia.it, a publication created with the goal of making Italy a cyclable nation, and organised by local committees in each city, which designed the route and worked with local authorities to implement all the necessary safety measures. “BIKEITALIA DAY is not a Critical Mass ride, but rather a celebration intended, above all, for children and the most fragile members of society. It is a way of joyously sharing the road and of rediscovering that sense of belonging after so many months of isolation,” the organisers explained.

The new urban mobility with cohesion policy

In recent years, thanks in part to projects funded within the scope of the ERDF ESF NOP Metropolitan Cities 2014-2020, initiatives to promote urban mobility have increased significantly. In terms of cycling, we can note the projects funded: in Milan with the Solari-Tortona route; in Rome with, in particular, the Tuscolana and Nomentana cycling paths, which aim to complete and weave together the existing network of routes; in Venice; and in Catania, where the cycling route to Librino aims to complement the area’s environmental sustainability and development. There is also a great deal of activity in the cities of: Turin, where there are three projects to expand the network of cycling paths, including in Via Nizza, along Dora Siena, and the connection of the Spina 3 and Pellerina parks; and in Florence, which is working to increase the city’s current 90 km of bike paths and cycling routes to a total of over 110 km.

The 10 bicycling-touring routes

Between 2015 and 2018, Italy’s Ministry of Infrastructure and Sustainable Mobility and Cultural Ministry signed a protocol to create 10 safe, high-quality cycle paths, for a form of sustainable tourism that promotes itineraries of historical, cultural and environmental value throughout the Italian peninsula.

These routes were identified by the local communities and the industry associations and will cover a total of some 6,000 kilometres in the spirit of the [17] EuroVelo routes that criss-cross all of Europe. A portion of the routes are already accessible and, once completed, they will provide quality, easy trails free from motorised vehicles, which respect the environment and the landscape and are user friendly, with specific signage and other services, for a cycling experience that cyclists of all skill levels can enjoy.

The national network began with the selection of the first four bicycle-tourism routes within the 2016 national budget — and namely Ciclovia del Sole, Ven-To, Grab, and Ciclovia dell’Acquedotto Pugliese — selected in agreement with the EuroVelo network. With the 2016 and 2017 national budgets, the system of bicycle-tourism routes received €372 million in funding from 2016 to 2024. By way of co-financing and measures of cohesion policy, total funding comes to €750 million. On the OpenCoesione website, there is information on a project concerning Ciclovia del Sole and on three projects that concern Ciclovia Adriatica (here, here and here), all financed within the scope of the 2014-2020 programming cycle and the Development and Cohesion Fund.

The cycling routes on the OpenCoesione portal

On the OpenCoesione website, there are projects related to cycling routes and bicycle tourism, which can be found in various ways, including the classifications associated with the Single Project Code, or “SPC” (i.e. SPC 01 – Transportation or the  SPC 01 sub-category for roadways, and SPC 014 Cycling Routes) and by spending category (i.e. 24 – Cycling Routes for the 2007-2013 programming cycle and 90 – Cycling and Pedestrian Routes for the 2014-2020 cycle) of the projects co-financed by EU funding.

By project code as at 28 February 2021, for example, you will find 492 projects financed by way of both Italian and European funding for a total public cost of €423.9 million, €395.9 million of which in “cohesion funding”. The same search on 30 June 2019 would have resulted in 328 projects and a total public cost of nearly €338.0 million, for 164 projects over about the last two years.

Among these 492 projects, you will find 4 that were monitored by the teams participating in A Scuola di OpenCoesione. However, a fifth project, for the creation of a cycling route along the decommissioned railway in Acireale, in the province of Catania, will not appear among the results, because it was classified differently for monitoring purposes (i.e. SCP 02 – Environmental Infrastructure and Water Resources, sub-sector SPC 11 – Environmental Protection, Development & Use, category SPC 124 – Structure for the Use of Environmental Heritage, rather than under Cycling Routes).