A Proposal: A Bike Lane in Semarang

For your information, I have been biking to work since 2008. Besides, I have been active in joining bike to work community in Semarang, including promoting to society about how important to reduce global warming by biking. I don’t bike to work every day, though. I bike to work at least 2-4 times in a week. The number of bike to work members is getting more and more every time. Moreover, bike to work has some ‘branches’ in Semarang: bike to school, bike to campus and folding bike community. Actually, there some other bike communities in Semarang: PCS, SOC (Semarang Onthel Community), Samba, Gagak Rimang, Tend Beer, etc. Some of the mentioned communities gathered this morning with some prominent officials discussing about bike lane in Semarang. Is that possible?

There were three speakers in the talk show, A Proposal: Bike Lane in Semarang, Mr. Joko from Sugijopranoto University majoring Transportation, Mr. Cahyono from Sugijopranoto University majoring in Environment and Mr. Gurun from Transportation Government Department. Basically, they agreed to have a bike lane in Semarang. The problem is there are still many things to prepare such as the infrastructure and the awareness of Semarang people about bike lane. There are some bike lanes in some parts of the streets in Semarang, however, the people make use of them for parking, for street vendors (mostly a semi permanent building for selling food). As the result, the cyclists prefer using the lane for motor vehicles to using the bike lane.

During the talk show, there were some questions from the audience. Some of them were about the complaint of the unavailability of bike parking in malls and other places and the unfair treatment of some people to cyclists especially on the street. Therefore, we all expect that by realizing bike lane in Semarang, the people will open their mind that we, cyclists exist and need to be treated fairly.

At the end of the talk show, Mr. Gurun from Transportation Government Department promised us to meet him after the major election that is going to be carried out next week. He invited us to discuss to realize bike lane in Semarang. Well, wish it would be realized soon.