Infrastructure Itinerary in Seville

Volunteers of cycling academy Project (VOCA)
Infrastructure Itinerary in Seville
The VOCA project Infrastructure itinerary in Seville lasted about three hours and
covered 11.5 Km. We saw a representative section of the cycling infrastructure,
pedestrian areas, public transport infrastructure, sharing bicycle systems,
Intermodality policies and how everything works together to promote
sustainable mobility in the urban area of Seville.
We began moving alongside the riverbanks of the river Gualdalquivir where
there is a new park connecting green areas through the city. This park has bike
lanes connected with the network of cycle paths. We arrived at the American
Garden where there are more than 500 plant species from that continent. It is a
botanical itinerary which can be seen by bike.
After that we arrived at the Plaza de Armas bus station, where there is a bicycle
sharing system with 180 bicycles to promote intermodality with buses coming
from the metropolitan area. You can take one bicycle for free during one day if
you have arrived by public transport. The point is to promote the intermodality
but with private bicycles, in fact in this station there is a secure bike which is
closed at night for people from the metropolitan area who come by bus and
want to have their bicycles in the city. The number of private bicycles is growing
each year and the system is becoming very popular.
We could see a Sevici stand in front of the bus station. This is an extremely
popular public bicycle system. With this system you can take one bicycle for
free for 30 minutes and go to another stand. It costs 25 Euros per year and
there are more than 2.500 bicycles stationed in 250 stands around the city. The
system is free for the council because it is financed from advertising on the
bicycles, Mupis and bus stops. Everyday more than 30.000 people use the
Sevici system.
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The next stop was in theTriana district where, two years ago, the main street
of Triana and 50% of the historical bridge which links Triana with the city center
was pedestrianized giving the space to pedestrians.
The main street of Triana is now pedestrian. At first the idea was just to put a
bike lane in the street by removing car parking lanes. However, as we can see
in next photos, the politicians decided to remove the narrow car lane to calm the
traffic on the bridge, and give 100% of the space to the people, thus also
removing the bike lane which is today replaced by a sign on the floor allowing
bikes trough the street.
We arrived at Los Remedios, another district where, since 2009, there has been
one of the biggest pedestrian avenues. This district has a high density
population and was built in the 40’s when Spain had no problems with cars, so it
is one of the areas with more traffic and space problems. In the same way as
Triana, at first and during the construction there were many demonstrations,
with thousands of people against pedestrianising, because they didn’t agree
with new policies about the space for people instead car parking and traffic.
Now it is a great area for children, families, shopping, coffee and relaxing.
In our next stop we crossed through the most important pedestrian area in city
centre around the cathedral and the Cristina gardens, this avenue is 1.5 km
long and was pedestrianised in 2007, replacing a big avenue full of cars which
polluted the buildings. The council built an electric tramway and now it is totally
pedestrianised and connects all pedestrian avenues in and out of the city
center. This is an important factor in promoting walking and cycling in Seville
increasing pedestrian and bicycle traffic along totally safe car free kilometers.
There is just one tramway in the city, but it is very important in terms of the
number of people using it. It is the only transport that can enter the historic
center and is linked to three metro stations. The tramway is helping people to
cross a long avenue where you can’t enter by car and it keeps buildings like the
Cathedral clean (the Cathedral was black until last year because cars had been
driving through the avenue massively since the 60’s).
The Metro line is 23 Km long and crosses the city connecting the city center
directly with the metropolitan area. More than 200.000 people live around metro
stations. The government plans to build 3 more metro lines and bicycles are
allowed inside both the metro and the tramway.
We stopped in San Bernardo, a renovated modern area of the city not in the city
center, which is connected by metro, tramway, train and where there are a lot of
bus lines. San Bernardo is a business and university area and houses all the
city’s courts. The reconstruction work on the avenues removed car and parking
lanes in order to build the tramway and metro stations, creating wider
pavements for pedestrians and allowing bicycles cross with bike lanes
connected to the bike lane network. At the end of the avenue 50% is
pedestrianized to link metro, tramway, bus stations and university on foot. At
this point the cars have to circumnavigate the area to continue along the same
avenue, thus promoting traffic calming and public transport in this central area.
The Cycling infrastructure route went on to visit the University of Seville. The
people from this community use the bike a lot and the university has been
working to encourage cycling. The university put safe, massive and closed bike
parks in all the campuses which are used by thousands of people every day.
The university has also created an office called SIBUS, a service to coordinate
these buildings, create activities and classes to learn about cycling and share
400 bikes for one year to the students for free.
http://www.bicicletas.us.es/
We finished cycling through a central district which has examples of best bike
lanes in Seville close to the city center and linked with the rest of the city. The
bike lanes are built as we can see in the picture; they are 2.5 meters wide and
the bike-lane network is more than 130 Km connecting all the neighbourhoods
in the city.
There are no bike lanes inside city centre because the streets are narrow and
the government instead decided to pedestrianise the main avenues inside city
centre.