Young engineering students recognised for improving cycling safety in Valencia, Milan and Munich

Six engineering students from Spain, Italy and Germany are the winners of a European-wide competition to inspire young people to develop and implement safety improvements for cycling in their local areas.

The winners of the Bike Pal Awards, presented today by MEPs at an event in Brussels are:

• 1^st Prize – Cristina Medina Martinez and Sergio Torres Gomez – Polytechnic University of Valencia
  Presented by Inés Ayala Sender MEP

• 2^nd Prize – Stefano Grillo and Giorgio Wetzl – Polytechnic University of Milan
  Presented by Massimiliano Salini MEP

• 3^rd Prize – Sabine Krause and Gary Riggins – Technical University of Munich
  Presented by Johannes Urban, Head of Unit – Home Affairs, Building and Transport, Representation of the Free State of Bavaria to the European Union

The award ceremony is the culmination of Bike Pal, an EU co-funded outreach project involving 22 universities across Europe and hundreds of young students. Eleven project finalists were selected in March last year from over 100 project applications.

The winning students worked with local authorities and partner organisations to improve the safety of small-scale, but high impact, pieces of cycling infrastructure. Each pair of students had to overcome the technical, financial and political hurdles necessary to successfully deliver the planned improvements.

Antonio Avenoso, Executive Director of the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) said:

“These inspiring young men and women have used their technical, political and communications skills to push through meaningful improvements to safety that will benefit thousands of cyclists every week in three of Europe’s largest cities. It’s a really fantastic achievement and gives us hope that a new generation of urban planners is going continue to find innovative, simple and cost-effective solutions to the many challenges vulnerable road users face in our cities.”

Notes to editors:

The projects

1. Connection of a disconnected major cycle route in the City of Valencia
2. Establishment of a safer crossing for cycles on an important cycle lane in Rozzano, Milan
3. The opening of Sophienstrasse, Munich for contra-flow cycling to enable cycle traffic between the Technical University of Munich and the Karlsplatz transport hub.

The awards were presented today at ‘Making Cycling Safer’ a European conference on cycling safety kindly hosted by Brussel Mobiliteit/Bruxelles Mobilité.

Coverage

BIKE PAL receives financial support from the European Commission, the German Road Safety Council (DVR) and Fundación MAPFRE.