Romanian city introduces cycling, public transport lane

A 1.6 kilometers long lane for cyclists and public transport will run through downtown Cluj-Napoca, a city in Western Romania, starting this September, Hotnews.ro reported. The lane will start from the Marasti neighborhood, in the area of St. Peter church, and will end downtown, at the Cluj-Napoca City Hall. In order to establish the lane, 132 parking places will be dispersed, but 256 new ones will be established instead. Another shorter, public transport lane was introduced in the city several months ago and the City Hall plans to add several more in the future. A total of 146,000 cars are registered in Cluj-Napoca and the traffic increased this year 40% compared to 2013, according to the local authorities. The city will also get its first electric buses by March 2018. This June, the Bucharest City Hall has started the procedure to acquire a feasibility study on the construction of 100-km long bicycle lanes. A month earlier, it attempted to introduce a public transport lane, but the initiative was suspended until the end of this school year because of major traffic jams. Cluj-Napoca becomes first city in Romania to issue urbanism certificates online editor@romania-insider.com