An SGP Project started in 2008 in partnership with the Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning, the City of Skopje, the British Embassy in Skopje, Parking of Skopje Co., several NGOs and partners from the business sector has released the first rent-a-bike service in Macedonia.
Last 28th of July, in the capital city Skopje, the Mayor of Skopje and Mayor of municipality of Aerodrom (in East Skopje), the Director of the Parking Co., and the National Coordinator of SGP in Macedonia cut the green ribbon in an event to start the Rent-a-bike program by releasing 100 tailor made bicycles.
This SGP project started as a response to the increase in air pollution in Skopje caused by congested traffic and transportation. As an environmentally friendly, bicycles were proposed as an alternative mean of urban transportation. The idea behind the project was to enable the citizens of Skopje to use own/rented bicycle as a mean for local transport. The project activities aim to: develop a functional rent-a-bike model in Skopje; establish a trend for riding bicycles in a heavily urbanized city such as Skopje; increase awareness that bicycles can be used for urban transportation, not only for recreational purposes; enable citizens or visitors of Skopje to use the bicycle for accomplishing daily tasks in the city; and establish a sustainable partnership among NGOs, Ministries, municipalities, educational institutions, private businesses etc.
The project has now developed a model for functional rent-a-bike system was developed and 100 bicycles were tailored for urban transportation. There is a signed Memorandum of Understanding with the City of Skopje, local Municipalities of Karpos and partner organizations such us British Embassy in Skopje, Parking of Skopje Co., The Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning and several NGOs. Three main rent-a-bike points were launched linking the Skopje City Centre (Macedonia Square) with two neighboring Municipalities in the west (Municipality of Karpos, distance 2km) and east (Municipality of Aerodrom, distance 5 km). The price for renting is set: 10 MKD (0.16 EUR/0.21 USD) per hour and the citizens are able to rent and return the bicycle at any of the three points.
The launch of the project was been followed by the local and national media including radio, TV as well as numerous internet articles. The NGO is now advancing with implementation of ongoing and new complementary activities including: publishing a booklet with lessons learned to promote the rent-a-bike
system in Skopje and to encourage other cities in Macedonia to replicate the project activities (October 2010); and possible upscale in GEF 5 in three more Municipalities in Skopje that showed interest to join the rent-a-bike system with establishing bike renting points in their municipalities.
After the first week of the release of the rent-a-bike system, the project has showed exceptional results and 507 hours of bikes have been rented. According to the citizens of Skopje "this is the best thing that has been organized in Skopje".
Contact:
Mr. Zlatko Samardziev, National Programme Coordinator | +389-(0)2-310-99-56 | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.