Again, the question of when the residents of Sofia will celebrate a new, modern bicycle lane remains unclear. The first one is planned to appear in Sofia by the end of October 2008, but it is hard to believe that it will (ever) happen.

Sofia deputy mayor in charge of transport Velizar Stoilov told The Sofia Echo on August 18 that construction was starting on August 22. The company that was to build it was Sofstroy and the investor was the local municipality.

But on August 22, Sofstroy infrastructure department manager Mitko Berberov said that the mayor did not have the precise information. Some documents approving the start of the construction were still pending signage. Despite this, on August 22, a municipal representative and he were going to the place where the bike lane would be constructed, to together observe and decide from where to start. And all this only three days before the actual construction was to start, as according to him, his workers would be on site on August 25 and start construction!

It is hard to believe that only three days before the ground was to be broken, the engineers had not yet decided from where to begin: from Graf Ignatiev Street in the direction NDK (National Palace of Culture), or from NDK to Graf Ignatiev Street.

Besides all this, Stoilov also did not have a clue as to how long the construction would continue. According to him, the work should finish within 15 days! Only later he found out that, according to the public tender’s conditions for construction, the deadline was October 31 2008.

He was not happy with that; he said that that period was enough to repair a whole boulevard, let alone a single bicycle lane! He vowed that he would spur on the construction.

Stoilov sharply criticised vehicle drivers: according to him, it was not yet a good idea for bicycle lanes to be laid out in Sofia, as drivers were not following any laws. He blamed the Government: the municipality wanted 1500 policemen instead of the 100 who were currently patrolling the city. But the state was worried that the municipality would start doing its work, by creating a municipal police brigade. So it did not appoint enough policemen, who, according to Stoilov, would have to uncompromisingly fine all who park illegally or occasionally stopped on bicycle lanes.