King Baudouin Foundation: 570,000 euros to continue promoting cycle use in Brussels
Five new projects supported by the Bikes in Brussels Fund
A secured cycle storage and an art programme focused on cycling at BOZAR, mobility studies in Anderlecht and Koekelberg, bike shelters in Berchem-Sainte-Agathe and Uccle… For its third selection, the Bikes in Brussels Fund, managed by the King Baudouin Foundation, is supporting five projects destined to improve amenities and equipment for cyclists with a grant of almost 570,000 euros. In just a single year of operation, the Bikes in Brussels Fund will have provided over 1.3 million euros of support to 15 projects set up by associations, public bodies and schools to facilitate and make safer journeys by bicycle in and to the Brussels-Capital Region. All in all, a serious leg-up for the use of cycles in Brussels.
Encouraging as many people as possible to adopt the bicycle as the favoured method of transport in and to the Brussels-Capital Region is the mission of the Bikes in Brussels Fund, created at the end of 2018 within the King Baudouin Foundation. The Fund provides support for initiatives set up by associations, public bodies and public and private partners who wish to encourage cycle use by improving infrastructures or the material available for cyclists. Such projects can be introduced throughout the year. Several times each year, the Fund selects the projects that will be supported financially, up to a total maximum of one million euros per project.
For this third selection in 2019, five projects will receive a total of 569,544 euros.
– The Palais des Beaux-Arts (BOZAR) is working to encourage soft mobility at the Mont des Arts, in the city centre between ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ Brussels. The BOZAR Bike station will make secure cycle storage facilities available for regular and occasional cyclists, as well as recharging stations for electric bikes, repair terminals and an arts programme focused on cycles, notably through a partnership with artists who will decorate citizens’ bikes during public events. To bring the project to fruition, BOZAR is receiving 280,000 euros from the Bikes in Brussels Fund.
– As part of their Good Move plan, the Commune of Anderlecht will commission a study relating to the Centre-Canal and Cureghem axes, from an external office, with the objective of identifying modifications needed to automobile circulation in order to make the roads more welcoming and safer for cyclists. The roads, crossroads and streets of each axis will be analysed. The measures resulting from this analysis will be implemented in the short term, with relatively simple means. The commune will benefit from 120,000 euros in financial support for the study.
– Koekelberg has also decided to become a commune that feels welcoming for cyclists and has obtained a grant of 115,200 euros to realise two objectives set out in its Bypad plan. On the one hand, the commune will create more places to park or attach bikes through the establishment of cycle boxes and hoops; on the other hand, it will conduct a mobility study to determine the feasibility and pertinence of developing cycling streets, along which it will be forbidden for motorists to overtake a cyclist.
– In Berchem-Sainte-Agathe, a bike shelter with 40 secure places will be set up on a piece of land belonging to the Valida Hospital Centre, alongside the public thoroughfare of the Rue de la Cité Moderne. A cycle repair station will also be installed there. The cycle park and the repair station will be accessible both to visitors to the hospital and local residents. The Bikes in Brussels Fund is contributing 46,770 euros in support of this project.
– In Uccle, the Institut Royal pour Sourds et Aveugles (IRSA, the Royal Institute for the Deaf and Blind) will install secure and covered cycle parking for the personnel of the Le Petit Prince crèche, for parents of children who attend the crèche and for other IRSA employees. The project is aimed at encouraging employees to get to work by bike. It will receive a grant of 7,574 euros.
If you would like further information about any of these projects, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We will be delighted to put you in contact with the appropriate organisation.
Press contact:
Erika Racquet
02-549 02 56
0477-77 88 02
Cathy Verbyst
02-549 02 78
0478-75 01 41
King Baudouin Foundation
info@kbs-frb.be
Rue Brederodestraat 21
1000 Brussels
02-500 45 55