Last Friday the "Yediot Yerushaliem" weekly reported the unfortunate news concerning the President of the Hebrew University - Prof. Menachem Ben-Sasson's accident while trying out the municipality's newly installed bike path near the institution's vicinity. It turns out that Prof. Ben-Sasson, an experienced bicyclist, was riding along when his pedal got caught on one of the large concrete curbs lining the path. Multiple sources (including this blog) had previously warned the municipality that these curbs, ranging in hight between 15-20 cm, pose a very serious threat to bicyclists and are not in compliance with the Ministry of Transportation's guidelines that limit them to 5cm.
Ignoring the underlying issue of the dangers posed by these curbs, the municipality responded to the accident with the following statement: "The Bike Paths are currently under construction and their execution is not yet complete, similarly these paths have not yet been handed over to the municipality and it is not recommended to ride in them until work has been completed. It should be noted that the bike paths are being executed according to the standards of the ministry of transportation and the police. The Transportation & Infrastructure Development division will look into adding signage into the area." It seems that the city wishes to insinuate that it was the University President's own fault for choosing to ride on a bike path whose "execution is not yet complete" and that he should have know better. However, any passerby can attest to the fact that the majority of the bike paths that have been constructed until now in the area, including the one which Prof. Ben-Sasson tried, are in fact structurally complete. The only work left is to provide proper signage and paint the path in the appropriate colors. It would seem that the Municipality itself feels these paths are completely safe, otherwise they would have provided signs indicating that bicyclists should not make use of them yet. Only now, after the accident, have they even conceded to look into the prospect of adding adequate signage.
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| The section of the bike path that the President of the Hebrew University rode on. Construction of the path is complete. There is no signage indicating that people should not use it. |
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| The other end of the same path. Again it is complete and without any signs or warnings informing people otherwise. |
