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State Secretary for Infrastructure Pál Völner was present at Batthyány Square, the central venue of the event early in the morning. He stressed that over the past two years a total of HUF 66 billion was made available for cycling projects and since 2007, almost 2000 km of cycling routes have been created.

The Bike to Work campaign, in which companies, schools, civil organisations and individual cyclists may participate, was initiated by the Hungarian Cyclists’ Club to make using bicycles more popular among citizens. Participants may win valuable prizes by registering how many kilometres they have cycled in an online calendar.

This year, the campaign started on the Earth Day, 22 April, within the framework of which 7000 employees of almost 2000 companies cycled a total of 750 thousand kilometres. According to János László, head of the Hungarian Cyclists’ Club, thanks to campaigns promoting cycling, the number of those who use bicycles on a regular basis to go to work or as a hobby is growing by 40-50 percent each year.

In addition to the campaign, the Government also provided support to the so-called “Cross-border Tour” (Határon-Túra), a large-scale bicycle tour linking Hungary with different regions of the Carpathian Basin, which was first organised in 2010. The aim of the initiative is to assist in creating direct links between the motherland and Hungarians living beyond the country's borders, as well as to draw attention to a sustainable and environmentally friendly mode of transport, the bicycle.

Source: Ministry of National Development