The new school year begins tomorrow for around 260,000 students in Vienna. Your safe route to school is a key concern for the city of Vienna, and this of course also applies to the cycle path connection. As part of the major cycle path offensive, 142 schools have so far been connected to safe and comfortable cycle paths and cycle streets. “In this way, we are creating the conditions so that more and more students, parents and educators can get to schools in our city more easily, safely and in an environmentally friendly manner,” says City Councilor for Mobility Ulli Sima.
The mobility agency’s additional offers, such as free cycling courses and mobility workshops for elementary schools, create more awareness of environmentally friendly and climate-friendly mobility throughout the year and introduce cycling to the little ones in a playful way. For example, free cycling training for children is offered every Saturday and Sunday from April to November at four cycling practice areas.
“As a progress coalition, it is extremely important to us that students and parents can make their daily journey to school safely and safely. An important factor here is the easy accessibility of the school locations by bicycle and scooter. With the progressive connection of school routes to the Vienna cycle network, we as the city of Vienna are pioneers in Europe,” adds Christoph Wiederkehr, City Councilor for Education.
Cycle path expansion including a lot of unsealing and greening
“As part of the major Vienna cycle path offensive, we are massively expanding the cycle path network and creating around 20 kilometers of new cycling infrastructure every year in order to anchor cycling in everyday life and further improve the quality of life in our city,” emphasizes Sima. In the previous year around 35 million euros were invested.
Under the motto “Get out of the asphalt”, the road space is being redesigned with new trees, green and raised beds and cooling areas as part of the cycle path offensive. For example, in Argentinier Straße alone, which is currently being converted into a bicycle street based on the Dutch model, 1,300 m2 of asphalt will be unsealed, 100 green beds will be created and 70 new trees will be planted. In the new cycle street in Pfeilgasse, the school environment has been redesigned, turning a parking space into an attractive open space for children, including good cycle path connections.
Highlight educational campus Vienna West
A particularly good example from this year is the Anna and Alfred Wödl educational campus in Vienna’s 14th district. Four new cycle paths open up the school campus.
The educational campus in Penzing, which opened in 2022, benefited from the cycling offensive right from the opening: in 2022, a shared footpath and cycle path was built on Deutschordenstrasse as a direct connection to the school. This year this cycle path will be extended up to Lorenz-Weiß-Gasse in order to better connect the school to Hugo-Breitner-Hof and the surrounding residential areas on the other side of Hütteldorfer Straße.
At the same time, the connection to the popular Wiental cycle path and to Hietzing has been ensured by the cycle path parallel to the railway and in Hochsatzengasse since 2023.
It is also worth mentioning in this context the cycle path on Meiselstrasse planned for 2025 and the cycle path on Hütteldorfer Strasse that is already under construction. This cycle axis will connect eight schools in Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus and Penzing to the cycle path network.
Lighthouse project in Favoriten – Innerfavoriten educational campus
There are lighthouse projects for cycle path connections not only in the west but also in the south of Vienna, such as the Innerfavoriten educational campus in the Neues Landgut urban development area, which opened last year.
In 2022, construction began on the new two-way cycle paths on Laxenburger Straße and Landgutgasse, which will be completed this year. This year, further structurally separated cycle paths will follow in Landgutgasse in the direction of Sonnwendgasse and in the direction of Herzgasse. This means that other residential areas can be connected well and safely. The entrance to the school itself is on the Elisabeth-Schindler-Gasse pedestrian zone.
Also in Favoriten, the new two-way cycle path Herndlgasse-Davidgasse will connect five schools and accessibility will be significantly improved by closing gaps, such as the Sonnwendviertel educational campus.
Extensive school connection via the Pfeilgasse cycle route
The new continuous cycle axis Pfeilgasse-Zeltgasse-Josefsgasse in Josefstadt will directly connect four schools with high-quality bicycle infrastructure. The redesign and traffic calming of the school forecourt of the elementary school and middle school in Pfeilgasse began in 2022. Under the motto “Get out of the asphalt,” the school forecourt in Pfeilgasse, including the Lisette Model Square, was redesigned and made climate-friendly: a teacher’s parking lot became a cool open space. Nine trees, seating areas, large shrubs, six new green areas with colorful flowers and a water feature with ground fountains provide more shade and cooling around the school.
The final redesign of the cycle path will follow by mid-September, including climate-friendly greenery and improvements for pedestrians. The 1.2 kilometer long bicycle axis will soon join the 2 line and is therefore a great connection from the west of the city to the center.
The Seeböckgasse – Geblergasse cycle route is coming in 2025
With the Seeböckgasse and Geblergasse cycle route, which was launched this year, eight schools will be connected directly or in the surrounding area to safe and comfortable cycling infrastructure. By autumn 2025, a 2.5 km long connection will be created between Sandleitengasse and the Belt, including greening measures.
Significant improvement in routes to school in Währing
This year’s start of construction on the half-kilometer-long two-way cycle path on Währinger Straße closes the gap in the cycle network between Gersthof and the rest of Währing. From January next year he will be available for school trips. Here too, 19 new trees will be planted and the entire street space will be redesigned to be climate-friendly. Together with the bicycle-friendly street in Schulgasse, this improves accessibility to eleven schools in the district.
There is also something going on to the left of the Danube
The city’s cycle path offensive together with the Donaustadt district cycle offensive improves the accessibility of numerous schools on the other side of the Danube in Vienna’s largest district by bicycle. The cycle highway north, together with the cycle path on Wintzingerodestraße and the cycle path on Donaustadtstraße, connect ten schools, such as the Hertha-Firnberg schools, to the cycle network.
Planning for 2025 and beyond
In the coming years, the City of Vienna wants to connect more schools to an improved cycle path network and further improve school route safety. The new cycle paths in the Nordbahnviertel in Leopoldstadt and the Meiselstraße cycle route in Penzing have already been presented.
“We are already planning further projects for next year and in preliminary planning beyond that. The more schools have a comfortable and safe cycle path connection, the more attractive bicycles become for students and teachers,” emphasize Sima and Wiederkehr, who thank the districts for their good and intensive cooperation on cycle path expansion.
Both direct cycle path connections and measures in the area around schools, such as pedestrian zones, were used for the count.
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