“Parque Sarmiento is the
national capital of cycling
,” says Oscar Filardi, resident of Villa Urquiza and cyclist.
He lists other renowned cyclists and even an Olympic champion who are regulars around the perimeter of the park to pedal: Walter Pérez, Delmo Delmastro or Sebastián Donadío.
However,
not everything is jubilant
: it also lists recent road incidents, as a sample button, in which cyclists, motorists and pedestrians were involved.
The five-kilometer perimeter of the park is a
favorite place
for professional and amateur cyclists looking to gain the muscle that the kilometers of riding develop.
Such kilometers are, however,
shared with cars
, vans, trucks with or without trailers and buses.
All of this would be avoided if the inauguration of the
3.2 kilometer cycling track
that the City Government built inside Sarmiento Park was not still delayed.
A cycling track within the park, whose planning dates back to 2018, has only been waiting to be inaugurated
for four months
.
However, neighbors and cyclists demand urgency in the opening, while road incidents constantly occur.
Filardi lists
the most recent accidents
.
Gustavo crashed into a trailer parked in the General Paz collectorate after being “locked in” by a car, the result of which was a
fracture of a vertebra and jaw
, in addition to spinal injuries, and it is feared that he will not be able to walk again. .
Also the case of Tito, an 86-year-old regular cyclist in the area, fell from his bicycle while maneuvering to avoid another car and suffered displacement of three cervical vertebrae.
On the General Paz Avenue collector, weeks ago, a bus on line 21 took away another cyclist, who, fortunately, did not have serious injuries.
Another case that Clarín
cited
, of complete seriousness: on January 3, a cyclist was killed by a Fiat Fiorino on the collector but on the opposite side of the park, in the town of Villa Martelli, on the outskirts of Tecnópolis.
Cyclists circulate around the perimeter of the park and suffer recurring accidents.
Photo: Emmanuel Fernández
Clarín
published another note in 2015 about the claim of residents of Saavedra after in February of that year a 79-year-old neighbor at the time was run over by a group of cyclists: four cyclists fell on her and the woman died after several days admitted to the Pirovano Hospital.
For Filardi, in any case, the responsibility is shared: cars parked in double rows, buses zigzagging, garbage collection hoppers that take up space on the streets.
Also about cyclists: “One cannot take responsibility for individual attitudes.
Sometimes platoons form spontaneously, improvised: one cyclist likes the rhythm or speed of another and follows him.
Sometimes, you have people who think they have a motorcycle and go 60 an hour.”
What about the cycling track?
The solution would be the inauguration of the Parque Sarmiento cycling track.
This is a long-standing claim, formally conveyed since 2017, when the first edition of the BA Choose program was convened.
Martín McCrank, a regular cyclist at Parque Sarmiento, joined together with other cyclists and architects to raise a project to build a track within the park that won votes in Commune 12 and others.
But then the problem was another: the BA Choose program had a low budget in 2017, the year of its first edition, so the Buenos Aires Sports Secretariat intervened, which, in reality, was more focused on issues related to the realization of the 2018 Youth Olympic Games. “Then came the 2019 elections and the management changes that, although the Larreta government continued, demanded bureaucratic issues.
Then, the pandemic…” says McCrank.
At the end of 2022, it was not the Sports Secretariat but the Public Works Secretariat that took up the project.
It called a tender that estimated
total expenses at 445 million pesos
, according to official information.
During the first months of 2023, the works began, and the Secretary of Public Works of the City, Manuela López Menéndez, said at the time: "The neighbors asked us for this project and all the people who train now will have a new place to practice." "With this track we will achieve better urban coexistence of these different uses of the bike on public roads."
From the City they say that they observed "inconsistencies" in the track that must be resolved before its authorization.
Photo: Emmanuel Fernández
The inauguration was scheduled for
last December 2
.
The City Government website invited residents days before: “Parque Sarmiento incorporates a cycling track that arises from a historical request from the residents of Saavedra and the cyclists who use the perimeter to train at a professional level.
The particularity of the new cycling track is its continuity, thanks to the incorporation of two bridges that are located over the entrance and exit of Sarmiento Park.
Thus, the different road actors can coexist in a safer way.”
However, it did not open in December and was postponed to February.
Meanwhile, in November the Primavera Fest was held in the park and in January the camp activities for children began.
The cycling track served as a
parking lot for school buses and vans
, and other cars that violated the gates and other barriers installed on the perimeter.
Fabián Turnes, Secretary of Sports of the City, tells
Clarín
: “When we assumed our management, we toured the park and noticed some inconsistencies on the track.
The safety of cyclists and park visitors must be reinforced.
There are things to correct.”
And he explains: “We have to rethink safety, the demarcation of lanes for different speeds and also lighting.
For that, we will call a
new bidding process to carry out these works
.
Meanwhile, in addition to the bureaucratic issues that take time, we are working on repairs to issues that are not structural, with the aim of speeding up times.”
Asked if an audit was or will be done on the inconveniences of the construction, he commented that yes, it was a visual audit carried out by him and his team, and that is why a new tender is called to correct the design errors and track construction.
The call for a bidding process entails deadlines that do not coincide with the urgency of the need to inaugurate the runway: companies have
a maximum delivery time for the work that is 180 days
, six months.
In the case of Gustavo's accident, one of the cases of cyclist accidents mentioned by Filardi, the consequences are serious: due to the spinal injuries he suffered as a result of the crash, there is a possibility that he will never walk again.
The Sarmiento Park cycling track should have been inaugurated in December.
Since then, 90 days have passed in which several accidents occurred that could have been avoided if the runway had been inaugurated.
P.S.