On Wednesday, 27 April, Slovenské elektrárne signed a Memorandum of Partnership and Mutual Cooperation with the Trnava Region and the municipality of Jaslovské Bohunice. The aim of the memorandum is to coordinate the construction of a cycle path that will run along the Class III road from the village to our nuclear power plant. The new cycle path will be 1.9 kilometres long and 2.5 metres wide. The signing of the memorandum was attended by the CEO Branislav Strýček on behalf of Slovenské elektrárne, the Mayor of Trnava Jozef Viskupič on behalf of the region and the Mayor of Jaslovské Bohunice Božena Krajčovičová on behalf of the municipality of Jaslovské Bohunice.
Director General Branislav Strýček commented on the agreement at the press conference, "1.9 kilometres of the cycle path is a small section on the map of Slovakia. However, it represents an important piece of road that brings employer and employee, municipality or region and citizen closer. This section has a great symbolic and real significance. It shows how it can be done. We believe that there will be more and more such routes and great collaborations and more opportunities to cycle to work safely."
The enthusiasm of our Director General is shared by the Mayor of Trnava, Jozef Viskupič, who pointed out that the return on this investment was confirmed by data collected during the preparation of the Study on the Development of Cycling Transport in the Trnava Region. "At present, cyclists can only get from the village to the power plant along the third class road, which is not safe due to the frequency of traffic on the route. Therefore, our common intention is to build a safe, separate cycling road. We are planning to build the 1.9-kilometre long cycle path from our own resources. We expect the construction to be completed this year," Viskupič said. Data show that it should be prospective to build a cycle path between Jaslovské Bohunice and Malženice in the second stage. Subsequently, a connection between Malženice and Trnava can be considered.
The mayor of Jaslovské Bohunice, Božena Krajčovičová, is also very satisfied with the project and said that she is extremely happy that they were approached with this idea as a municipality. "We already had the project documentation for the cycle path in place when we were approached by the Trnava Region and Slovenské elektrárne, so we are really grateful that you contacted us and we can get to work immediately," said the mayor.
The project documentation is provided by the municipality of Jaslovské Bohunice, and the municipality participates financially in its preparation together with TTSK and Slovenské elektrárne. The construction is planned between the exit from the village on the road III/1311 at the level of Blavská Street and the nuclear power plant.
"Many of our employees are great enthusiasts of two wheels and we as a company are happy to support them in this. We supply around 95 % of our electricity to the grid emission-free, and we would be happy if our employees could save further emissions on their way to work. It's great that we've managed to bring together other enthusiasts at municipal and county level. The result is a real bikeway project that will hopefully already serve our employees on their way to work this year," added Branislav Strýček.
The aim of the Memorandum is to build, in addition to the cycling route itself, a complex infrastructure to existing or future cycling roads. In a broader context, it is the ambition of the parties to the Memorandum to contribute to the development of cycling links between the communities in the vicinity of the power station. In parallel, the county is focusing on supporting projects for the construction of cycling routes - the Vážská, Moravská and Malodunajská cycling routes.
Three cycling routes have been marked in the vicinity of the Mochovce NPP in the past, also with the support of the Slovenské elektrárne: from Tlmače along the Hron River to Štúrovo, a cycling route connecting 13 villages of the Požitavie-Siročina region and last year also a route from Tlmače via Rybník to Nová Dedina. In cooperation with the Nitra Region, we are currently looking for a solution to connect the existing cycle routes to the Mochovce NPP. The NSK approached the Slovak Cycling Club (SCK), which is a professional organisation that is the only one involved in creating a network of cycling routes in Slovakia. It has included this survey and, if possible, the marking of cycle routes to the Mochovce NPP in its plan for this year.
