Kristine Ann-Sofie Alsly Hansen and Fröy Myrhol, from the UN department of UNRIC, send to Nattura.info some reflections on what individuals can do to try prevent climate changes. Here they discuss the bicycle programs being tried out in Europe, for example in Paris where the bicycles are now over 20.000! Who would have believed that?
Many cities in the world are trying out new transport means to reduce the amount of cars and thereby also pollution; and with great success. With self-service bikes people can save the environment and get fit at the same time.
The concept is to have free or cheap access to bicycles for city transportation. People can take a bicycle, pay a small fee and be on their way. After arriving at the destination, the bike can be returned at a station nearby. Bike sharing is especially good for one- way rides, where people have other transportation for the ride back. It is an addition to other public transportation. In many community bicycle programs, the bicycles are painted yellow, red, white or another clearly recognizable colour. This is done to prevent theft, but also to promote the bicycle program throughout the city. Several bike communities have appeared the last years, where the biggest success stories have been in European cities like Paris and Barcelona.
Sustainable success
The newest example of self-service bikes is found in Barcelona. In March 2007 the city of Barcelona in cooperation with the company Clear Channel put up the bike sharing system, “Bicing”, in a city that did not see many bicycles before. Bicing is a part of the company’s most sustainable products, SmartBike, which earlier were implemented in Rennes, France, as a solution to the problems related to traffic in the city. Bicing Barcelona has become a huge success with more than 100.000 subscribers within the first nine months and Barcelona’s City Council has defined it as one of the biggest successes of 2007. With more than 390 stations and thousand of bicycles, suddenly the easily recognizable red Bicing bicycles are everywhere in the centre.
Bicing Barcelona
The self-service bikes are the perfect public transportation in our time being environmentally friendly and it is a viable system for any city. Bicing is perfectly suitable for a city like Barcelona where the weather and the size of the city actually allows you to move around on a bicycle. And the advantages are obvious; it reduces the number of small journeys made by car and it is healthy, sustainable and economic so there are no reasons for not using the bikes. It is the new practical, easy and sustainable public transport and the membership is very easy to obtain. One must acquire a weekly or yearly membership and as soon as the card is activated, the bicycle can be used for 30 minutes and put it back to one of the many stands scattered around the city centre. Using the bicycle for more minutes will cost you a small amount of money, and can be exceeded up to two hours.
Greening Paris
In Paris a whole new means of transport has opened up for people since the City Council established a community for bikes called Vélib. With bicycle stations after every 300 meters, it plays an important role in the way Parisians move around the city. Instead of being stuck in traffic jams that lasts forever, the bikes makes it easier for people to get to their appointments in time.
Almost 400 kilometers of bike lines are open for the cyclists in Paris, making it easy to get around. The bike communities have different types of subscriptions, where people pay a small fee for a day, a week or a whole year. The first half an hour on the bike is always free. Since the project started up in 2007, the amount of bicycles available has exceeded 20.000.
Tackling problems
The biggest problem with the bicycle communities has been the risk of theft. Especially for systems where using a bike has been completely free, many bikes have disappeared. Cities have tackled this problem in different ways, where the registered membership has been one of the most effective ways to deal with it. The cities of Paris and Barcelona have pre- purchased cards with credit card information on the user. If the user doesn’t return the bicycle within a day, the bike- sharing operator can withdraw money covering the bike expenses from the owner’s account. Also many types of bikes have a special design where the parts can not be used on other bikes, often painted in very clear and recognizable colours.
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December 3rd, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Flott að sjá þessar vangaveltur og upplýsingagjöf um hlutverk hjólreiða í vinnu að umhverfismálum. Mig langar að fleygja hér fram nokkra punkta í flýti
* Vaxandi vinsældir hjólreiða á Íslandi, meðal annars í kjölfari af Hjólað í vinnuna, og, hækkað bensínverð og aukin áhersla á hreyfingu hefur gert þröskuldin lægra fyrir enn fleiri varðandi að byrja að hjóla til samgangna.
* Þar að auki batnar umferðaröryggi fyrir hjólandi og aðra ( og borgarbraginn ) þegar fleiri velja hjólið, og sérstaklega ef reiðhjól kemur í stað bíls. ( Jacobsen, 2003 : Safety in numbers )
* Heilbrigðisáhrifin af auknum hjólreiðum til samgangna er verulegur. Alþjóða heilbrigðisstofnun hefur búið til tól fyrir yfirvöld til að reikna út sparnað í heilbrigðiskerfinu miðað við tiltekna aukningu í hjólreiðum
* Vönduð rannsókn yfir 10 ár á um 30.000 fullorðna, sýndi að af þeim sem hjóluðu til samgangna voru 30% færri sem dóu á tímabílinu en í hópnum sem hjóluðu ekki. Og þetta var notabene eftir að leiðrétting hefði verið gert fyrir aldur, kyn, menntun, tekjur, aðra hreyfingu ofl. ( Lars Bo Andersen et al, 2000 : All-cause mortality.. )
* Bandarísk vísindamaður reiknaði út að ef allir mundu ná sér í lágmarshreyfinguna, ( WHO segir hálftími samtals á dag ) með því að hjóla til samgangna, mundi sparast svo mikið í heilbrigðiskerfinu, að hægt væri að nota peningin til að fjárfesta í hreinni tækni í orkuverum, og þannig lækka útblástur koltvísýrings svo um munar.
* Hjólreiðar ná sjaldan upp sem “lausnin”. Annars konar tækni-skyndilausnir virðast oftast vera flottara. En málið er að margir aðrir lausnir eru tálsýn. Hjólreiðar virka, lausnin er til, og maður slær svo ótrúlega margar flugur í sama höggi. ( Win-win-win-win-win…. solution )
* Ekki heldur þegar kemur á hjólreiðum er einhver einn lausn sem gildir og dugar einn. Að setja á fót almenningshjólakerfi á Höfuðborgarsvæðinu, mundi ekki leysa málið. Það þarf helst að smiða alhliða lausnir. Eins og París hefur gert. Almenningssamgöngur og aðgengi hjólreiðamanna hefur verið stórbætt. Og menn hafa þorað að leggja sitt undir. Kynningar og umfjöllun fjölmiðla hafa leikið lykilhlutverk.
* En hægt væri að byrja á hagrænum hvötum sem eru að ýta okkur í vitlausa átt. Gjaldfrjáls bílastæði þýðir að við öll séum að niðurgreiða notkun þeirra. Og hlunnindin er ekki skattlögð. Þegar verkfræðistofan Mannvit og Fjölbraut í Ármúla gefa starfsmönnum sem ekki nýta bílastæðin, græna (mánaðar)kortið eða borga þeim sem hjóla, ganga, ferðast með öðrum í bíl, þá þurfa starfmenn að borga hlunnindaskatt af þessum 5600 á mánuði. Þetta er þveröfugt við “Mengunarbótarreglunni” sem var sett rækilega á dagsskrá í Río 1992.
Kveðja,
Morten Lange, formaður Landssamtaka hjólreiðamanna, http://www.LHM.is
og aðili að Samtökum um bíllausan lífsstíl ( bilsnauðan eiginlega) http://www.billaus.is
Vona að málfarsvillur og annað fyrirgefist.
December 14th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
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