A car ran over one of Madrid's asphalt queens two months ago.
And Mayerlin, still scared in his body, still rides 12 hours a day.
At 23 years old, this Venezuelan lives on errands, from the commands sent by users with their mobile phones from the sofa at home, from carrying a heavy backpack on her back.
She is a messenger.
Or
rider
.
The work sounds better in English, but reality shows that it is a precarious job, arising from the precariousness of the new times.
Mayerlin says that cars in the capital are a disaster.
That cars, as she calls them, never respect cyclists.
“They rush you, they jump on you all the time.
They believe they are the owners of the street and they show it with anger! "
Her bike, which was also - and is - her means of work, was almost smashed in that blow.
Her experience with the saddle during the year she has been in Madrid is devastating
What puncture does Madrid have with both wheels?
Something happens.
The capital of Spain has never championed a serious commitment to this sustainable means of transport.
Beyond the typical election pre-campaign photos, bicycles have not been a jersey in the offices of the Palacio de Cibeles.
Regardless of the political color, the pedals have always been moved in tow, on the last pinion of mobility.
Their advances move at the speed of a turtle.
The last stages speak for themselves.
There are lanes that are being dismantled so that they return to the property of the cars.
There are new routes, such as the red route that Manuela Carmena inaugurated in Atocha street, which end in the middle of the highway, without any explanation.
There are others that lead nowhere.
As if that were not enough, a few weeks ago Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida declared war on cyclists with an unexpected announcement.
The bikes will not be able to park on the sidewalks and they will not be able to go through the tunnels from next year.
The reality is different.
A simple stroll down any street shows that the sidewalks are owned by large motorcycles and ... small motorcycles.
Finding a parked bike interrupting pedestrian traffic is practically a miracle.
Iván, 46 years old: "I always have six motorcycles on the sidewalk"
Iván Villarubia, a 43-year-old urban planner and consultant, began to move by bicycle ten years ago, when the company where he worked changed headquarters and public transport was no longer a comfortable option.
“I decided when I realized it was saving me 20 minutes per trip.
At the beginning it circulated with a lot of respect, but in reality it is much easier than I had imagined and that fear is the first thing that is taken away from you ”.
“Now, although I work from home, I use the bicycle to go everywhere because I live in a very comfortable area where it is easy to get anywhere by bicycle.
I know that it is not the same to live in Alcalá de Henares and have to go to Móstoles to work, although there is the option of combining bike and public transport as well ”, he points out.
For Villarubia, getting around by bike is so enjoyable that he takes his two children safely on the bike with him and makes the 15-minute journey from his home to the children's school every day in the morning and in the afternoon.
Villarubia's passion for bicycles makes the recent ordinance passed by the Jose Luis Martínez-Almeida City Council deeply annoying him, as he calls the idea of banning bicycles from parking on the sidewalks as cynical because they supposedly take up too much space, when they motorcycles clearly bother more, he alleges.
“A simple glance at the sidewalk shows it: six parked motorcycles and only my private bike.
It makes me so angry: we have an elephant in the china shop and the problem is that of the corner.
I can only explain it to myself that he is not going to risk giving benefits to cyclists, that we did not even reach one percent, because he loses support.
But you wouldn't even have to do that, all you have to do is not make life easier for cars.
Put the costs it has and there the bike competes naturally ”.
“Is there a massive sidewalk parking problem?
No. If there are only motorcycles! ”, Says Fernando García, from the Castellana Bicycle Lane.
“This is a direct attack on sustainable mobility.
It is looking for problems where there are none ”.
Miguel de Andrés, from the Madrid Pedalibre Association, falls apart.
“We did not get out of the black hole.
These measures go in the opposite direction to the bicycle.
Here the city councils continually attack the bike.
Why don't we look at Paris, which also had little cycling infrastructure and now the model has changed?
Mayor Anne Hidalgo turned the city around from the Eiffel Tower at the peak of the pandemic.
She removed 50 kilometers of tracks from cars and gave them to cyclists.
For getting involved, even President Macron got involved, who since May has granted a check for 50 euros to residents who have an old bicycle to repair.
"The confinement should mark a step forward for the culture of the bicycle," said the French Minister of Ecological Transition.
I saw her in rose
.
In Madrid, meanwhile, no sign.
The thing about the bikes on the sidewalks of @madrid is a problem @bcarabante pic.twitter.com/vNEiiSBIrg
- ridemybikemadrid (@ridemybikemadrd) September 17, 2020
Before the bug changed the way of life, here the displacements with two wheels did not even reach 1%.
The pandemic, according to the capital's cycling associations and urban mobility experts, was the perfect time to promote its use.
This was the case during the first weeks of the de-escalation.
The Gran Vía, the Paseo del Prado, the Castellana and the main streets were flooded with bikes.
Madrid was transformed in a jiffy.
Suddenly, as if it were a rainbow, families, young people, children, adolescents and adults were gaining space from cars.
It was a historical image.
It was no accident.
The people of Madrid responded to the established model with figures.
Bike shops soared their sales in May and June by between 30% and 40%.
The return to school has been even better.
The capital's first second-hand bike shop has multiplied its numbers by up to 50%.
“It's amazing.
Now I sell an average of 120 bikes a month ”, says Luis González, owner of Somos Recycling.
González even sent a burofax to the owner of the premises in April.
He told him that it would surely close after confinement.
Now rare is the day that you don't have a line of customers in the store.
Pedal like never before.
Like BiciMad.
The public bike rental company that was born in 2014 is rising like foam today.
It is used 14% more than a year ago.
What's more, the latest City Council mobility report published just a week ago speaks of unheard-of data.
Public transport has fallen to third position for the first time.
The fear of getting on the Metro in the middle of a world virus is a fact.
The bikes have been placed just behind the private car.
Only the political push is missing, but there is hardly any progress.
Sami, 21 years old: "There is no bike culture in Madrid"
Sami Otazu, a 21-year-old from Madrid, bought his bike a year ago second-hand through Wallapop for around 130 euros, after being a BiciMad user for several years.
He decided to start moving by bike, in addition to health and the environment, in order to make transportation an enjoyable experience.
"I like to be able to do interesting routes, have visual stimuli while I exercise and ride around the city by bike without necessarily the intention of going here or there, although I also use it to get around whenever I can."
However, the trip to the university, the routine journey of this musicology and philosophy student at the Autonomous University, it is impossible to do it all by bike because of the distance, since he lives in Pirámides, south of the city.
“Sometimes I take my bicycle on the Renfe because going up there would be all uphill and I would have to go on unpaved roads and others;
but on most of the routes within the city, cycling is faster and more interesting than on public transport ”.
For Sami the main problem for the massification of the bike in Madrid is the infrastructure.
Although he already feels comfortable traveling between cars and buses, he recognizes that anyone is afraid of sharing the road with vehicles.
Personally, however, the obstacle that prevents Sami from using the bicycle for all his trips is a safety issue.
“Perhaps it is because in Madrid there is no bike culture, but it is not safe to leave it tied outside.
So I cannot go to a place and not worry completely, I am always aware of her;
I've seen it a lot, bicycles tied without a saddle, without handlebars, without wheels ... it's very easy to get it stolen ”.
The City Council launched this month BiciMadGo.
450 bikes without anchor at a price much higher than the rest of the market.
Six euros for a 30 minute ride.
To this is added the situation of the staff.
BiciMad workers are fed up.
More bikes have been bought, but they are kept by the same employees.
The quality, according to dozens of users consulted, has worsened in recent months.
“It is impossible to move around Madrid with the bicycle.
The Almeida government is letting BiciMad sink ”, denounces the spokesperson for Más Madrid, Rita Maestre.
“It is an absolute chase against the bike.
All crises can become an opportunity and the City Council has decided to campaign against the bike, ”insists the Socialist councilor Mercedes González.
Carlos, a mechanic from the BiciMad company, told channel 404 four days ago that the situation is untenable.
“You have to do almost magic for a bike to work.
We don't have materials or people ”.
Workers called a "bicifestación" this Thursday in front of the City Hall. More data. The latest survey of the Organization of Consumers and Users of 4,194 cyclists from Bilbao, Valencia, Seville, Barcelona and Madrid give a failure to the capital in infrastructures. The worst of all.
Contrary to what happens in other European capitals or large Spanish cities, the city does not have cycle paths.
One kilometer for every 100 of public roads;
15 times less than Bilbao, Seville or Barcelona.
Madrid is going in the opposite direction.
Bet on the cycle lanes.
Here the cyclist shares the avenues with the cars.
That is, the vehicles should circulate at most at 30 kilometers per hour if they have a bike in front of them.
Almost nobody complies with it.
A danger that cyclists have always denounced.
Most mobility studies are committed to segregated spaces.
A separate and own lane.
Seville, for example, created an extensive network and pedal mobility jumped to 7%.
"Madrid has not yet shown that it believes in the bike project," says architect Belén Moneo, who has participated in the mobility tables of the City Council.
“It is not for lack of technical knowledge.
It is a political issue ”, observes Esther Anaya, a professor at London's Imperial College specialized for decades in sustainable urban mobility.
“Cities with less space than Madrid are reserving space for bikes, but in Madrid cars are always prioritized.
A crisis is upon us and citizens want to move autonomously, cheaply, and accessible.
Now is the time.
If you want, you can".
Alejandra, 16 years old: “Most of the institutes do not have an area to park their bikes
Alejandra García, 16, is lucky because at her institute there is a safe place to leave her bicycles and at home, although she keeps them in the hallway along with those of the other members of her family, it doesn't get in the way and “it also looks pretty ", He says.
However, she believes that schools have a fundamental role in promoting the use of bicycles in her generation.
“Most of the institutes do not have an area to park their bikes and that is an important first step.
But they should also report more and campaign for it to be seen as a real alternative.
Many people may be afraid to move on the road, but it is nothing to be afraid of;
It is true that the first few times you have to be very concentrated, but it is only practice ”.
Despite the increase in bicycle use, Alejandra is the only one who goes to high school pedaling, but that probably has to do with the influence of her father, who replaced the car with the bicycle more than a decade ago.
For other young people the possibility seems more distant, he says.
“People don't see it as an option because they don't talk about it.
Nobody has told them that they can go and it is not seen;
and until you see it, well, you don't even think about it ”.
Alejandra decided this summer to start doing the almost four kilometers of bike ride to classes this year.
“The institute was further away for me, then I could no longer walk and public transport, now with the pandemic, has too many people.
It also takes less, 18 minutes, while by bus it is half an hour.
It is also a very pleasant route;
it is the ideal thing to loosen up more and begin to move with more freedom ”.
