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At the end of 2021, the Argentine media reported an increase in the use of bicycles as a means of transport, mainly in large cities and as a consequence of the pandemic.
"The bike boom";
"Where to leave your bike";
"Use grew 156% compared to last year," read the headlines of the major newspapers.
From some provincial states and Buenos Aires, the installation of bike lanes and bike rental systems was strengthened.
Despite this, the actions are still far from sustainable urban development and achieving a truly popular use of the bicycle.
The urban landscape continues to have the automobile as the main protagonist: the automotive fleet has 14.8 million vehicles for a population of 45 million inhabitants.
That is, one for every three people.
In the absence of a national promotion strategy, there are small initiatives that go against the imperatives of consumption and seek to practice active solidarity around the use of this type of vehicle.
In Córdoba, the second largest in population in the country, a group of people founded
Taller de Bicis del Vecindario
, an open and self-managed initiative, aimed at repairing bicycles and putting them into circulation.
“The idea, from the beginning, was to inhabit public space.
Therefore, we do not have a fixed place of operation.
We wanted to take the tools to the streets and from there build knowledge by fixing them.
We started in 2017 and people were added”, says Gisela Besso Pianetto, one of the members of the workshop, which was born and continues to operate on Arballo de Bustamante street in the Barrio Jardín, south of the capital city.
Bicycle repair on a street in Córdoba (Argentina)Taller de Bicis del Vecindario
The initiative is part of a tradition of popular cyclomechanics workshops in the country, with initiatives such as La Luna and Suipacha (Córdoba) and La Fabricicleta (Buenos Aires).
During the pandemic, the
Taller de Bicis del Vecindario
space grew and moved to other neighborhoods, to the University City, to the parks...
“We started with two pliers and a hammer”
At first, everything was scarce.
“We started with two pliers and a hammer.
She invested in creating a complete toolbox.
We did it with our contribution and with donations.
It works for nothing (a voluntary contribution), but they also gave us utensils and spare parts.
The idea is also to generate another economy.
We don't repair people's bikes, we learn with them and teach them what we know.
We provide and build knowledge with those who come.
People are grateful for having learned to make an arrangement”, adds Euka Farías, another of the members of a total of six, who are part of the space.
There is a particular detail (for some) of the workshop: it is made up of women and sexual dissidents, something that arose spontaneously and meant overcoming some prejudices.
“Many people are still surprised to see that we run a repair space, as if the tools were men's things.
It ever happened to us that people come and talk to the boys and not to us, thinking that we don't do the job.
Or some want to tell you how they would do it.
They question your knowledge just because you are a woman,” says Besso Pianetto.
The members of the project, which has the idea of "saving bondi (collective) money and gas to the planet" and works on Saturday mornings, speak of a Córdoba without planning on the use of bicycles, with insufficient cycle paths and in disrepair.
“We are preparing a map of the bike lanes, which will make it clear.
Some are being built, but in many cases the ones that are built are old, broken or poorly managed;
even some are not double handed.
Many cars park on the bike paths.
It is not planned for the users.
Not with them.
It is thought without a real reading of the needs of those who have this routine”, says Farías about the group.
Members of the Neighborhood Bike Workshop, in Córdoba (Argentina). Neighborhood Bike Workshop
The city of Buenos Aires has 12 years of a policy that aims to promote the use of this vehicle.
It began in 2009 with the construction of a Network of Protected Bicycle Paths, which today reaches 130 kilometers.
At the beginning, just over a decade ago, only 0.4% of the trips made in the city were on these two wheels.
According to official statistics, today they represent 6.5%, with a peak of 10.2% in the harshest months of the pandemic.
“The city has a fairly persevering promotion policy.
The City Bank, for example, finances the purchase with 24 installments.
There is also the public system, with 3,200 bicycles and 320 stations.
Those are the main promotional measures.
The bike is part of the urban landscape”, says Lucila Capelli, Undersecretary of Mobility Planning of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires.
The exclusive and specialized infrastructure network for cyclists, as well as the rental systems, are good news to promote use but not always enough.
Without effective promotion, there is a danger of confrontation between motorists and cyclists, without going further in the challenges of a multidimensional perspective.
For example, Bogotá, one of the most bike-friendly cities in the region, organizes a day without a car and without a motorcycle.
Two employees of the Neighborhood Bike Workshop repair a bicycle in Córdoba (Argentina). Neighborhood Bike Workshop
Capelli recognized that they focus more on road safety issues than on campaigns to promote the use of bicycles.
And that coexistence with other actors on public roads must be improved.
“We seek to work with different users to improve coexistence.
We work with bus drivers to find out how they deal with cyclists and so that coexistence is virtuous.
We also want to add more women: today the cycling population is made up of 70% men”, adds the official, who considers the work of cyclomechanics workshops “key”.
“The promotion policy is multidimensional;
it involves issues of infrastructure, public service, training and road safety, among others”.
In his delightful book In
Praise of the Bicycle,
the anthropologist Marc Augé talks about the challenges and utopias surrounding the use of this personal transport vehicle.
"Today, perhaps despite everything, the conditions are in place to conceive an effective urban utopia, that is, capable of convincing the inhabitants of the city," wrote the Frenchman.
The cyclomechanics workshops are a contribution to that utopia.
A supportive response to dream of friendlier and more sustainable cities.