[sustran] human scale transportation, may issue

[SUSTRAN Resource Centre]

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Paul


From: "Carlos Cordero V." <ccordero at amauta.rcp.net.pe>
Subject: human scale transportation, may issue
Date: 	Mon, 26 Apr 1999 13:28:47 -0500
....

The bulletin of haman scale transportation
May, 1999


Pablo Neruda spreads us a bridge...


One of the wildest and beautiful shows that i have witnessed took place
two years ago at five in the afternoon in the bridge that crosses the Pearl
River in Guang Zhou, China.

The endless tide of cyclists dismounts at the bottom of the bridge
and they begin to push its vehicles up. Once they reach the peak start
to return to the pedals and they get lost in the afternoon.


Reading again the following text that belongs to the memoirs of Neruda
reminded everything that.


" In Chung King my Chinese friends took me to the bridge of the city. I have
loved the bridges all my life. My father, a railman, inspired me great
respect for them. He never called them bridges. It had been to profane them.
He called them works of art, qualifying that didn't grant to the
paintings, neither to the sculptures, neither of course to my poems. Only to
the bridges. My father took me many times to contemplate the wonderful
viaduct of the Malleco, in the south of Chile. Up to now i had
thought that the most beautiful bridge in the world was that, spread among
the southern green of the mountains, high and thin and pure, as a steel
violin with its tense strings, prepared to be touched by the wind of
Collipuli. The immense bridge that crosses the river Yang Tse is another
thing.
It is the most grandiose work in the Chinese engineering. And it is, also,
the end of a secular fight. The city of Chung King was divided for centuries
for the
river, an isolation that involved delay, slowness and isolation.

The enthusiasm of my Chinese friends who show me the bridge is
excessive for the power of my legs. They make me to go up towers and go down
abysses, to look at the water that runs for thousands of years,
crossed today for this hardware store of kilometers. For these rails
will pass the trains; these roads will be for the cyclists; this enormous
avenue for the pedestrians. I am overwhelmed by so much greatness"


* * *

The memory possesses its own bridges and sometimes it needs a kind
hand to spread them.

* * *


We are very happy for the reception that has had our first Bulletin, we have
received correspondence of diverse places. From Anne, a Swedish engineer
that works in Denmark and Areli of the Bicicletero movement  of Mexico, also
by the Amicis of the Bike in Spain or a dozen of new subscribers in Brazil.
What takes me to think that somehow recent we are a community that is
gathered in conferences or  heard about each other as a part of something
bigger.

Initially the bulletin was distributed to near eighty people/organizations
and now, thanks to the collaborations, we count with more than 200
addressees, besides people that resend/recycle the bulletin.
It is important for us to receive your collaborations. Tell us how are
things going. With the hands of all we build the bulletin. We all know how
pleasant it is to walk accompanied, our way seems shorter.

Now also we walk in English...

Thanks to the courtesy of Eric Britton of International Ecoplan and his
software of translation we have a version now in English for all those that
don't enjoy the pleasure to walk through the life in spanish. Apparently our
Brazilian friends are not in trouble with Cervantes.

Ecoplan has an interesting URL that can be seen in www.ecoplan.org


Speaking of English...

Every January the Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the National
Council of Investigation of the United States carries out their Annual
Conference in Washington, D.C. It is a a week of presentations, forums,
seminars, etc. It presents a great variety of results of investigations
about  transport.

For the next conference, which will be carried out from the 9 to January 13,
2000, they will  organize sessions with focus in Latin America. The deadline
to present proposals is already now! So interested parties  contact
as soon as possible Chris in czegras at mit.edu


Ton Daggers is an old friend of this house. We met each other already some
years ago in Basel. I was interested in knowing the experience of Holland
and Ton invited me to spend some days in his house of Utrecht. From then
on we have shared friendship, work and a drink of Gin every time that I
visit his country. He worked several years in Nicaragua building bicycles
and future. Now he is the  Manager of Interface for Cycling Expertise's
Project  designing  the street 80 in Bogotá. (enclosed you will find  the
interview. Sorry, only spanish)


The Project Ciclobrasil 2000

Some territories enter to my mental geography in bicycle and on foot. Among
the first ones it is Florianapolis, capital of the State of Santa Catarina,
to the south of Brazil.

Antonio and Giselle are working in this project that it is based
on 4 work areas: communication, education, projects and planning. Among the
initiatives they are planning the organization of the Brazilian
Congress of Planning of the use of the bicycle ( Velo Tropicalis 2000). We
will maintain you informed of the advance of the project. Contacts:
antonmir at zaz.com.br


>From the bicicleteros of Mexico,
Areli tells us that in Cuernavaca they call ' Ciclopistas', to what we
denominate  ' Ciclovías ' in Peru. Well, one name more for the book of the
impossible ones.
She will send us Iván Illich last writings so  we defer our comment of '
Energy and Equity for a next issue.

It seems that in Chile  also exists the term ' Ciclobandas'. We hope the
Real Spanish Academy remembers the HST language one of these days.


Police in wheels

"The Police of Bogotá included in its budget of this year the acquisition of
1.000 bicycles for its program of Community Police", this is, to bring near
the policeman to the community and to face the delinquency from the bicycle.
The previous year it began a plan pilot with 440 units and the positive
result that this hurtled, it has taken them to increase in 1000 more
bicycles, for a total of 1.440 policemen in bicycle. This example is taking
by other cities of Colombia which already begin some smaller but equally
more important programs: Cartagena 100 units, Tolu 30 units, Leticia: 20
units, Melgar 25 units. The general Director of the Police of Colombia, the
general Roso Mountain José is aware of the chances to implement  this
program massively. Of another part, the company INSSA - JD OSSA AND CIA is
establishing a program of training for policemen, under the consultantship
of International Police Mountain Bike Association Police on Bikes."

The example that Javier Ossa relates us  reveals a nodal point of the
urban policy. The relationship among the police forces
and the population and the role that  plays on it the private sector . Many
cities in the EE UU (Seattle, Washington D.C. among other) have carried out
similar programs with great success. Many years ago in Seattle we picked up
part of this experience. The police pointed out that the success of the
program rests in the proximity of the police with the neighborhood. We refer
here  two types of nearness: The physical (in Lima the municipal police
acquires bicycles under the same premise) and to a near social relationship
between authorities and citizens (the silence of the bicycles doesn't
destroy the tranquility of the neighborhoods and it is friendly with its
inhabitants)

These programs also avoid or  control the motorization that comes from the
own police. I never really understood how to controlling the automobile
congestion buying thousands of automobiles and motorcycles. Many times a
police women or men with a bicycle and a radio/movile phone is enough.


IN THE LIBRARY OF THE INDISPENSABLES ONES
is John forester and his Effective Cycling. From Santiago,  Edmundo Rojas
has sent us the spanish version of this classic, recently published in Chile
by Be-uve-drais and the  editorial Cuatrovientos.

This is an unavoidable book for the cyclists od muscle and brain and for all
those that participate of the promotion of the HST.

The book of Forester is organized distinguishing among the bicycle, the
cyclist and the cycling (as long as  transportation and sport). We are not
of course in front of a platitude, but facing a solid intent to define
principles for the correct and effective use of the machine, to understand
the user's characteristics and for the development of the controvertible
theories of Forester on what denominates ' the point of view vehicular
ciclístico':

"The vehicular-cycling and the cyclist-inferiority views measure cycling
policies by entirely different criteria. The vehicular-cycling view says
that cyclists are reasonably safe on the roads if they act and are
treated as drivers of vehicles, and sees as problems those acts
(restritive laws, bad highway designs, bikeways, low social status of
cyclist) of society and gobernment that contradict that principle. The
cyclist-inferiority view says that motor traffic makes the roads too
dangerous for cycling, and sees the problems as society's and
gobernment's failure to do enough to make cycling safe (by building
bikeways) and to oppose motoring (by high taxes and others
restrictions). That is the crucial difference, even though both views
agree about non-roadway problems such as scarcity of secure bicycle
parking spaces".
(Effective Cycling, by John Forester; sixth edition, 1993, page 558)


In  Forester writings the bicycle is an unsheathed sword, it is
sustained alone without dedicated infrastructure and on the base of its
program of training for cyclists. In this sense Forester leans for the
integreationist theories of the HST, when pointing out that it is not
required of a special infrastructure but rather efforts should concentrate
on incorporating the cyclists in the planning pprocess and the analysis
/understanding of the causes of the accidents, as well as in the development
of handling programs in bicycle.

To understand the whole extent the proposals of Forester supposes to
recognize the context in which they arise. In general, the tendency exists
inside
of highly motorized countries (EE UU and Germany are examples) to the
development of segregated infrastructure that it moves away the cyclists of
the streets and it transfers the conflict toward the pedestrians, under the
argument of the security. It is a logic  tributary of an excluding order
that perceives  the cyclists like anomalous elements of the urban traffic.
Forester pleads to recover the cyclist's status like driver of a vehicle
with the same rights and obligations that the other ones.

To acquire John's book Efficient Cycling Forester you can go to:

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Congress/6554
Post-office address: Av. Jaime Guzmán 3293, Ñuñoa, Santiago, Chile.
Electronic mail: bvdrais at yahoo.com      4vientos at netline.cl

Good, this is becoming very long and we all have other things that to do,

A hug from Lima, Carlos


Carlos Cordero V.
CICLORED - Center of advising and training
for the Transportation and environment

San Juan 242, Lima 33, Peru
tel: (51) 1 4460175
telfax (51) 1 4472675
and mail: ccordero at amauta.rcp.net.pe