[sustran] RV: July and the bulletin of HST

[Carlos Cordero V.]

The Bulletin Of Human Scale Transportation

July, 1999


The little pieces and the puzzle 


Thinking about transportation changes, as life does. Years ago the only thing that seemed to care was to accomodate more cars and build faster roads, even putting aside any other social function. Now a more integrated view arises and give privilege to the encounter for all above the speed of few ones , where circulation can be subordinate to nearness and proximity.

The accent of the modern vision moves away from the physical infrastructure and our best civil work tries to demolish the frontiers that divide knowledge and that impede a full approach to the reality: The present and the one imagined. 


>From another front, on this creative exercise speaks Eduardo Galeano *: 

"The frontiers among the genders has to be break, to allow the language to be truly free and able to express this insistent energy of freedom that encourages us in the reality, when we allow it to be as magic as it wants to be. For that reason it is not classifiable what I do, neither I want it to be ...are strange things, everything at the same time. I would like to find a way of writing whose outcome is a kind of synthesis among different genders, and can take the best of each one. And above all, able to tie what the untied system unties every day: the world of the emotions and the world of the ideas, for instance "they say that" there are things to think and things to feel. I would like to join what has been divided by a quarter culture, for a human condition which break us in little pieces. And every time is more difficult to join the little pieces to recover this sensation of wholeness that give its almost cosmic sense to things, This is what give sense to things. It is about a broken reality, a wholeness that breaks continually up, for a system that quarters everything: separating the body from the soul, the vocation from the work, the past from the present, the written language from the oral language. I feel happy to speak the same way I write. At least, that it is the proof I am not so fucked up, that i have not internalized or accepted inside of me those rules that impose me a double language: a language to write and another to say, or to speak. I don't want to have two languages, I want to have one, and that it looks like me as much as what i am and to this continuous tentative that I make of joining what is broken in me, to help the others to join their own little pieces and join them to each other." 

We are going to El Salvador at the end of July to participate in the international workshop Deals on Wheels, thanks to the kind invitation of the UNEP, collaborating center of United Nations on energy and environment with headquarters in Denmark. The objective of the workshop is to promote the discussion of sustainable transport iniciatives in developing countries. The event is hosted by the Salvadoran Center of Appropriate Technology (CESTA). Going back, will tell you the news.


The pedestrian horoscope (Cancer) 

In this month of July you should take care of you, especially when going by the so called Cycleway of Arequipa avenue. It is going to be seven years now since the Municipality of Lima have not repair a single of those countless holes that enchant this route.


María Luisa writes from Bolivia: 

"Dear Carlos: ... I belong to ASEO (Ecological Association of the East), founded in 1987, institution that contributed in this district to wake up the environmental conscience. I been living in Santa Cruz, for 20 years now and I was born in Spain, in a town of León, Cacabelos is called, it is in the the way to Santiago of Compostela (that many travel by bike) and since i was a littel girl I adore the bikes.

Santa Cruz, the main pole of economic development of Bolivia, in its characteristics is like Iquitos, or at least I recognized this way years ago, reading Pantaleón y Las Visitadoras (a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa) The traffic is chaotic, and the city suffers the impact of thousand " transformers " (second hand Japanese cars, converted to the american system) In spite of the fact that the conditions are not the best to cycle, generally i carry out my acitivities by bike, because I not live very far from the center and I do not have to travel any radial highway or big avenue, surrounded by little buses that are the main enemies of cyclists and pedestrians. 

But I am not the only "arrofaldada" ("brave" in Santa Cruz), this city attracted lots of immigrants' from the highlands with a long tradition of using bikes and workers like gardeners with its tools pack tied to the rack, newspapers sellers and the bricklayers are elements of the urban landscape that secretly but firmly ride among the traffic and horns. However, being Santa Cruz a plane, very plane city, I could take advantage of this characteristics to promote the THS... In 1996 from ASEO, we mobilize the entire one Sunday June 5 in the morning to carry out the Cicletada, it was stupendous, joined us by one elephant of the circus, the mayor, the traffic boss with his subordinates in a triple bike, strange bicycles, children and families, couples in love with bikes and balloons, you cannot imagine it, was a great success, it came along with great promising speeches, more than enough, we were happy in fact. At the same time we started an exhibition with 103 pictures, many of them from Cuba and Mexico, it was denominated "Bicycles and tricycles like transport alternatives" The exhibition was exhibited in museums, schools, hotels, local meetings and it arouses enthusiasm and interest. 

All that I tell you could make you suspect some results, but Nothing. We got to build ramps for disabled users in the main square which is a symbol because they would have to come flying to use them; The governemnt ruined the urban park putting a " ciclovia " and we had the promise that in a two way under construction it would be incorporated a real " cicleway", but for political matters it has gotten complicated and the double road in question is coming with many problems. 

I hope not boring you with this tiresome speech. With the good mood injection of your bulletins I plan to recapture the project of installing ecological taxis in downtown, so that an organization of street kids called Callecruz drive them. And to recapture the proposal of the pedestrian center ... A hug and see you soon, María Luisa" 


Intersections 

In the morning rush, a woman with a kind gesture and a beautiful smile stops her car and let to pass to our humble bicycle: I conclude that humankind still has salvation. 

The policletos 

Definitively human scale transportation contributes with sensibility and fresh language to life. To the Colombian example ( see May issue), follows the healthy news from Cuernavaca, 

" On May 5 began in this city the metropolitan service of tourist attention in bicycle, better known as " The Policletos ". A team of 26, men and women, perfectly equipped with helmets, gloves and communication devices, the policletos of Cuernavaca, are working in the historical center of the city, so much to help to the tourism with tips and informations, like to prevent the delinquency. In a non distant future it is foreseeen to increase to 50 people for this special group. 

The citizenship received with enthusiasm and curiosity the new policemen, taking pictures along with them and showing respect for their work of traffic regulation. We are sure that this will mean a step for a growing respect of the bicycle like means of transport! Congratulation to the municipal authorities for this decision! 



"The story that West Beirut tell us is set in the civil war that the Lebanon suffered during the seventies. Three young friends live in a neighborhood of the Muslim Beirut and they travel the city by bicycle. They see the city beign divided in two so was not possible to go to the only store that develop super 8 films; . Beloved it is the history of friendship that exists among our main characters". West Beirut: France - Lebanon 1998 Director: Ziad Doveri. This text is a courtesy of the eagle eye of Luis Enrique (Spain). 


Sundays of soccer 

Along the coast of Miraflores, amid the football day, not very far from where we run behind gifted ball, comes two greetings from a big bicycle and a small one. Or Patricia and Mateo, her little boy. When finishing the sport banquet, Thomas (husband and and father of the bikers) relates that after Mateo learnead how to manage his bicycle, he feels more secure and also keeps a better mood. We spoke of the difference that means for a boy to explore the boundaries of his/her world for their own means, of socializing in freedom. We say goodbye. Then I discover how difficult is to walk with the sun lighting inside. 


* * * 

Until the next one, saludos de Carlos

Carlos Cordero V.
CICLORED - Centro de Asesoría y Capacitación
para el Transporte y Ambiente
 
San Juan 242, Lima 33, Perú
tel :    (51) 1 4460175
telfax (51) 1 4472675
e mail: ccordero at amauta.rcp.net.pe
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