 We are I'm focusing on Cuba and Mitra's focusing on Cuba And I believe that Lorena is focusing on Bogota Bogota and then we have Somebody coming in via zoom to talk about the bigger picture in a bigger project that you see Berkeley So thank you again for coming we're looking forward to the discussion afterwards and hearing all of the knowledge that you Have about Latin America and about bicycling around the world. Mine is very much about Cuba and I'm going to I'm going to really try to read my PowerPoints because otherwise we'll be here too long And if you have questions afterward, then just let me know so the main points are in bold So you don't have to be able to read the whole PowerPoint plus they're available the sessions recorded and so forth so I In order to better understand bicycling in Cuba I wanted to give four basics about Cuba to kind of set the groundwork and the first one is against the myth that Cuba is insular or isolated actually Cuba is internationally and transnationally connected and Havana is particularly cosmopolitan Examples are indigenous groups that had connections to nearby lands Colonial and trade relations starting minimum with Columbus but then going through to the US So the Union in the Eastern Bloc Left leaning Latin America and always always always relations with the United States Also diasporic Cuban communities abroad and international travel by Cubans influence How people think in Havana? There's also strong. I'll call it non provincial education system in Cuba Which means that Cuba learns a lot of Cubans learn a lot about other countries And I think that this myth Cuba is insular or isolated comes from the fact that US citizens are isolated from Cuba because of the embargo that stops us from being involved It's not the other way around but you can show up in Cuba. The Cubans will be happy to see you The second myth is Cuba is a country frozen in time so quite a colonialist idea That's very however widespread in fact our entire planet lives time Simultaneously in the way that we're living now is related to the underdevelopment so-called under development in other countries I see nods from our super-educated audience and I'll give you the example of Cuba's vintage cars You know the 50s cars there on the streets for current material reasons and those include the expense of importing new cars the US embargo Cuba's weather like California's weather Limited alternative transportation such as bicycles and buses especially since 1990 the special period Then other material reasons include the skilled labor of mechanics who make a living repairing and using these cars often as taxi drivers Taxi drivers tend to be mechanics at the same time and myth Three Cuba is backward or myth basic three since 1959 Cuban governance policies have focused on creating value-added Exports and import substitution, so we probably know about Cuba's Exporting sugarcane or sugar coffee, but Cuba exports the value-added skills of Professionals such as engineers and doctors that Henry Reed gave for example went to Lombardy as example Also rather than importing vaccines. This is what I've been working on right now So I encourage you to look at the articles that are in the sources Cuba developed vaccines themselves Vaccinated their population and Cuba is now exporting vaccines at low cost and as donations for example to Syria These vaccines deploy trusted sub subunit protein technology The US equivalent is corba vax which just came out many months after the Cuban one was already being used on Children and that's a problem of the pharma industry because that was from University rather than from big pharma, but I digress so you could read the article the important thing here is that those Vaccines are robust and they're over 92% effective and they're cheap. So Cuba basically It saved itself through import substitution Basic for Cuba is a middle-income country There is a severe shortage of most consumer goods including bicycles and parts for bicycles salient for our discussion today in part Because of the embargo and international trade relations that are related to that But at the same time other elements of life are free or subsidized for example housing food transportation and Education of course famously So now that we have that sort of basic that I wanted to start with we'll talk a bit about Bicycling in Havana in the past. So the bicycle as recreation that was that that was the main use of the bicycle Back in the day as in Europe and in the United States Bicycling in Cuba was initially a gentleman's pastime bicycles were expensive for example, and there were also bike clubs that were for People that were that that were racialized as white and people who were racialized as people of color or black and Women struggled to gain the right to ride just as many places in the United States So the fear of you know bicycle face and you're gonna be so ugly Wow, we have to be afraid of the emancipated woman on the bike. That was also part of Cuba From prohibition onwards in the United States cars became increasingly important in Cuba because they were part of the drinking gambling Sex work vacation getaway mystique of the US playground with the revolution in 1959 came critique of Cubans Cuba's addiction to US cars partly partly because of price However with the Soviet alignment which already started in the early 60s the motorized transit that Represented modernity at the time and still does returned motorized transportation was imported from comic-con countries and famously Lada's still still roam the streets The special period in the time of peace started in 1990 when the Soviet Union crashed and so there was no more petroleum products really and That with a solution needed to be found to transportation So over a million bicycles were imported from China The purchase price was subsidized to the people who were buying and the in and infrastructure most importantly Infrastructure also was developed for bicycling So the distribution happened through schools and workplaces and people who may have never ridden before started riding There are lots of funny stories in the newspaper about like crashes and stuff and that trying to teach people to ride safely because everybody's starting at Same time Cuba developed bicycle lanes They privileged the bicycle in so many ways included guarded parking and repair stations. So it was a Real boom and blossoming of bicycling in the 90s However, bicycling came to be psychologically connected to suffering because this period was so difficult So imagine pedaling a heavy bicycle for a long distance under the hot sun to take care of all kinds of things that Maybe could have been facilitated in a different way after maybe having Sugar water for breakfast. So as the economy improved motorized transit was reintroduced notably with imported Chinese buses and The bicycle fell into disuse Because subsidized buses were again available and because bicycles had come to be associated with privation and Most importantly because the infrastructure started to fall away Sturdy bicycles were not available at low cost that is subsidized parts were not available Because they were not imported by the centralized government purchasing system Bicycle lanes diminished over time or were taken away and guarded parking and repair shops closed Bicycling in Havana today. However, there's this continuity because bicycling didn't disappear Some people did like bicycling for the flexibility for the freedom for the exercise for the experience and they endeavor to ride and To put in a plug for our film that we made it's a 30-minute film called Rodondo in La Habana and I bicycle stories It's also in the sources. I gave you the the password in case you'd like to watch it It's a fun film and also I left a link to an article that I did about interviewing Women who wrote in the special period and how they felt about it and of course mostly privation But also this some experiences of independent becoming becoming more independent Young people in particular wanted to ride and for many young persons bicycling in the special period was a lot about fun Because they were kids, you know, their parents were protecting them from the difficulties they're not talking about it as much and Young people like the freedom and they also see non-cubans both Cuban people who come to Cuba as tourists and Or long-term tourists or expats And they also when they're abroad see people bicycling and they think of bicycling by choice And I and Mitra is going to talk about this as well as some other things in a minute However, bicycling in in Cuba is currently a luxury because the cost of the bicycle and the challenges of maintenance are significant With the difficulties of transportation poor air quality and lifestyle diseases such as diabetes and heart condition and heart disease Rampant the Cuban government has agreed in principle to further green transport For instance, they work with NGOs to support rent a bike programs However, they have not implemented large-scale changes such as importing robust bikes to sell at cost or low cost or Replacing the bike lanes that were already implemented in the 90s So on one hand Pandemic mitigation such as creating the vaccine and stopping people from dying and so forth has been for-fronted Understandably there's money issues involved and at the same time also activists are vocal about wanting more to be done And there we have you can't actually read it But the pandemic I can't complain about the pandemic because thanks to it I became a bicyclist you see the bicyclist there female bicyclist and I wouldn't change that for anything in the world That was just sort of traveling around WhatsApp Like Cuban. What's up in telegram and email? So much of the Cuban leadership unfortunately remains de facto captured in the car equals progress Logic and also unlike many Cubans many functionaries have easy access to automotive transport And then at the same time Oh a near exception is Cuba's current president Miguel Diaz-Canel Famed for bicycling when he worked for the provincial government of Viaclada He has not been seen bicycling around Havana as president though We might hope that that could happen to have a president on a bicycle in Cuba Cuban leadership I think can be criticized for lack of movement on alternative Transport so they have the white paper, but are they putting it in practice and that said at same time Leaders open themselves up to potshots when they support bicycling and this is Diario de Cuba Which is online and so in this article Miami Cuba right-wingers Attack the use of the bicycle in Cuba as evidence of a failing nation-state So we see the era is birthing a bicycle that bicycle obviously doesn't ride very well And the critique is in 2013 the Transportation is becoming just as bad as it was in the special period and the evidence of that is the availability of bikes so again the the Progress narrative of the car and that being deployed by Miami Cuba right-wingers to talk about the Cuban government at the same time Leaders open themselves up to potshots when they support Bicycling and they're here. This is from the Trevor Noah daily show and it's it's Fox News and Hannity So here US right-wingers attack the use of the bicycle by president as evidence of failing leadership I Thought that parallel was just so Incredibly striking. So I thought I'd share it with you and to return to Havana Bicycle activism Mitra will talk about a bit more about Massa critica there as well the International Mew movement and in Havana bicycle art here. We have absent hero it's the Chinese forever bicycle on in a tourist area in a restaurant and this in a in Melia very Decadent like opulent hotel another one and here at the Fabrica del Arte, which is Well, it's a art art and recreational place like dance club and so forth and Just not to talk too much about it, but how do we how might we understand this art? They're a tribute to the time and to the bicycle and to bicycling They're a tourist lure because people especially lefties were pretty excited about all the bicycling in the agroponicos biological, I mean Organic farms that you know, we're happening in the Cuba Cuba in the 90s And and there's also the transnational connections that I'm trying to emphasize of Cuba not being insular right when we see This reminds us of John Lennon and Yoko Ono with their love in and their bicycle the ghost bikes and the white bicycle project of the provost So Cuba could be leading Latin America in non-motorized transportation because it has special period expertise It has a centralized social instructor that enables the implementation of widespread change it has a lack of vested interests in Automotive road and petrol industry so a lot of lobby groups of course influence what's going on in all over the world And they are having ever-increasing investment in renewables Many feel it's time for Cuba to further non automobile transport as a way to Sustainable future and as an expression of prosperity rather than an expression of Dyrac or Karencia So it's time to value bicycling as a choice building upon when bicycling was a necessity And that's what I have for you except for my sources and I'll turn it over to Mitra Hi, everyone. My name is Mitra Ghaffari. I am a grad student at UC Santa Cruz currently studying social documentation, and I was honored to have a short film screened on the opening night of the conference and I Will piggyback off of Jennifer's wonderful presentation to talk a little bit more about the bike initiatives and main leading advocates of the bicycle in contemporary Cuba and I won't go all the way into it But basically my journey in Cuba started in 2016 I studied abroad there for a year and the program director of the study abroad program had one Bicycle for all of the exchange students to have access to and no one else wanted to use it And so it became my bicycle. It's where I fell in love with bicycling and It's how I got to know Cuba initially I Off the bat was working with a few community leaders and and helped initiate a community project in Marienal Cuba and it really brought me to a couple of the leaders in the bike community as well my first school project in Cuba was working with Navy's And her partner Dailin at Velo Cuba Which was the first official with a private permit bike shop in Abana vieja in basically tourists downtown of Cuba and Navy's and Dailin had a team of primarily women mechanics and they they really were Some of the first advocates and and Navy's studying engineering and actually was was given a bicycle as a student during this special period and that's how her bicycle journey got started in Cuba was As Jennifer was describing basically with with little other transportation options the government shipped in over a million Chinese bicycles and mainly distributed them as sort of incentives in workplaces and school places for for Cubans to have access to Transportation to to get to those spaces and there'd be a whole family on one bicycle getting to work in school each day so I was happy to be able to document and work with Navy's and and Velo Cuba right off the bat as a student And that sort of brought me into the bike world in Cuba, and I got to know yacer Gonzales, which Is still one of the main bike advocates in Cuba He brought Massa critica critical mass to Havana starting in 2017 and started Cicleta and Cicleta has been doing bike tours primarily through Airbnb experience in the last few years and he's really driven to Bring the bicycle to the Cuban and not only to the tourists or the foreigner. He was noticing that right off the bat with critical mass There would be about one Cuban to every ten foreigners or tourists showing up to the rides and a lot of that has to do with much of the history in Cuba and foreigners familiarization with the rides and just you know associations to the bicycle So he's been working on how to bring the Cuban into those spaces how to as sort of the millennial generation as the Younger generation that were kids during the special period and don't have such a negative association to the bicycle how to culturally Reestablish the bicycle as a more positive symbol and a more radical symbol and tool of economic, you know Transportation instead of having such a negative stigma against the bicycle and having it represent the worst of the economic crisis So another leading figure right now in Cuba's bicycle scene is Gabby and she's sort of the emerging leader in this scene her background is in design and architecture and so she really looks at Bicycling and bicycle infrastructure with the place making a creative place making lens and looking at how to you know in in the Sentiment of critical mass how to take on the streets how to Create a space for for the bicycle for bike communities in the streets and what that looks like as far as Infrastructure and also design and and community building in that in that sense So there's a whole bunch of actions and initiatives that these three and others Adriana Felon are leading and A couple notable ones. I mean a lot of these are are Paralleled to many places as far as types of community rooted bike initiatives but Gabby and a group is getting started on doing an oral history project to document a Whole range of voices and try to collect as an archive as many interviews as possible about people's experiences on bicycles throughout the special period and then a couple others You know just through conversation I was telling Yaseit about all of the bike kitchen initiatives and and what components make up that type of community oriented Mechanic spaces and and and shop spaces and so he immediately started implementing pop-up DIT models for for their shop especially in the case of You know being able to teach Cubans to to repair their own bicycles teaching the skills making education available especially in a place where internet still very costly for local residents and You know there were a lot of courier and and relief services That emerged during the pandemic especially but even just the sort of environment in Cuba, you know a part of every Bike shop and and repair shop there's usually a designated person that is sort of the scavenger and goes all throughout town to find like a Missing part or just be able to to come up with some replacement part for for the bicycles that they're working with just because Bike parts are so limited and people that have to be very resourceful and very inventive with Parallel to to what people think about with cars in Cuba You know sculpting wooden pedals Coming up with replacement parts that You know are beyond What most people have to to use For imagining how to keep the bike moving and and on the road and so Another part of that the courier system was oriented towards towards helping seniors during the pandemic and that whole idea of accessibility to groceries and other Material resources, you know the courier systems in the US Like you go to the grocery store you drop it off at the house in Cuba It's a whole nother level of availability of food and and resources and going all throughout town to like get the eggs after a four-hour line in one part of time one part of town get the You know vegetables in another line in another part of town so the bicycle has proved really useful in this sense and it was also a an outlet for for me I was living in Cuba at the start of the pandemic and got to escape on my bicycle and live on my friend's mango farm and We kind of created a System in the farmlands outside of Matanzas and in a place called back when I agua which is about 80 miles from Havana and From her mango farm. We were making mango juice and and distributing mango juice and mangoes and and Chickens live and dead and like all sorts of things to to local farms in the area just because transportation was largely You know on pause or or or deterred from From Venezuela oil crisis and and COVID and a whole bunch of things So as far as moving forward with with these Leaders in the bike initiatives in Cuba. I'm going to be working with those three and others this summer As a part of my thesis. I am doing everything bike related trying to document a bit of contemporary associations to the bicycle in Cuba and and how to move forward with them and so this is a bit about what that process will look like I'll be doing production this summer and Along with guess it and Gabby We're going to be doing an urban photo gallery in conjunction with the oral history project to be documenting all types of riders in Havana and All types of utilities of the bicycle and then we're going to be working with some local artists and and iron smiths To be doing sculptural bike racks and that'll be a place-making component of of the project and so we're excited about that and then All of this the idea is that all of this will launch as a part of an arts and social innovation festival the fourth annual that I have been a part of Facilitating the last five years Just one year that that it didn't happen because of the pandemic So that will be in June of 23 if you can all make it out to Havana so here's contact information for the the people on the presentation and myself and Just wanted to you know show Everything that's happening all of the actions despite like the very difficult You know accessibility to to two bicycle parts and bicycles and and there are many people giving like Enormous efforts to keep things moving and and keep people actively biking on the island, but there's still so much room for for that to grow and you know, especially during the pandemic and and all of the ways that the economic Impact has deterred people from from being able to have their fullest access to to bicycling. So thank you Perhaps the person who's coming in via zoom can introduce themselves Hello. Hello. Yes I'm not having access to the video. I cannot Turn it on Could you enable Access to view I'm sorry. I am I will be sharing my part Could you enable To shoot the screen You're you're good we can hear you and everything so you're ready If you have a slide so you can share them with us also But you're you're good. Okay. Okay. Okay Welcome. Okay, so I am PhD candidate at the University of California Berkeley I will be sharing a research that I think conducting about Differences in bicycle bicycles in less American cities. So why is it important to consider gender differences? Historically gender differences have been overlooked in bicycle bicycle infrastructure planning And recent studies suggest that women are more risk-averse than men Therefore women's cycling rights often reflect cycling like safety levels of cities Also women tend to engage in more homes Scythian activities and change here that women often travel with a lot of our passengers Which could be a bird here cycling in less like I'm sorry My microphone Oh, could you turn off the microphone Kevin? I say that The microphone Room it's it's on and that should be turning off Okay, so I will continue so if Women and elderly cycling rates are significantly lower than Younger people. It means that cycling environments do not satisfy the viable people's requirements After identifying current problems cycling environment to be improved Okay, the second second and so why is it in America? Urbanization in Latin America began to increase Of the 20th century to reach nearly 80% of the population large migration of rural inhabitants I see that's the physical The laptop that Placed in the room And the microphone That should be turned off Could you somebody turn off the microphone? The room Hello, okay, finally Okay, I will continue and so Some pioneering cities like Bogota and Santiago have done major bicycle infrastructure Investment and the bicycle use is rapidly increasing in those places Despite the increase of bike lanes women continue to be a minor portion of total bicycle users Despite existing gender gap Latin America is still an understudied region Okay, so this is a comparison table of different regions in the world in terms of cycling at the lift There are Netherlands, Denmark, Japan and Germany the best countries in cycling mode share and Gender equality in cycling at the middle. There are the US UK and Australia the countries with lower cycling rates in greater gender gap in cycling at The right there are Latin American countries that are also characterized by lower cycling rights and greater gender gap in cycling The UK, the US, Australia and Latin American countries share similar characteristics Low rates of cycling lower proportion of female and elderly cyclists people like Occasionals people bike occasionally as recreation or exercise and there are higher rates of cyclists fatalities and injuries In contrast, in Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, Germany cycling rates are higher and A small or no differences among women and men and also among age groups in cycling People bike regularly as a habit in everyday life. Also, they are characterized by lower rates of cyclist fatalities and injuries This is a graph that shows how overall moisture of cycling is related to the proportion of cycle trips made by females We can see that moisture of cycling is positively correlated with the proportion of cycle trips made by females As moisture of cycling increases the proportion of cycle trips made by females increases So you can see here the group of these European countries, Netherlands, Denmark, Japan and Germany have higher moisture of cycling and also the proportion of cycle trips made by females are higher Nearly 50% or more than 50% And in terms of the US UK, Australia that are these yellow color groups They have a small portion of moisture of cycling and the proportion of cycle trips made by females are also low And in Latin America also we can see a lower moisture of cycling and lower proportion of cycle trips by females So Jan Garard argues in her book Cycling for Sustainable Cities One chapter of the book she wrote that a woman cycling rate is often an indicator of bicycle friendliness So if we provide greater protection for cyclists, the proportion of female cyclists will increase and ultimately overall cycling moisture will increase And these are the study areas that recovered Six metropolitan areas of Latin America starting from Mexico City followed by Bogota, Asuncion, Santiago, Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires These are the data sources which are mostly origin destination survey data All data except for the Asuncion survey were provided by local statistical or transportation institutions In the case of Asuncion I carried out the survey during the month of July 2018 to 2200 people with the students of National University of Asuncion This is the map of bike lane network of each city Red color indicates exclusive bike lanes and in Bogota, Santiago, Sao Paulo there are more exclusive bike lanes and in Asuncion exclusive bike lanes are very limited These maps are the streets classified according to the slope Slopes greater or equal to 6% are colored in magenta and slopes greater than 6% are in blue color Sao Paulo is a healist city followed by Bogota, Mexico and Santiago And Asuncion Buenos Aires are pretty mostly flat In the next several slides I will be showing travel behavior of people in the six cities in Latin America about the use of bicycle and other transport modes This is a proportion of total trips by gender in each city in all graphs blue is men and red is women for this entire presentation In some cities as Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo men travel more and in the rest of cities women travel more This is a total trips including all modes of transportation This is a proportion of work trips by gender of each city Work trips are all trips related to work or in the case of students it is related to studying In all cities except Asuncion men make the most work related trips In contrast in case of non work trips women make most part of the trips So in Santiago, Mexico City, Bogota, Buenos Aires women make considerably more non work trips This is a modern share of work trips in each city Motorized modes are on the left side transit car motorcycle taxi and non motorized modes are on the right side bicycle and walking In all the cities there are in this order So motorized modes are mostly used by men men travel more frequently by car motorcycle and bicycle and women travel more frequently by transit taxi and walking And this is a modern share of non work trips in each city The proportion of transit considerably decreases for non work trips compared to work trips We can see the previous slide work trips the amount of transit travels are much higher than non work trips So it means that people choose to go to closer destinations to avoid the use of transit And also it may represent a barrier for those who do not have a car In Bogota, Buenos Aires, Mexico City and Santiago the number of walking trips increased So the number of walking trips increased compared to work trips So we can see work trips and these four non work trips and mainly women's work trips, non work trips increased These are the cities, these four cities, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Mexico City and Santiago were women make considerably more non work trips So the gender gap in non work trips were greater in these four cities According to the previous graph And these are the activity types of non work trips in each city, we have household care activities, social and recreational activities, health and shopping Shopping consists mainly grocery shopping So in general women do more household care, health and shopping trips In cities with greater gender gap in non work trips, these four cities, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Mexico City and Santiago This difference is greater in these three items shopping health and household care activities In conclusion, women tend to make more non work trips than men Particularly for household care, health and shopping activities and women travel more frequently in transit, taxi and walking which are sustainable transport modes While men travel more frequently by car, motorcycle and bicycle Men prefer to travel as drivers compared to women that prefer to be passengers or to walk And also women do a greater amount of household care, health and shopping trips It is not worthy that in cities with greater gender gap in non work trips, this difference is greater The gender stereotype might be creating these gender differences In the next slides I will be showing bicycle model share by gender in the 60s These are bicycle model shares with respect to total trips Cities with greater amount of bicycle infrastructure such as Bogota, Santiago have a higher rate of bicycle trips This is the proportion of female and male bicycle work trips We can see that cities with greater amount of bicycle infrastructure and lower slopes have less gender gap in work trips By a Buenos Aires for example have lower slopes and Santiago and Bogota have greater amount of bicycle network And this is the same as the previous but for non work trips In general non work bicycle trips tend to have less gender gap than work trips We can compare with work trips that have greater gender gap and in non work trips have less gender gap This might be because women simply make more non work trips than men based on the previous slide So in conclusion based on our data we confirm that men are considerably more likely to use bicycle than women in this region And cities with better cycling environments with greater amount of bicycle infrastructure and fewer slopes seem to have less gender gap in bicycle trips Not only built environment but topography slope is also important In the next slides I will be showing what are socioeconomic and physical environment factors that influence bicycling So in terms of socioeconomic factors we identify two groups of people who tend to never use a bicycle in this region First vulnerable people in terms of safety on public roads which are women and the elderly The second group consists of those with higher income and higher educational attainment And the people who are most likely to ride a bicycle are mostly men under 60 years old occupied in terms of employment Low income and less or equal to primary educational level so lower educational level And others socioeconomic factors are that elderly women are similarly and significantly less likely to use bicycle than elderly men Among the elderly gender gap is greater Also the gender gap among the elderly is even greater for non-work bike trips compared to work bike trips Men with a college level educational attainment are significantly less likely to use bicycle But for women this trend was not observed the bicycle image issue is detected only among men And among the physical environment factors the greater amount of bike lanes near home are positively associated with bicycle use For women this effect is greater so continuous bicycle network is even more important for women And greater road lengths and slopes are negatively associated with bicycle use so more road lengths and more slopes reduce bicycle use In conclusion, based on the lower cycling rates of women and elderly current cycling infrastructures seem not satisfying their safety requirements in this region And continuous low stress bike network protecting from vehicle traffic which provides a safe and comfortable transportation experience enabling women and elderly to get where they want to go is needed And since in Latin America higher income men are not using bicycle campaigns to improve the image of cycling and to promote cycling to build a cycling habit are critical And also promotions of e-bikes to overcome slopes are important since topography is a major obstacle for cyclists especially for women So that's all. Thank you very much for my presentation and for attending the presentation and I will stop sharing Okay, thank you Thank you so much again Cal Bike for your invitation And this important space, it's a pleasure to me and my team to be here My name is Lorena Romero, I hold a degree as a project manager and as an international business professional I'm the director of Visactiva Foundation and currently I'm working at IDIAPAC which is the Participation Institute of Bogota My work in this institute is being the leader of sustainable mobility I would like to talk a little bit about why I ride a bicycle I grew up in a family of professional cyclists going to races, we would fill our cars with bicycles when we went out to travel And when I went to college that was the only mode of transportation that would allow me to get where I was going on time And for years I had some complications, some heart problems and surgery that made me quit the training I was doing in skating Since I started riding bicycles it became not just a medicine for me but also a way of getting to know people, traveling and becoming familiar with my own city And in particular I wanted everybody but especially women to also start to ride bicycles In Bogota and in Colombia in general, just like me many of us had a very intimate experience with bicycles throughout our whole life We grew up knowing that our cyclists are the best in the world, we see our grandparents, parents, family and friends use bicycles for the cycling We go to the market, take our children to school, go to work, go to the university, go to the movies We see the peasants carrying their baskets, we ask for two missiles that they carry on their bicycles In every place and every moment we have a bicycle that tells the story with us We grew up knowing that our cyclists are the best in the world, we see our grandparents, our parents, the whole family, friends riding bicycles out on the ciclovillas Going shopping, taking the kids to school, biking to work, biking to college, out to the movies We see in the rural areas people bringing the harvests in on bicycles People ordering food, they get delivered on bicycles to their houses For every memorable moment in life, there's always a bicycle there to help tell the story In Colombia there's a very large grassroots movement around bicycling There's a large activist movement in Bogota that has started and been growing for quite a number of years Bogota is a city that was developed around the car, but since the 70s it's promoted bicycling in a very big way The two wheels are part of our culture, both sports and recreational, and mobility This important vice-activism that vice-activists are part of has become a part of the city's government Cuba is a part of, has achieved a lot of success with the government of the city Community initiatives have become public policy and have taken root And we have quite a few achievements, but at this moment I'd like to focus on just two First of all, it's currently 48 years old and it's 128 kilometers or 79 miles In the capital of my country, for almost 5 years, the main streets of the city are tonalized And they become a great space for bicycles The streets of 3 and 4 and 6 free traffic lanes become a recreational space With living and learning and mobility The ciclovia has been around in our capital city for 48 years There are 128 kilometers or 79 miles of a bicycle network throughout the city for the past 5 decades The main avenues of the city are closed off to cars and become a space for bicycles The streets that have 3 or 6 lanes are free of automobile traffic And are a space for recreation, community, learning and mobility Imagine for a moment, Columbus Avenue right here in San Francisco, free of motor vehicle traffic Full of bicycles, people skating, jogging or just out for a stroll with the family or friends 560 kilometers or 348 miles of extension Every Sunday, the main avenues throughout Bogota and also on holidays are closed off to automobiles And this space has become a very important part of the heritage of the local people of Bogota There's also a very large network of bicycle lanes throughout the city with 560 kilometers or 348 miles in the network The cities that accompany cyclists on the mountain peaks with national police and exercise service None of them have been born from administrations and no mayor They have been born from cyclists who have requested for their cultural dynamic and better programs To use alternative means of transport and to solve the lack of subway, a good public transport system The infrastructure, a vehicle that reduces traffic time There are initiatives that come from the activists in the city. These are mechanisms for engagement that are codified in law and they're called the local and district bicycle boards that have created programs like bike to school, bike to work, safe routes, the police and army patrol, the mountains surrounding the city to make them safe for cyclists among other programs and all these initiatives did not come from the government itself from any mayor but they were born out of the cyclists themselves that have been advocating for decades for a more dynamic cultural and better programs for using alternative means of transportation and to solve the lack of metro service to create a better public system of transportation and reduce transit times. In Colombia we've demonstrated that bicycle activism can become public policy and public policy can become bicycle activism. Of course political interest and the creation of public policy oversight by government entities for example the Bogota City Council has all helped create a city where there are more and more cyclists but it's really the community that has created this environment in Bogota. I joined the five percent of trips years ago that are taken on a bicycle in the city. It's now approximately eight percent of all trips that are taken on bicycle. Women are still a minority about twenty four point two percent compared to the seventy five point eight percent of men and I supported the creation of the second local bicycle board in the city. Just six years ago there were two local bicycle boards in Bogota with only ten people and total. These boards are a mechanism for community members to examine public policy around sustainable mobility and formulate initiatives from local to district levels. Now there are 18 boards throughout the city with about 80 people total as members. The city used to have 20 nonprofits that worked like BC Activa to incentivize bicycling and now there are 130. But BC Activa is still the only community radio station run by cyclists in the city and we want to continue telling the stories that make Bogota one of the bicycle capitals of the world. Bicycling is a big part of the future that is why BC Activa considers that bikes are an essential tool for our emancipation when we are biking we know we create culture and happiness. Thank you so much. I have a video a last video pastors of pastors for peace out of New York to help students and we focus on Oakland to help students go to medical school in Cuba and there has been a number of Oakland graduates who have actually gone to medical school and they have to promise to work in community base hospitals or clinics for like five years or so because their education is free. Also I have been to Cuba about three times and I am sad to hear that things are going down with respect to bicycling. I did never see women on bicycles. I only saw men or boys and but I did see a lot of curbside who fix your bicycles and could fix really anything so I hope that that is still going on in Cuba and I hope to see more bicycle advocates in Cuba. It's a great it's a beautiful place and more infrastructure because some of the roads are kind of torn up but thank you for your presentations. I really enjoyed it. Hey I don't know if this is working. Oh great. Hey I'm just curious. I actually didn't hear the last presentation on a meeting outside so apologies if you talked about this in your presentation but I was curious to know if you all had witnessed any of the process of developing bicycle lanes or bicycle infrastructure in the countries that you've visited or lived in and how that process how we might learn from that process in the states if that differs if you feel like there was a democratic process that also was more conducive to developing bicycle infrastructure. Bueno en Bogotá realmente durante muchos años han desarrollado infraestructura y ciclo rutas para los para los ciclistas durante muchos años. Bogotá has been developing the ciclovías the bicycle lanes for many years. Pero últimamente en los últimos años desde la administración pasada es decir unos seis años desde hace seis años se crea una infraestructura no segregada no solo para los ciclistas es decir no está como dentro de el anden el espacio de los peatones sino se le quita espacio al carro. But in the last six years starting with the last administration the government has started creating bicycle lanes that's not separate from the street it's not on the sidewalks rather it's in the street and coordinating off space taking space away from the cars. Para que el tráfico de los ciclistas sea mucho más fácil no tienes como que subir tener obstáculos y no simplemente vas en un recorrido mucho más práctico también para el ciclista y ahorra costos para la administración entonces hace que sean muchos más los espacios. And the fact that it's using the street makes it much easier for the cyclist there there's a lot more space for for bicycling it's more practical it also reduces cost. Y pues bueno realmente como ha sido tanto el aumento de ciclistas de cinco por ciento hace seis años ahora casi el doble algo más de ocho por ciento pues eso hace que realmente primero hayan muchos ciclistas pero los ciclistas demanden más vías. And the bicycling has increased from five percent six years ago to reaching almost twice that more than eight percent now so there are a lot more cyclists and there are a lot more people you bicyclists demanding more as well. Y segundo puede usarla puede ir por la mitad del carril y el carro debe esperar hasta que pueda sobrepasar. And there is also a new law bicycling law called the law 1811 that not only creates the bicycle lanes in the street but also gives bicycles the right of way so bicycles can use by law cars lanes and they have priority y pues eso hace que finalmente todas las vías sean para los ciclistas aunque no estén segregadas. And so all the streets now can be used by bicyclists they don't have to be segregated. I wanted to just speak to quickly about Bogota there was also the famous strong mayor that put in the yes well we're getting a motion that we need to wrap up so but I did want to say that the strong mayor made a big difference in creating the ciclovilla which I think speaks to your question because Cuba was you know they were under duress in the 90s but they also have a centralized and they also have a centralized government so they basically just saw a need and and did it and I think the bigger question that you maybe were asking is like in times of big crisis in how far do we need to have should we it would it behoove us to have a more central government which is interesting in our pseudo democracy because there's a tension going on there also about the individual the rights of the individual and the rights of society because there's the equity issue because seemingly rich people are more individual than people who are not rich right some pigs are more equal than others should we stop and you'll talk to us outside because we're getting to I guess we're running into the neck we started late so all right thank you so much