Tenerife por la bici reclaims the space pending for 30 years for the bicycle in the mobility of the Island within the urban centers. Its leaders consider that it is “the great forgotten in the studies” and that “everything is to be done.” They recently held a meeting with the new government of the Cabildo de Tenerife to recall that “there are zero kilometers of cycling infrastructure (bike lanes) whose use is dedicated to transport and not leisure or sport.” And this in a context “where 50% of the trips are made within the cities and 75% of the trips do not exceed seven kilometers.”
Fernando Davara, editor of the Tenerife Sustainable Mobility Island Plan, explained it this way at the meeting on the 10th convened by the president of the Cabildo, Rosa Davilain which some 60 entities participated. The sources of the association consider that “the bicycle is called to be a revulsion in sustainable mobility in the coming years.”
The Senate, together with the Network of Cities for the Bicycle, drew up the roadmap for municipalities and islands until decarbonization is achieved on the horizon of 2040. The objective is a 10% modal share within the set of trips in 2030. In this four-year term, 6% of travelers should use the bike by half of 2027. This means growing at 1.5% per year. A great challenge because today, at most, 0.3% is reached.
This entity considers that to achieve this “you must have a clear will policy to place the bicycle, no longer at the center of sustainable mobility policies, but, at least, at the same level as public transport by buses and trams. One of the proposals is to create an Island Bicycle Observatory that supports the 31 municipalities. They remember that the ULL will soon start its Sustainable Mobility Plan,
The collective values: “We must not wait for the population -or the political class- to change their mentality about the way of self-transportation, but to favor the creation of a cycling infrastructure”. The impulse for car drivers, bus or tram users and pedestrians to “get on the bike”. “This is what happened in Seville,” they underline, “from not having bike lanes, it went to an 80-kilometer network in four years.”
Tenerife por la bici is committed to “promoting and financially supporting the drafting of Sustainable Mobility Plans in municipalities that do not yet have it”. In addition to “financing the writing of the basic cycling network of each town hall and the ULL”.
“This would be the base, they conclude, for the next four years and it is not a utopia. Even today you can access the Virtual Bicycle Office, created in 2017 and hosted on a website of the Island Sports Area. They conclude: «We want to believe that this time they are serious about changing mobility on the Island. The cyclist represents a great opportunity. Let’s not leave it, once again, aside ».
