The incorporation of small electric vehicles for public transport, together with initiatives that encourage the use of bicycles, represent opportunities and challenges for Cuba to sustainably and inclusively combat the chronic problems in urban mobility.
“I ride 43 km a day and I love it,” said Carlos Cantor in Bogotá, Colombia. “Five years ago I switched my car for a bike,” explained Tomás Fuenzalida from Santiago, Chile.
Cambodia’s export business is in the process of changing due to shifts in manufacturing in Asia. A business publication in the country has reported unexpected growth in the “machinery and transport equipment” sector and speculated it was as “probably bicycles.” But when Cambodia jumped into the top ten exporters of bicycles to the EU in 2012, it prompted the European Bicycle Manufacturers’ Association (EBMA) to investigate.
A programme launched in Buenos Aires three years ago to encourage the use of bicycles has already brought results: the use of this environment-friendly means of transport has increased fivefold in the Argentine capital.
In Ghana, a country burgeoning with traffic congestion, increasing economic growth, and a stark urban-rural divide, making frames of bicycles out of bamboo could be the key to promoting sustainable development. It also makes stronger, longer-lasting bikes.
The road between Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls and Livingstone, in Zambia, is a well-traversed one, criss-crossed by bicycle riders towing trailers of bread and other supplies, with their bicycle spokes reinforced to bear the extra weight.
In July 2007, many Parisians laughed at their mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, when he announced the creation of a public bicycle sharing system aimed at reducing traffic in the French capital.