Passenger Rail in the US vs. Spain
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Yolanda Muñoz
Yolanda Muñoz is one of the women who does not fear traveling alone. This bike-lover did an impressive trip mostly under the modality of bike + train. She started pedaling from Vitoria, Spain, and arrived to exotic countries thanks to its strength, courage and perseverance.
Her initial idea was to cross Europe and Asia and this primary teacher planned everything until the X day came: July the 16th 2015. Unfortunately, she had an accident with a bee in Poland and she modified her plan. She took the Tran-Siberian railway from Moscow to Mongolia, and an additional train to reach Peking. From this point, she rode her bike to Tibet. Her great journey, about 19,000 km, made her to verify how neoliberalism creates inequalities around the world.
Yolanda is feminism and this fact made her to choose pedaling alone even though her family. She crossed France, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Russia, China, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, India, Nepal, India again, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Iran (it was a cold January), Turkey and Greece. Here, she helped refugees who were running away from the Syrian war.
She encountered good and bad days. In a hostel in Bangkok, she was talking with a man a he suddenly made a joke by calling her Indurain (by Miguel Indurain, a famous Spanish cyclist) and she immediately refused it by answering that she preferred Anna (by Annie Londonderry, the first woman to travel around the world). Sadly, only Yolanda knew about Annie.
Her passion for bikes started when she was 25 and used one to go to university and work in Vitoria. According to her words, she recommends planning and feeling like doing your great trip. Intuition is an important ally to avoid dangers, trust on your instinct and do not become frightened by potential aggressors.
Such experiences make you improve your autonomy, independence and wisdom.
Next trip: Africa.
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The Fahrrad Station Süd
As it comes to bike infrastructures, sometimes they are completely new and some other are built based on previous infrastructures such us car garages. The Fahrrad Station Süd in the Karlsruhe station, Germany, is a clear example of the last point.
At the beginning, it was an obscure parking for 38 cars which was transformed into a building for 680 bicycles. Thus, less cars and more bikes, a direct example of how urban mobility is changing. Originally, the prestigious architect Rem Kolhaas was proposed to build a facility for the Zentrums für Kunst und Medientechnologie (Center for Art and Technology Media) next to the train station. After some disagreements, Rem rejected the project and finally the building was constructed in a different neighbor. So, the building continued being a parking for cars. In 2017, Karlsruhe proposed the target of reaching a 30 percent of total modal split by bikes and a new project started which concluded in nine months. As a result, the old car parking was transformed into an impressive 1,300 squared meters for bikes. It accepts not only urban and conventional bicycles, but also cargobikes, bike tows and electric bikes. Moreover, the station offers a modern locker room, drinking fountains and even a workshop with professional tools. In addition, it has five zones identified with different colors and symbols on floors and walls. Such was the impact when opened that the building received the German Cycling Award in 2020.
Furthermore, it opens 24-7 and the electricity that consumes comes completely from renewable energy sources. From the user economy, using it to lock your bike costs 1 euro per day and there are tickets for a month (8.50 euros), a semester (35 euros) and a year (75 euros).
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A possible path for the biking movement
We, as bikers, know all the benefits that riding a bike produces like human health improvement, environment protection, more free surface for people in cities, less dangerous crashes, you name it (or at least we should know them). Making efforts to promote it is an encouraging task which gives back pride in return. The problem is that sometimes we focus too much in people who are already cyclists or concern about the benefits of using bicycles.
I consider there are three types of persons in this regard: Those who are already convinced of the advantages of pedaling, those who are in the path of arriving to the previous group, and those cochistas who will never allow themselves to see positive points in bikes. I reckon the bike movement should focus more on convincing the group two of people, as indicated before. Most of them see bikes daily, have some concern in human and environment, check bad mood in car drivers, see cars and car infrastructure occupying too much surface in the neighbors stealing it from people, among others. They just need a little push to become riders and we, as experimented bikers, should constitute an example for them, transmit our good mood, explaining how it feels when riding a bicycle, all the benefits it has. This way more and more bicyclers will be seen on the streets which will encourage more people to pedal, politicians to build bike infrastructures and diminish car lines. In the end, all the people will benefit including those in the group three, though they will probably continue opposing bikes. Do not worry, their sons or grandsons will appreciate bikes.
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Shitty politicians
From the last local elections in Spain, right-wing politicians have decided to ban bike lines in several cities with the help of fascists. These actions go against European and Spanish laws as well as common sense. One of the key points in fighting against climate change is changing the XX century mobility based almost exclusively on polluting cars into low carbon footprint vehicles like bicycles in order to protect human health and environment. It attracts attention that while bikes are promoted in a lot of countries around the world, no matter what political party governs including right-wing parties for example in The Netherlands and Denmark, in Spain right -wing parties see bicycles as a threat for car. Both the Partido Popular and VOX in Spain share the same origin: The genocide dictatorship, and several corruption cases. Surprisingly, in European countries where the equivalent Partido Popular rules, bike infrastructures are increased.
Why is that the Spanish right-wing parties behave differently considering bicycles as unpolitical vehicles? Clearly it is because they feel that they live in the XX century, they like cars (some corruption cases in which these political parties were involved were related to cars and its infrastructures) and love climate change. Additional facts confirm the last point such as the apathy in protecting the Doñana national park , the disaster in the Mar Menor or the disastrous management and environmental impact of the Prestige ship. Guess what, in all cases the politicians involved in these examples have been members of the Partido Popular.