We love racing on our bikes but are they a serious solution to the challenges of climate change and transportation…?
On Monday 14th November, members of the club were invited to an event at the Swedish Embassy in the diplomatic quarter, here in Riyadh. The event was part of the Nordic Film Festival 2022, with a showing of the documentary “Bikes vs. Cars”.
The red carpet was laid out for visitors and we were treated to a viewing on a giant screen in a lovely outdoor environment outside the embassy building. Part of the scenery was a collection of traditional Swedish bikes, manufactured by Kronan (“The Crown”). More about those later.
The movie had three settings which were used to help the viewer ask the question: are bicycles a serious form of transportation in a modern city and do they contribute towards improved quality of life? The three cities were Copenhagen (Denmark), Los Angeles (USA) and São Paolo (Brazil). Swedish director Frederik Gertten shifted us back and forth between the cities, giving us insights about how bikes were perceived (as well as quick stops in Toronto (Canada), Bogota (Colombia) and Berlin (Germany) for extra flavour!).
Copenhagen
My particular favourite character was the taxi driver in Copenhagen. He was grumpy, unsmiling, complaining about swarms of cyclists all around the city, clearly not happy that he had to be very careful to look out for cyclists and give them priority. It was obvious that cycling is the dominant mode of transportation in the city and the filmmakers captured many smiling faces, young and old, making their way about. For us in Saudi Arabia, the immediately obvious thing that was lacking in the city, was sunshine and warmth. But this seemed to have no negative effect on people; they just dressed up in warmer clothes.
There are some incredible facts that support the impression we were given – that cyclists are everywhere in the city. There are 5x more bikes than cars in the city and 41% of all regular commutes (to work or study) are done by bike.
One of the main reasons cycling is so popular in Denmark is that road infrastructure is designed to prioritise bikes over cars, allowing them privileged flow in traffic, safe separation from vehicles and trucks, and ease of parking/security bikes at the end of the journey. The orange line on the graph below shows an index of kilometres travelled in the city. The red line represents the amount of fatalities and injuries suffered by cyclists whilst they have been pedalling to make up the numbers in the orange line. The blue line is an indication of risk – distance travelled divided by injury rate – showing that safety is 4-5x better over a 21 year period thanks to pro-bike policies.
Los Angeles
The main character we heard from in Los Angeles was Dan Koeppel, a freelance writer. He was able to show photographs of the city back in 1900 before the automobile industry was established, with bikes and elevated bike highways crossing the city. He told the story of how the car industry really wanted to “own the city” and hold it up as a model of the future, with individual citizens owning their own cars, having great freedom to explore and travel at speed between work and home and adventure.
Bike paths were torn down, bus and tram companies were taken over and shut down, giving people no real alternative apart from car ownership. Highways were constructed to cope with the increasing demand. 2 lanes became 4, 6, even 12 lane monster highways. And they all filled up. The dream of freedom, of being “Kings of the Road” became a nightmare as the city clogged up with cars in traffic jams. He concluded that no city in the world has been able to build and sustain this vision of freedom of movement, just around the car. It always ends up in queues of traffic, poor health and environmental outcomes.
We are quickly taken north to Toronto to (retrospectively) hear about the 2009 election of a controversial city mayor, on a platform of ending the “war on cars”. His promise to the electorate was to double-down on the LA experiment, to remove any advantage that other forms of transportation have in his city. Of course, we have the benefit of hindsight on this one and almost inevitably, traffic gridlock is very much a problem in Toronto today. Ultimately, bicycles take up far less space when moving or parked than cars do, per person transported (which is why we can all look forward to the Metro system opening in Riyadh!).
Swedish bikes
A quick detour from the film! The Kronan bikes are solid (heavy!) commuter bikes that can withstand years of being ridden in rain and snow. The rider sits upright with a good view of the traffic, has a dynamo system to power permanently attached lights, has a built-on luggage rack for carrying heavy objects and a partially enclosed chain plus full mudguards, to keep the rider clean and dry(ish). It’s practical, comfortable and reliable, with a long wheelbase and steering angle for safe, stable riding. There is not one single piece of carbon fibre on it! We absolutely would not recommend this for racing but imagine it would be wonderful for calm, steady, getting-about on two wheels 🙂 Which is exactly what the Swedish embassy staff do; many commute to work in Riyadh on such bikes and from what we could tell, they love it.
São Paolo
Our heroine in São Paolo was Aline Cavalcante, a young student who moved to the city for her studies and discovered that although dangerous, cycling was the affordable, easiest and most enjoyable way to get around the city. She made friends in the cycling community, racing around everywhere on her “fixie” roadbike in heavy traffic. The fact that her bike had no brakes on it scared me as a viewer and I believe illustrates at least part of the challenge of being seen as worthy of improved cycling infrastructure: cyclists need to not just ask for safe conditions to ride in, but they must be safety-minded themselves. Could we imagine cars allowed on the roads without working brakes?
Through Aline, we experience two tragedies. The death of her friend Márcia Prado who was crushed beneath a bus after becoming caught between two vehicles. Bad road architecture that doesn’t consider cyclists or blind spots is blamed for the issue. The cyclists leave a “ghost bike”, placed over a street sign and painted white, as well as painting a white “ghost rider” shape on the road – as a memorial to their departed friend.
Another cyclist is hit on one of the main streets in the city and loses an arm. The cyclists come together to explain their feelings of insecurity to the mayor his response is swift: 400kms of bike lanes in the city, marked with bright red paint. A special council for cyclists to discuss policy with city officials was created.
The mayor decided to shut down Avenida Paulista, where Prado was killed, to road traffic on Sundays. There was much concern among shop owners, who said customers wouldn’t be able to reach them (in their cars). But it seems that the experiment was a great success, drawing people out on to the streets, who could walk, and shop, eat and drink in a relaxed atmosphere.
Conclusion
Quite simply, there wasn’t one. The viewer is expected to consider the issues for themselves. City life is complicated and one person’s needs are not exactly the same as another’s. However, making it safe and easy for cyclists to get around a city does seem to offer many benefits for health, environment and journey times. Part of Riyadh Wheelers’ purpose is to support the National Vision 2030, promoting healthy lifestyles, fulfilling living and environmental sustainability. We believe that cycling can contribute an enormous amount to those national ambitions!
