EcoWorldly

Note: this article is part of this week’s EcoWorldly cycling series: Cycling and its importance in countries around the world.

Coming from a medieval city in the heart of Tuscany, I’ve never felt the necessity to drive my car every day preferring to use my legs walking or cycling. Despite that I’m not a fan of bicycling but there is a region, in the north of Italy, where inhabitants are addicted: Emilia Romagna. This place can truly claim to be a paradise for cyclists, and many Italians declare that it offers the best ‘mixed’ routes in the whole Europe. It was really surprising for me to discover how important is bicycling in its main cities, Ferrara and Reggio Emilia.

But what visibly marks a city out as a cycling city?

• » See also: #4 Copenhagen, Denmark: Great Bicycle City Photo Tour
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First of all the fact that everybody, young and old, rich and poor, goes round on a bike. A popular saying in Ferrara says that they learn to ride before they can walk and this is like a fixed thought, an obsession. Ferrara is the Italian city where the use of bicycles is among the highest in Europe: in 1991 the percentage use was 30.7 against 30% in Copenhagen and 27.8% in Holland. The awareness of occupying this important position led the town to look for comparisons with other European cities and join the Cities for Cyclists Network, 30 cities from 14 Countries committed to the promotion of bicycle use.

Cycling in Ferrara is due to inherited practices and to political efforts. In fact, the flat terrain is an advantage for cycling and, in the past, this was the only means of transport not expensive for people from countryside who used to come into town. However, even though these conditions were prominent elsewhere in Italy, the widespread use of bicycles only applied to Ferrara. This is also due to a specific policy implemented in this city. The Law 208, which aims at financing cycling and pedestrian routes in the urban areas, has here a positive impact as local managers are led to think about it and to launch projects. Moreover, Ferrara has a bicycle office, the one in Italy that was set up to co-ordinate the operations for preserving cycling.

It is not that the Ferraresi don’t drive but after parking their car they cycle or walk for the rest of the day. Cycling is seen as “an extension of the human body”, which corresponds well to cyclists’ behaviour. They don’t see themselves as using a means of transport and consequently don’t respect the road code! You can see Ferrara’s cyclists with the dog in the basket or with their shopping bags expertly tied to the handlebars, two on each side. They usually use the Graziella type, a little old fashioned bike, with a central lock that allows the bike to be folded up.

One of the best projects about alternative mobility was Bicicard, the strategy for transforming visitors and tourists into cyclists, launched in Ferrara in 1995 and still in use. It lets them park their cars in car parking spaces outside the historic centre, to hire a bicycle and to enter free of charge the civic museums, to get discounts at temporary exhibitions, in hotels, restaurants and listed shops.

The municipality of Reggio Emilia is instead mainly focused on children. The project “In Reggio Emilia we go to school by BiciBus” (coordinated by the Department of Urban Mobility in collaboration with Fiab – Italian Federation Friends of Bicycle) involves actively teachers, students of primary schools and parents in a project of sustainable mobility during the displacements home - school. The BiciBus is a “two-wheeled bus”: it consists of a group of students who go to and come back from school guided by volunteers by bicycle (parents, grandparents, teachers…).

As the routes of the real buses, the BiciBus’ routes provide end of the line and middle stops, appropriately signalled by notices on the ground and with arrival and departure times. The students go to the route with their bicycles; they wait for the volunteers and the group and go on together toward the school. In order to increase safety and visibility, the students receive a coloured kit (helmet, vest and rain-cloak), to wear during the route.

BiciBus is preceded and supported by workshops and technical analysis in the classrooms to educate to sustainable mobility, traffic safety and bicycle knowledge. It’s also possible to organize school trips by bicycle an evening meetings with experts directed to the families in order to talk about health, sustainable mobility and safety. From the starting 70 children of one school, in the spring of 2007, the project consists today of 10 primary schools and about 380 children who everyday go to school by BiciBus.

Other Articles in Ecoworldly’s Bicycling Series

• Forget Sky-high Gas Prices, Biking Beats Them All! by Sam Aola Ooko
• UK: Bike Week 2008 by Pem Charnley
• Bicycle powered water pumps and filtration systems by Nayelli Gonzalez
• Italy’s Two-Wheeled Cities Speed Up Your Life Quality by Eva Pratesi
• In Chiang Mai, Social Attitudes Crush Bicycling Prospects by Masimba Biriwasha
• Google’s Sexy Bicycle Giveaways and Africa’s Versatile Bike Trucks by Sam Aola Ooko
• South Korean Bicycle Ninjas Do Battle Against Asthma by Gavin Hudson
• Of Course Cycling in Australia is Healthy, But What To Do With the Cars? by Ross Kendall
• Cheer up! Bicycling in Italy is a Daily Adventure by Eva Pratesi
• If You Want a Blissful Sex Life, Don’t Ride a Bike! by Sam Aola Ooko
• Bicycling in Peru: An Art of Adaptation by Levi Novey

Other sources:

Bicycling cities

Ferrara - bicycling office

Image courtesy of kamshots at Flickr under Creative Commons

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