Biking in São Paulo

I should write about Antarctica, about my final project at the Kaospilots, about my Magic Kombi and about Wind People, or even about my "facing my fears" climbing experience last weekend, but instead I rather talk about BIKES! Bikes in São Paulo!

The motivation: I love biking and I've done it since I was a child. A bit hidden from my parents, who would naturally advised me against, while in reality I was happily building self-confidence in exploring my hometown, Porto Alegre. I loved it. It was dangerous. I moved to São Paulo and continued doing so, without realizing the crazyness of such an attitude. Then, Amsterdam (Netherlands) and Aarhus (Denmark), and the "bikeland", the two most bike-friendly countries in the world. I had reached Paradise :)

Four years later, back to São Paulo, I was going for a 20min ride from Vila Mariana to Bela Vista this morning, crossing one of the main avenues in Brazil, Avenida Paulista, and I met Marcia:

An article on TreeHugger explained: "Márcia Regina de Andrade Prado [40 years-old] was a well-known bike activist who was run-down by a bus last January 14 (2009). Her accident exposed one more time the fragile situation of bikers in large cities and caused great mobilization among the Sao Paulo's bikers." Quite shocking and real!

Another cool website and some background info on biking in São Paulo...

• São Paulo has 6 million vehicles (3 times more than in 1980)
  
• There were 262km of traffic jams in 2008
• Being inside a car in the middle of a traffic jam is 2 to 4 times more damaging for health (pollution) than biking in the same situation
• There are 30km of cycle paths in São Paulo, for 250.000 bikes
  
• One citizen dies every 4 days biking in São Paulo (84 people in 2006)
  

As the CriticalMass movement states (Bicicletada.org in Brazil): (Each bike means) one less car! I recommend reading the Manifest of the Invisibles before calling me crazy, and for a better understanding of what the whole thing is about!

Join the movement... control what you can!