Lisbon City Council is launching a challenge for students in the city to choose to cycle to school on the first day of every month. The aim is to change habits - 51.4% of children say they go to school by car, only 1.5% by bicycle.
"It consists of an appeal for students to choose to cycle to school every first day of school (it will be July 1st, then only in September or October because of the vacations)"explains Inês Henriques, head of Lisbon City Council's Mobility Studies and Planning division. "To this end, we are investing in the city's cycling infrastructure and we have a program to install parking lots within the school grounds, which will start in July, as it was awarded recently."
The challenge now launched by the municipality kicked off on June 1st, World Children's Day, with a special activity: every Bicycle Trains of the city were "activated", in other words, they took to the streets. Since this municipal program started in the 2019/20 school year with a pilot in three schools, the number of interested students, parents and schools has continued to grow: there are now 11 participating schools, both public and private; 16 different routes; and around 200 children taking part.
On this World Children's Day, exceptionally all the trains took children to school. The Express accompanied one of them and highlights Salvador's six-year experience: "I come almost every day. I only don't come when I have to go to the dentist or my sister has to do something"he says. "I'd rather cycle than drive. That way I can talk to my friends, get some air and it's really fast."
"We don't expect what happened today to happen again any time soon. The trains will maintain their normal schedule and on the 1st we will once again call for cycling to school."says Inês Henriques.
The challenge of inviting students to cycle to school on the 1st of every month is similar to the Friday by BicycleThis is an initiative of MUBi - Associação Pela Mobilidade Urbana Em Bicicleta (Association for Bicycle Urban Mobility), which organically encourages everyone to cycle to work at least on Fridays.
