40 Penha de França neighbors promote assembly to discuss the bicycle in the parish

A comprehensive survey of the existing bicycle parking in the parish of Penha de França, carried out by a group of neighbors, allowed us to confirm an evidence: this is one of the most populated and dense parishes of Lisbon but one of the least available bike racks. If in the neighboring parish of Arroios the ratio of available bicycle parking spaces is 30 spaces per 1000 inhabitants, in Penha de França it is 7 spaces per 1000 inhabitants. For Laura, Rosa, Luísa and other residents of Penha, there is not enough demand, and the result is there for all to see: in the streets of the parish, it is common to find bicycles stuck to posts of the most varied types and shapes.

We have already told Ana Matias' story in this space, a recent resident of Penha who, when she moved to the parish, no longer had a solution to leave her bicycle safely close to home. She met with the parish council and the city council with concrete ideas and proposals, such as installing a bicycle shed in the parish - a small metal box with room inside for at least six bicycles and that other cities have already adopted as a solution for residential areas. Ana did not get positive answers and says that, from the local authority, she received arguments such as overpriced or unaesthetic. "Right now I'm paying an exorbitant price on a garage to store my bike"says Ana. "In other words, Ana is paying parking for her bicycle and those who have an EMEL resident badge pay nothing to park their car on the public road in the parish."reinforces Laura.

"They [the policy makers] don't feel that there is a representative group. We need to be united and be able to say we are more than you think we are."says Ana. This will to join forces and efforts seemed unanimous in a first meeting of neighbors of Penha de França, users of bicycles in the parish, which took place last Sunday afternoon, February 5, in the outdoor patio of the artistic and cultural cooperative PENHA SCO. It was about an informal assembly where different people, who responded to an invitation shared on social networks, discussed problems and solutions to improve the experience of cycling and bicycling in the parish where they live. This meeting, which lasted a few hours and in which different neighbors shared their personal experiences and concerns, resulted in a table identifying several common problems and solutions, which go beyond the shortage of parking. "It's curious that we focused more on the solutions than the problems"commented Ana Filipa, after looking at the final result.

The group of neighbors will now work on next lines of action, but for now an email list has been created so that the conversation can continue in the digital medium, and a next in-person assembly has been pre-arranged - the idea is to do it again on a Sunday afternoon to give it to more people, including families with children, on February 26 or March 5. There was talk of creating a manifesto, a petition, or both, as well as holding a "local critical mass," i.e., a bike ride through the parish to generate visibility on the streets around users of this mode of transportation.

If for Ana the lack of parking is the main apprehension - and the factor that leads her to use her bike more or less - for other Penha residents there are other concerns. Diogo, who lives in Paiva Couceiro and has been using his bike for 30 years in the city ("I have seen all the evolution, from the 1990s to now"), understands that Penha is "completely enclosed"given the poor cycling accessibility of the parish's main entrances and exits. "Morais Soares is inaccessible. The exit through Olaias is dangerous. Mouzinho de Albuquerque is also very boring and dangerous. The Graça side is not easy either".he said. "There is a lack of access up here [to the top of the parish, at Paiva Couceiro]. It's very important."

John corroborated: "Morais Soares, Paiva Couceiro and General Roçadas are axes that we should claim [to become bike-friendly]." On Avenida General Roçadas, which was recently intervened and where there are several schools, a cycle path could be realized with the painting of two 30+bici lanes. "It was something easy to accomplish as a first step"João said, also asking for an effective calming of that artery, where he lives and where he says there are cars crossing too fast at night. Another moderator, also named João, added that one could go further and take away one of the directions on General Roçadas to turn it into a bike lane.

"We definitely need a bike lane on Morais Soares"Julia, who moved from Germany to Penha about two years ago, commented. "While there isn't, I wish there were signage to alert drivers to the presence of cyclists on the road"he suggested, leaving another idea: in schools, children should be challenged to get a bicycle driving license with a practical test in the street, as he said is done in Germany. For her part, Maria João, who has lived in the parish for a decade and who started to commute by bicycle after selling her car, complained especially about the Mouzinho de Albuquerque, which she uses to go to work. "I don't get it: there are two lanes in each direction, there is no traffic, and yet they choose to rage when they have a left lane to pass me. It annoys me more because there is no traffic. I have tried everything, and I wear a reflective vest, a helmet, etc. They also beep at me and have even told me to get off the road."he said. "I always go with stress. I go with that concern of not upsetting them [the drivers] and they end up upsetting me."

"The Facebook groups of Penha de França neighbors that exist are taken over by the right-wing parties, and it falls to Carmel and Trinity whenever bicycles are mentioned."commented João Monteiro, resident in Alto de São João and member of the Parish Assembly of Penha de França for the Free party. He said he has been pressuring the Junta de Junta to have a GIRA in the parish, showed his availability to talk to the other neighbors and suggested a petition to show the decision makers that quantitatively there are many cyclists in Penha. The theme of the GIRA was transversal to several of the interventions, as there is no station in Penha. "I don't have my own bike, so I use GIRA. I go to Alameda and once in a while I have to wait because there are no bikes available."commented Sara. "For me, having one or more GIRA stations here would be helpful. I hope those stations will come but I don't know if I will have the courage to ride my bike up and down Morais."she added, referring to the perceived insecurity of that artery. Sara left a suggestion: the group should organize themselves to go to the Parish Assembly "talk to the various representatives who have been elected".

Rita, Sara's neighbor, agrees with the use of the mechanisms of the Parish Assembly and also with going to the Municipal Assembly. "It's good to piss off little by little"he said. Her experience with the bike has changed since she started using it regularly in 2009. "I used to walk without a problem. Now I use less and feel less confident. I think the city is too dominated by the car culture and I don't have the energy to bother anymore. I don't want to have that source of stress in my life and I'm preferring to walk rather than bike."she said. Another resident, who said she had lived in Amsterdam for a few years, was unable to carry on the habit of using her bicycle when she returned to Lisbon. "For me it is unthinkable to put a baby on a bicycle in Lisbon. I'm very afraid." He suggested a communication campaign that takes advantage of the context of climate change and rising fuel prices to boost bicycling and, at the same time, "an action plan to reach up there [to the decision makers] for them, in turn, to reach down here [to the population]"with concrete measures and communication. "The bicycle is a resource more people would use if they could. It's very dangerous to ride a bike in this city."

Rafael, the only child among the three dozen participants, also made his participation. "It's completely ridiculous that there are no bike lanes in Penha and Beato. When that happens, I give my applause to the City Council"he commented, looking at the floor as if to break his nerves and concentrate on his oral presentation. "I think more kids need to come to these events to get a sense of what mobility is like in the city." To Rafael, "riding a bicycle is like riding a car" when it comes to compliance with road signs and in particular red lights, and said that it is necessary to raise awareness among other children for this compliance with the Highway Code. Rita Ferreira, although not a resident of Penha, took the opportunity to talk about KidicalMass, a global gathering of children riding bicycles (and their parents) that takes place in several cities and debuted last year in Lisbon. There was a reason for KidicalMass to be there: "This year we want to double the participants and we are planning to make the KidicalMass here in Penha on May 7. We thought we'd start at Alameda and go through several streets in the parish."

Morais Soares was another theme that cut across several of the interventions - a street that begins at Almirante Reis ("remember her with two lanes each way?"It is a street that connects to Paiva Couceiro and Alto de São João, functioning as a kind of backbone of the parish. It is a street with heavy foot traffic, several Carris lines, a lot of commerce and recurrent second row. "The police themselves are the first to stop the car in second row to buy chicken at Morais Soares"a neighbor denounced, asking for a greater awareness on the part of the police forces. "The driver who honks at me doesn't get upset with those in the second row because it is a behavior that is already normalized"Laura reported from her experience, lamenting not having any solution for parking her bicycle when she goes to Morais Soares.

Fernando Oliveira, 86, who can usually be found on his bicycle in Lisbon, is also a shopper on this street. "I have been using the bicycle as a means of transportation for 60 years. Nowadays I use it more as leisure. Despite my age, I'm a big fan of bike paths and I'm sorry there aren't any here."he said, explaining the routes he takes to "getting out of traffic" and avoid busy streets like Morais Soares; he says he uses it only when he goes "buy dog food". Francisca also talked about her fears. "I live on Morais Soares and I have my bike at home, even indoors, and I hardly use it because I'm afraid to ride on Morais Soares. I would try to use the inner streets of the neighborhoods but many are one-way."he commented. "I think Lisbon has changed a lot and I think that in addition to asking for a bike lane, we should ask that car circulation be more difficult. There are too many cars on the street."

The idea for this meeting-neighborhood assembly came about three weeks ago after a meeting about cycling mobility that took place in the Penha de França Municipal Library. O Bicycle parking survey in the parish carried out by Laura, Rosa, Luísa and other residents in the parish was just an ignition point to bring more people together and start gathering a critical mass. "I feel that I alone carry zero weight. I am a drop of water in the middle of what is going on. We have to show that there are many of us and push through."Rosa suggested, speaking of the need to organize and formalize the collective of three dozen people that got together that Sunday afternoon. "We have to send a signal to the Council, and the Council has to send a political signal to the Chamber. It's not important to say that it's a matter for the City Council and not for the Council. They have to at least communicate the will of a relevant group of neighbors".commented Laura. For Ana Filipa it is important "broaden the scope" of the discussion and involve "the many pedestrians in the parish". "It was important to get to them as well. There is a traffic light on Paiva Couceiro that takes five seconds on green. I stand in the middle of the lane, I can't even imagine a person with less mobility than me"he told. "If the private sector won't move forward, if the municipalities won't move forward, let's move forward with proposals that link all these bicycle issues with green spaces and other approaches to mobility."added João.

Laura, Rosa and Luisa explained to the participants that they have already had two meetings with the Penha de França Council where they showed the cycling parking survey work they did in their spare time. They said that the reception was greater in the second meeting, which took place in September last year, but they tell that since then there was a silence in the email chain until the posters of this neighbors' meeting were disseminated in social networks. "We don't know if that's why we got a response again, but there was a big coincidence"commented Laura.

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