Not everything that looks is.
This week, a badly parked car stopped traffic on Almirante de Reis. The streetcar was unable to pass and blocked all those following behind it. Traffic was eventually diverted along the bike path with the intervention of the PSP, while the Municipal Police removed the problem vehicle.
On social networks, a series of inflammatory videos, filmed from a specific angle where the real culprit could not be seen, spread the rumor that the streetcar had broken down, and cast angry blame on the bike lane. The videos - which, I reinforce, never showed the full picture - got thousands of views on Facebook, thus propagating a false story and gathering, once again, a number of hateful comments against cyclists. Disinformation trumps information.
The Almirante de Reis bike path has been controversial. Parties say that the City Council made the project in absentia and that the residents and merchants of the area were not heard. This is false. The project was a few years ago winner of the Participatory BudgetThe process was open to the entire population, and was presented publicly twice - once in January and once in June.
But, more importantly, this bike path provides a safe, direct and necessary connection between the upper Saldanha and Areeiro areas and the downtown area. That artery was already one of the most used by cyclists due to its low inclination; according to a study, its use grew between 2016 and 2018, but not as much as that of Avenida da República, where a segregated bike lane was built during that period.
