CicloRecreoVía

After experiencing in 2001 the marvelous Ciclovía (CicloRecreoVía) in Bogotá, a group of people – first independently and later as part of a business – have been seeking to implement here in Chile the same fantastic activity. One of the guiding principles of the project is the need to reclaim public space for public use, and that city streets are public spaces that should be multipurpose.

A wide range of authorities, city councils, and other government entities were contacted, in search of support, backing, and legal assistance for the project, which proposed temporarily closing city streets to vehicular traffic and opening them to non-motorized traffic in order to promote recreation and provide a space for peaceful human interaction.

The responses from said officials were generally cold, incredulous, or ambiguous. On the few occasions when some interest was demonstrated and the process initiated, invariably, whether the process was newly begun or farther along, that interest dissolved before the inaugural CicloRecreoVía could take place. More often the project would sit in limbo, with several months passing before any firm decision was made with regards to whether a given municipality was willing to offer real and tangible support to the project.

Fear and Indecision

During the initial period of proposing the project throughout the capital, many supposedly “rational” arguments that tried to justify why the CicloRecreoVía could never happen arose spontaneously and quickly in proposal meetings. Over and over again officials repeated assertions that “Chileans don’t like sports,” or “Someone will steal bikes from the children,” or, most often, “You’ll cause chaos and traffic jams.”

This was neither strange nor unexpected. In every city where this initiative has been considered and that today is executed with great success, it has been necessary to fight, initially, against a large number of “arguments” against local feasibility of such a project.

In spite of this, from time to time officials indicated that the project might succeed. Subsequent to such evaluations, dozens of kilometers were reviewed throughout the capital to determine the possibility of converting some of them into CicloRecreoVías. The grave lack of green space in several comunas was noted, as well as the fact that one comuna has virtually no public space at all. These types of comunas are the ones in which the initiative would have the greatest social impact.

Nevertheless, regardless of how far along the process was, in nearly all cases sufficient obstacles arose (the majority of which relating to the lack of political will) to spoil the groundwork and effort put into the project before it could be realized.

Preparation

Meanwhile, we researched the experiences of other countries in developing the same type of project.

An understanding of topics such as security, logistics, and the training of those responsible for managing the event were fundamental to the success of the project. Hence, the study of Ciclovías which have already been developed and implemented was critical to our success.

The project comes together

Although we gained knowledge in the aforementioned areas and were prepared to provide an efficient and well-developed product, we were unable to attain the support of the municipal authorities necessarily to implement the project.

This situation was difficult to believe, considering the fact that the goal of the activity is nothing less than a rethinking of the cityscape that would allow Santiago to develop on a truly human scale, considering people instead of (or at least in addition to) cars or buildings or profits during decision-making processes.

Even worse was the fact that this lack of interest came from the same country where, if a project is related to infrastructure, real estate, or roads, there is an overabundance of resources and political will ready to accomplish it. Such projects contribute to the slow loss of identity experienced by urban-dwellers, and to the unraveling of the social fabric in our communities. They make it harder to communicate with others in our communities, thereby fostering individualism. Generally speaking, they lead people to reject their potential to be social beings who, in solidarity, maintain and renew their communities.

Despite these challenges, we persisted, keeping in mind the potential for the CicloRecreoVías to have huge impacts socially on the communities in which they were placed. Finally, after five years of hesitations and rejections, the highest authorities of the municipality of La Reina agreed to back the project. Subsequently, after eight months of negotiations, in the beginning of 2005 the CicloRecreoVía La Reina was unveiled.

What we are doing now

CicloRecreoVía currently takes place in the comuna of La Reina every Sunday. We are also in the process of meeting and negotiating with officials from twelve other municipalities in the capital who have expressed interest in bringing the project