Velo-city 2018 article series featuring mini interviews on plenary speakers continue with Paula Bisiau, plenary speaker for the plenary: Megacities.

Ms. Bisiau is Undersecretary of Sustainable and Safe Mobility of Buenos Aires City Government. This area works on public policies regarding road safety, walkability and cycling promotion as a key urban mode of transport.

A quick chat with Paula Bisiau:

1. What does Access to Life mean to you?

As we all know, transport is consider "the life blood of the city". This is not only because it allows people to move from one place to another everyday: it's about what it means, what it represents. Public transport has an active role in every social inclusion process, because it provides de possibility to access a job, an education, health care, cultural activities, among all the things a city has to offer.

In Buenos Aires we have a free public bike share, integrated with other means of transportation, allowing every citizen to move freely, independently, to reach its potential within a sustainable alternative.

Additionaly, Access to Life means starting to include a gender perspective in the design and planification of the cities, in order to narrow the gap between man and women in terms of personal and professional development. A city built with a gender perspective will also mean a city friendly for all groups.

2. What cycling lessons are you bringing to Rio?

I think the most important lesson I learnt from all these years in charge of promoting sustaninable mobility in Buenos Aires is that, in order to make a city bike friendly, you have to develop an overall plan that encourage people to use the bicycle, not just for fun, but as an actual means of transportation. This integrates: a safe and connected infrastructure (bikelane network); an available and easy-to-find bike share system; and most important, the promotion of the use of de bike, especially among the young ones, aiming to achieve a cultural change.

3. What are you looking forward to the most at Velo-city 2018?

I hope to share enriching experiences and good practices in terms of sustainable mobility, to have an exchange of actions and policies that can inspire and increase the number of cyclists in Buenos Aires. I'm also very interested in seeing the most recent technological breakthroughs regarding bikes and urban mobility. 

4. What do you think is the added value of a global interdisciplinary approach to cycling?

Despite the local particularities, all cities around the world face the same problems in terms of sustainable mobility and transport. That's why it's important to work and face those problems with a multi-disciplinary approach. Cultural change has to be promoted with a transversal sight, and knowing other experiences world wide can show some light to these problems.

5. What will you visit by bike in Rio?

Every time I visit Rio I have to go for a bike ride along the coast, from Copacabana to Leblon.

The “Megacities” plenary is scheduled for Day 4 of Velo-city 2018; Tuesday 12^th June 2018 at 16.40-17.40.

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