This past week the Velo-city Series and Global Policies team and members of the World Cycling Alliance (WCA) were in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to attend the annual BiciRio conference and hold kick-off Velo-city 2018 workshop.

It was the 6^th edition of BiciRio, co-organized by the city of Rio and Transporte Ativo – a WCA member. With over 80 participants and a range of speakers, the conference was a success. Altamirando Moraes, Under-Secretary of Environment for the City of Rio, gave a great presentation on the master plan for Rio and the recent re-allocation of space from cars to bicycles downtown on Avenue Rio Branco. Manfred Neun – ECF President – gave a presentation on Velo-city series and its core messages.

Following these interventions, Clarisse Linke (ITDP), Daniel Guth (Ciclocidade SP), José Lobo (Transporte Ativo) and Victor Andrade (UFRJ) made for an interesting and lively panel discussion – looking at the needs for Brazil and Central-South America for the upcoming Velo-city 2018 – the first South American Velo-city. It was a stimulating exchange, with some pointing out the need to go beyond the seemingly basic “cities for people” rhetoric and to push deeper into the technical and political issues. There was a call for a “tropicalization” of the Velo-city program to make it more relevant to the local and regional groups in South and Central America. A clear consensus among the panelists was about the role of civil society, with more than one panelist pointing out that public interest is not the same as the majority – the majority uses motorized transport. So how do we motivate someone to change their behaviour or change their mode of transportation?

The afternoon sessions comprised of three WCA board members: D V Manohar, Tim Blumenthal and Lake Sagaris. Manohar presented on the Hyderabad MetroRail project and cycling in his region in India. Blumenthal presented on PeopleForBikes, the Green Lane Project and discussed the newest project called the “Big Jump”, which aims to double cycling in selected American cities in a very small timeframe. Sagaris spoke from a sociological prespective, introducing the idea of social sustainability and an ecology of modes.

The day ended with presentations by Martijn te Lintelo (City of Nijmegen – co-host with Arnhem of Velo-city 2017) and Laura Kok from Movilization.

The following day, participants were invited on a bicycle ride along Rio’s cost from Copacabana to the city centre. While the presentations and discussions were interesting and invigorating, it was clear that everyone was equally impressed by the sunshine and the seaside bicycle path. While in Rio, the Velo-city Series team held three days of workshops, including the kick-off workshop with local and regional stakeholders to prepare Velo-city 2018. The meetings were impressive in their scope of stakeholders present, breadth of discussion and outcomes. Get ready for the tropicalization of Velo-city in 2018!

If you would like to learn more about BiciRio, please visit their website (in Portuguese).
ECF’s pictures of the events can be found here.