Cycle Awareness Campaign

We and our environment pay dearly for the added convenience we choose to have. Over the last few years the number of cyclists on the road have increased tremendously globally, some countries more than others. The number of vehicles on the road are still too many though calling out to more cyclists. Cars are still preferred as the most reliable means of getting from A to B. Recently Gothenburg has taken the initiative to introduce a cycle awareness campaign called Testcyklisterna. A concept which involves offering to its local residents free bikes to own for 6 months.

The project aims to encourage people to use their bikes more as well as increase the number of cyclists on the road, instead of relying mostly on their cars. With the various add-on facilities and the different types of bicycles that are available will make people realise how bikes are a great alternative to cars, for example; transporting people, picking up shopping, foldable bikes for commuters etc, making it adaptable to an individual’s daily living. With the various cycling infrastructure being laid down, this is making cycling easier, enjoyable and safer for everyone.

The prerequisite of having ownership over the bike for six months requires the owner to use the bike at least three times a week. At the end of the 6 month period, the owner has the option of purchasing the bike.

INTERVIEW

Below is a short interview with Sara-Linnéa Östervall who came up with this green initiative.

1.What inspired you initially to launch this cycling scheme as a way of raising awareness amongst the community?
 
We work with many different projects to try and affect people’s travel behavior, and from that experience I believe a powerful way to do it is by creating and showing good examples that people can identify with. Creating the feeling of “if he/she can bike – so can I” is the base of the project.

2.What do you believe could be an alternative approach to encourage more bike usage or increase the number of cyclists on the road? Eg Reward Scheme etc

We do work with several other approaches as well, information campaigns, influencing the municipalities to build better cycling infrastructure etc.

3.One of the pre-requisites of owning the bike for six months requires the owner to use the bike at least three times, how are you able to determine its usage?

The cyclists report to us every two weeks how they’ve been using the bike. The rule is they should replace their car trips by bike three days a week (not in total).

4.Not many cities have the appropriate cycle infrastructure to ensure safety and to support a cycling culture, how can they address this issue so that people are not demotivated from starting to cycle?

That’s also one of our hopes with this project, that the participating municipalities will get direct contact with and feedback from some cyclists that can tell them exactly what needs to be done with the cycling infrastructure.


5.Do you believe that people are genuinely developing a green conscience or are they following trends which will eventually die out?

I believe they are, but in this project we try to focus not so much on the “being green” of cycling but more on the actual positive effects for the individual. Better health, better economy… The environment is more a bonus here.

6.In what other area(s) do you see changes being made in an attempt to address the carbon foot print?

As an organization we try to work with basically all possible areas of reducing carbon foot prints – energy efficiency in industries and households, renewable energy production, transportation, food, consumption… There’s lots to be done but also lots of work going on.

Using alternative eco-friendly means of transportation is being preferred more and more, year after year. Each additional individual who prefers to use their bike than their car bring us a foot step closer and one carbon foot print less to achieving a greener environment.