The Provbici proyect is a way to understand and change our reality. It gathers a young community together to use bicycles and to go safely to school. It cares for the environment, reducing pollution and creating a healthy-lifestyle culture.
Tes Idées
The main problem our team identified is the traffic and its side effects. Guadalajara has approximately 1,495 million citizens and there is a car for every 2.5 people. There are many new buildings being built in Guadalajara and near these construction sites traffic congestion is worse.
But what makes traffic a problem for our city? Traffic has different side effects such as air pollution, and accidents, and it also causes us to be late to work or school. Guadalajara is the municipality with the most air pollution in the metropolitan region and its green areas are not enough to counteract the greenhouse gases produced by cars.
Air pollution affects us because it causes health problems like allergies, cancer, and respiratory problems; we also have less oxygen so we may find that we feel more tired and are less productive in our daily activities. Car accidents occur very often; approximately 46, 800 car accidents were registered in a year in the metropolitan area. This affects us because every day we are exposed to being in a car accident.
Tes initiatives
After identifying the problem we started thinking about solutions. We came up with the idea of reducing traffic in Providencia, in Guadalajara; to do so, we decided to make a ‘bike lane’ in Providencia.
We believe that with this idea we are not only reducing traffic; it has other benefits like saving money on gas, helping the environment (less air pollution), and allowing people to enjoy a nice ride with companions; it also helps develop the habit of punctuality, and it allows people to do some exercise every morning which can help reduce stress, making you feel more active and be more productive.
We then decide how our bike lane would work and the route it would follow. The bike lane would be used in the mornings, starting at 7:10 am (with a five minute grace period). People that live near Providencia can join in the ride to get to work or school by bike, and people that want to join in just for fun or for the morning exercise can also join the group.
1) After that, we discussed the safety rules and requirements in order to be able to participate in the bike lane. They are:
• Wearing a bike helmet
• Checking that your chain and bike are in good condition
• Carrying a bottle of water
• Arriving on time
• Using the appropriate gear so that cars can see you
• Staying in line, following staff indications and not causing trouble (no screaming, no pushing, etc.)
2) We then decided to make a Prezi presentation with information about the bike lane which we added to a Facebook page along with some pictures of our weekly work.
3) After that, we came to the conclusion that since the idea would be available for everyone, we also had to promote it through other methods, so we decided to design a brochure and print copies of it to hand out. This brochure was also added as a picture on Facebook.
4) Next, to have more followers, we decided to make a promotional video of the route the bikes would follow; the video was then edited and also uploaded to the Facebook page.
Our results up until now have been positive. We had a meeting with the Principal of Colegio La Paz, Oscar Salcido, to show him our proposal, and we had a very positive response from him; he offered his support to our team and gave us the opportunity to present our project in front of the middle school and high school students of Colegio La Paz.
5) When presenting the project to the students, they looked excited about it; some of them joined up and we got a lot of likes on our Facebook page.
6) Another positive response was from the colony’s president, who we also presented the project to and he gave us his support and the opportunity to make an official presentation of the route with guests, and offered the protection of local police.
With all this support and our project well organized, we hope to also be able to present our project to the transit administration and have their support as well so we can inaugurate Provbici.
