TRANSPORT-CUBA: Bicycles Losing Ground

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Sep 26 2001 (IPS) - The once omnipresent bicycle is becoming less and less common in the streets of the capital of Cuba, despite the health benefits of this green-friendly, inexpensive means of transportation, and the continued shortfall in collective public transport.

“In the worst years of the crisis, I had no other way to get to the university but on my bicycle. I would like to keep using it now, but I can’t get the parts I need to fix it,” said Mariela Rodríguez, a 31-year-old engineer.

Like thousands of other university students in Cuba, Rodríguez bought her bicycle at a price subsidised by the state, which imported large numbers of bicycles and sold them at a low price to students and workers in the first half of the 1990s.

Authorities had already set up a network of bicycle repair shops and created bicycle parking areas and special bike lanes to promote the use of the cheap, ecological means of transportation.

“I bought my bicycle at a very low price, and it solved my transport problems, because when the socialist bloc, Cuba’s chief supplier, vanished, so did the ‘guagua’ [bus],” added Rodríguez.

The break-up of the Soviet Union and disappearance of the east European socialist bloc in the early 1990s had a heavy social impact in Cuba, due to fuel shortages caused by the loss of this island nation’s main trading partners, and the sharp drop in the number of vehicles on the road.

By 1993, the number of buses had shrunk to less than half the total circulating in 1989, and the routes had been cut by nearly three-quarters in that same period, so Rodríguez had no other option than to pedal around 15 kms a day to and from the university.

Studies found that toxic exhaust fumes from vehicles diminished by approximately one-third in that period, since around eight percent of the 2.2 million residents of Havana depended on bicycles for their day-to-day transport needs.

According to official estimates, there are around one million bicycles in Havana and three million in all of Cuba, which has a population of 11 million.

But many are collecting dust in a corner, because the parts needed to fix them are not available, or due to improvements in the mass transit system resulting from the slight economic recovery of the past few years.

“Many people got tired of searching fruitlessly for the parts they needed, and ended up selling or abandoning their bicycles,” said Roberto García, who has a small repair shop.

García obtained the licence needed to set up his own shop in 1994. Back then, the flow of clients never let up. But business is no longer so brisk. “Sometimes I would work until nine PM, but these days my clientele has been cut down to half or less, even though I have the only repair shop in the neighbourhood,” he said.

The number of cars and buses on the streets of Havana has increased again in recent years, as many companies and state entities use their own buses to transport their staff, and a pool of “collective taxis” covers a number of heavily travelled routes.

Nevertheless, the mass transit system continues to fall short of demand, and the bicycle is still a necessity, said José Saavedra, the coordinator of a group that promotes the environmental and health benefits of cycling.

Saavedra said that before Cuba can return to the bicycle as a widespread, eco-friendly alternative means of transportation, the country’s continued economic difficulties must be overcome, because they limit the creation of the necessary infrastructure.

“Bicycles get worn out, and if you travel on roads outside the city, you have to be well-prepared. Besides, there is no stable supply of spare parts,” he said.

Saavedra also stressed the lack of road signs for bicycle traffic and the bad state of roads and highways, and pointed out that the market was not yet in a position to offer the equipment needed, including the right clothing, to make cycling safe.

The statistics back up Saavedra’s arguments. In the first nine months of 2000, 158 bike riders were killed in traffic accidents.

The climate also conspires against everyday use of the bicycle in this Caribbean island nation, where temperatures and humidity run high, and rainfall is frequent during one-third of the year.

Nevertheless, avid cyclists defend this means of transport and the benefits it brings in terms of quality of life, from a physical as well as a psychological standpoint, especially for those who have to commute five to 15 kms a day.

Several bike clubs that organise educational and recreational tours for locals and foreign tourists have emerged in Cuba in the past few years.

Another initiative was carried out with the help of a non- governmental organisation from Canada, to promote the bicycle as a means of “clean” transportation. Two months ago, four young women trained by Canadian technicians opened a shop in Old Havana, where local residents can buy and rent bicycles or have their own bikes repaired.

Meanwhile, Ciclex, a company that was founded in 1995, plans to manufacture around 150,000 bicycles over the next five years, a large proportion of which will be exported to Central America and the Caribbean or sold in the chain of government-run stores that only accept dollars.

“We hope that in the not-so-distant future, we can satisfy the great demand for spare parts,” Ciclex business manager María Cristina García told IPS. The company also assembles motorcycles and household appliances.