A recent news report from the Chilean news outlet Meganoticias indicates that the use of bicycles has doubled since the protests started in the middle of October this year. The protests, kindled partly because of the increase on public transportation fares, have resulted in the partial closing of the subway service. This and other factors have had an important impact in urban mobility within Santiago de Chile.
Tomás Exhiburú, a Chilean architect, measured the number of cyclists on one of the busiest streets in Santiago. On Monday, October 20th, 892 cyclists used the Ricardo Lyon bike route per hour, when two months before the number was 450. Since then, Tomás Exhiburú and his team have verified the architects’ initial research.
The architect and his team are looking for ways to expand and make the use of bicycles safer, as well as to figure out new ways of transportation in these times of crisis. There is a call for people in Santiago to fill out an online survey aimed to gather mobility data and preferences.
The Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek believes that acts of social discontent such as the protests in Chile are symptoms of our times and they are not going anywhere. In fact, they seem to be here to stay will continue to spread across countries.
Resources
- The original article by Meganoticias on the doubling of bicycle use can be found here.
- In case you were wondering, this is Tomás Exhiburú’s Twitter handle: @tomasechiburu He is constantly informing about the latest developments on the protests in Santiago de Chile.
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