The vandalism that occurred this week at one of the public bicycle stations in Neuquén realized of the widespread use of this type of transfer in the city, increasingly linked to work and procedures, than to recreational or sports use. ANDBetween 100 and 200 cyclists per hour circulate on different bike paths in the first hour of the morning in the city, while the public system records more than 81 trips in the morning, although throughout the city there are 40 bicycles free to use for point-to-point transportation.
“Is notorious the increase, not considerable but gradual, in the number of bicycles that circulate,” said Noelia Rueda Cáceresundersecretary of Administrative and Institutional Coordination of Mobility in Neuquén, in charge of the Road Observatory.
According to the Observatory’s records, the “Sibici” system has more than 11,000 registered users, 7,000 of which are active. The system has 20 bicycles in the downtown area and another 20 in the coastal area, the station on the island 132 which It was vandalized and is currently being remodeled.
To use point-to-point bicycles, they must be previously registered in the system (through the commune’s website) and then the bicycles can be extracted from one of the 4 stations where they are anchored: Paseo dela Costa, Eton, municipality of the West and in front of the Tourism booth in the center, in the Central Park, Olascoaga and the roads.
Rueda described, for example, that between the ETON and the administrative center (Olascoaga and the railroad tracks) there are about 81 trips per day, which is the flow of usersThey pick up their bicycle in the Canal V or Valentina area (at the Sibici station of the Bus terminal) to carry out procedures, purchases or procedures in the banking, judicial or municipal offices.
According records from May and April, along the cycle paths from September 12 to the centeroo Bahía Blanca, they realized of the passage of between 87, 107 and 200 bicycles for private user, from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., on the 3 busiest bike lanes. The survey was carried out during work entry hours and the registration is always lower during return hours around 4:00 p.m.
“We think that It may be due to different work release times, such as, for example, public employment,” said Rueda. The registration was manual, on April 30 and May 30, by direct observation of users for about two hours on the most circulated bike paths such as September 12, Bahía Blanca and Antarctica Argentina at the height of Combate de San Lorenzo.
The more widespread use of bicycles as a means of transportation did not cause a decrease in public transportation, since as reported by the Transportation area, these months have been the busiest. ticket cut per day: 120 thousand tickets were sold on weekdays in the first days of the month of April and May, while on the days of least use, The daily figure did not drop below 100,000 transactions.
- 76 kilometers
- of exclusive space for the mobility of cyclists in the city, including coastal walks and urban connections
He public system has 40 public bicycles, now 37 since the vandalism episode. The perpetrators of the breaking of the SiBici anchors in the coastal area are identified, because there are security cameras at the station of island 132, where the registered use is more recreational that work, as detected at the station public bicycles between ETON and Argentina Avenue.
The information about the destruction and theft became public after a fourth episode. «We made the videos and details available to the prosecution: the same person, or the same people in the last time, are seen going to the station around 3 in the morning with the sole objective of destroying everything, in this On that occasion they were only able to take one bicycle,” he described.
He added that on previous occasions the incident was kept without publicity for better identification of the violent people, but with the destruction of the last time, they were notified of the existence of the cameras pointing at the bicycle station to discourage vandalism. “This sector of public use of bicycles will be disused until it is ordered,” held.
