Your bike is your health..an important initiative and absent planning

During the past few days, the third phase of the Your Bike Your Health initiative launched by the Ministry of Youth and Sports under the auspices of the President of the Republic.
The initiative is about facilities and installments for the purchase of bicycles and electric bicycles subsidized by the government to encourage the use of bicycles in Egypt as a means of exercising and with time as a means of transportation.
The initiative started in July last year and distributed nearly 1,000 bikes in the first phase, and 1,400 in the second phase, which was in August last year, and currently in the third phase, the ministry aims to sell nearly 3,200 bicycles of different types, including 2,000 mountain bikes. , 600 hybrid bikes, 400 girls’ bikes, 200 electric bikes.
The prices of bicycles in the initiative range from 1900 to approximately 12 thousand pounds, depending on their type, and all these bikes can be paid in installments with Banque Misr without interest.
We advise all those who are interested to register their data to get the bike from the initiative’s website
https://www.emys.app/sport/bike/public/login
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What is missing in this initiative?
– Of course, the initiative like this is a very positive thing, that it is supported by the government, although it is still very small in size, and this is because the Egyptians do not have a culture of wheel travel in general, or we can say it is limited.
– Until now, the 5,000 thousand bikes that the government has put forward is a very small number of the initiative that the government put forward in 2019 under the second name “A bicycle for every citizen” after the president’s words about the increasing weight of Egyptians and their need to take care of sports, at that time the ministry said that it plans to offer 100,000 bikes.
– Riding a calf in Egypt is a very important thing, not only for the sake of health, but because it is a cheap, safe and economical means of transportation that saves a lot if used correctly.
Unfortunately, with initiatives like these, we see something completely opposite happening, which is that the sidewalks are scattered in many places, the streets are widened to serve cars at faster speeds, and therefore they will not be suitable for bicycles.
We see large suburbs that were, in the recent past, a very good place for cycling and moving around, such as Maadi and Heliopolis. Now, road expansions are taking place, frighteningly affecting the lives of people who are not riding cars, whether they are walking in the street or cyclists.
– Therefore, with this initiative, we need to have an actual planning of how to transform the streets of Egypt into friendly streets for cycling, walking, running and even exercising. The areas where this works in Egypt are very few, and most of them are located in the middle of compounds or in some new cities.
– Therefore, Cairo and the big cities in Egypt need a redesign of the streets, as they have lanes for cycling only, and in designated corners for them in the different urban communities.
– It is possible in this context to exploit unused parts in the governorates, such as the railway campus, in which a bicycle path can be used, or in areas on the Nile to encourage people to exercise, or use the bicycle to move around. .
– You must offer incentives for people to use bicycles by imposing fees, for example, on new vehicles, or part of the license renewal fees, and this proceeds go towards developing the bicycle infrastructure in Egypt, and of course this is with encouragement from the state and ensuring that these resources do not actually go to the bicycle infrastructure No money and salvation, in the sense that it remains a real project.
– Egypt, compared to the countries of the world, is very few in the use of bicycles, a country like China has half a billion wheels, and Beijing and Shanghai are the two crowded cities in the country, and in them about 50-60% of the population use bicycles, and this is because in the design of the city from the first in places designated for wheels, therefore with The time the citizen has developed this culture.
Other developed countries such as Switzerland have 48% of the population using bicycles, Finland 60% and Norway also about 60%, and all these countries have what they have in common is that they have an infrastructure for the movement of people on wheels, not only that, but many hurrying parking lots equipped to park the calf yet It is used, and in some municipalities there is a wheel for rent by the hour.
In crowded cities, they always try to reduce the entry of cars into the city center and make something called car free zones, meaning residential squares where it is only allowed to cycle or walk as a solution to traffic congestion problems and encourage people to walk and exercise.
– A country like the Netherlands is one of the most countries in the world where bicycles are used, which are constantly developed in different forms, to facilitate the user’s life. It is a much smaller country than Egypt, but in the end it has an infrastructure that serves this idea, to the extent that bicycle sales reached in 2018. Almost one million bikes, and its revenues amounted to 1.22 billion euros.
– Can someone say that this is the Netherlands and there is a difference and so on, and the response to it is that in the sixties and seventies of the last century, Dutch cities were working to provide more space for cars, and there was no priority for bicycles until the late eighties and early nineties, which means that they changed in a short time, Provided that he has a serious transformation plan.
– On the other hand, we have the cost of pollution in Greater Cairo, but about 1.25% of the GDP annually, meaning we are talking about 70-80 billion pounds annually, the cost of pollution in the streets of Cairo.
– This cost is paid by increased fuel burn due to overcrowding, and thus significant effects on the public health of Egyptians in addition to a decrease in productivity at work.
– Therefore, an initiative like encouraging Egyptians to ride a calf is a very important and positive thing that the government has begun to think about, but it is not just media speculation and the president’s directives that solve problems, but good planning and the actual will for reform.
– In the sense that even if the ministry distributed thousands of bikes that it wanted to distribute, but without radical modifications to the road infrastructure in Egypt, no people would ride the bike, because no one is free from his age simply, meaning in the streets of Cairo, for example, or other governorates.
– We hope this initiative will graduate to the integrated project phase that will be transferred to the infrastructure so that it will be realistic, and have a positive impact on traffic, the health of Egyptians and the economy.