Emmanuel John, the vice président of word city cycling attented to Velo-city 2023 world's cycling conference and shared os opinion.
What a fantastic conference experience as the world’s premier cycling conference, the Velo-city 2023 comes to an end in the city of Leipzig, Germany. It was a pleasure for me as I join other world leaders at plenary on thursday sharing on the theme “Reclaiming Public Spaces” for cycling.
On pour stage with me were a Mayor from Copenhagen, Denmark, Deputy Mayor of Gdansk, Belgium (Host city of the 2024 edition of Velo-city), Minister of Mobility, Public Works and Road Safety from Belgium, Commissioner for Walking and Cycling from Birmingham, UK, and Commissioner for Mobility from Texas USA. Moderated by my own sister from another mother (Angola), Velo-city 2023 Chief Moderator, Totinia, a young, vibrant and accomplished conference Moderator from Berlin, the session exrayed the devastating impact of car-centric public spaces and strategies for reclaiming it back with varying experiences from accross the world.
My key message was simple ” build the capacity of decision makers to understand the value of cycling and they will budget for it, political will will be available to recover public spaces for cycling, policies will change and cycling will work… I also stated “there is no advise you can give to a fish to make it accept to live on the mountain” but prove to the fish that it can survive on the mountain by moving it to the mountain through a connected body of waters and it will joyfully remain there, that’s what capacity building does.
Let us #RethinkMobility #VC23