Another Traffic Jam is Possible!

Did you hear the frogs along the roads in Belem as you were waiting for traffic to clear (so you could reach UFPA or UFRA)? Could you turn around and talk to the people behind you? It's a shame that a gathering of 100,000 people seeking to create another world continues to depend on the same transit technology that is destroying the planet. Some of us have experienced a different kind of "traffic jam" and we want you to know it is a great improvement! We hear the frogs and talk to strangers, and experience the city and traffic in an entirely new way.

There were some glimmers of hope at the Belem World Social Forum. At the UFRA campus a system of bicycle taxis was introduced, hinting at much greater possibilities. Those possibilities, in turn, were asserted in a defiant celebration on Friday, January 30 in the Amazon's first-ever Critical Mass (or Bicicletada). One hundred cyclists seized the streets, shrugging off a steady rain, and rode all over Belem, invading a gas station, crashing a ban on bikes at a restricted public park, exchanging cheers and waves with Belem's citizens everywhere, and with WSF delegates at luxury hotels. "Mais adrenalina, menos gasolina!" and "Mais Bicicletas, menos carros" echoed through the streets, altering forever the imaginations of countless people, who now have at least a small taste of that other transit world that is not only possible, but already here.

We invite you to fight for the human right to breathe clean air, to come and go safely and comfortably, and above all, to leave a healthy planet for future generations. We are making a quiet statement against oil wars when we ride our bikes and to further this statement we demand that the World Social Forum ban cars from its future sites and instead, provide a fleet of "library bicycles" for the use of delegates (plus a fast and frequent system of electric shuttles for those who can't or won't bicycle). Other worlds ARE possible, but they are ALREADY HERE if we only have the vision and the will to start changing now. Isn't it time to break with private cars and the gasoline-powered engine NOW, not after some unknown future revolution? The planet depends on it, and bicyclists demand it!

Look for cycle activism in your city, and if there isn't any, start it!

signed,

Critical Mass cyclists from San Francisco, Sao Paolo, Brasilia and beyond...

Belem, Para, February 1, 2009