Benel D. Lagua l February 23, 2023 l Manila Bulletin
When the Ateneo BS Management Engineering Class of 1977 decided to do a small fund drive to pay it forward on its 45th year anniversary, several initiatives were considered like scholarship programs and classroom support. But what stood out in the brainstorming was a project that promised maximum impact for the level of investment, bicycle assistance. Championing the cause of the program was our urban planning expert, Dr. Robert Siy.
Dr. Siy has always been a mobility advocate dating from his experience in the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and most recently as a consultant at the Department of Transportation and Communication. He opened the eyes of the class on the reasons we should care about the benefits of a bicycle support program.
AltMobility.PH enumerated some of the important statistics of supporting the biking community. One out of four Filipinos owns a bike. Around 5.4 million Filipinos use bikes to get to work and run errands. Environmentally, bicycles produce ten times less emissions compared to cars. And infrastructure-wise, it is 9.7 times cheaper to construct a 1-km bike line compared to a 1-km car lane.
Bike commuting provides aerobic exercise that helps prevent chronic diseases like blood pressure and diabetes. In this era of exacerbated mental issues especially among our youth, biking can prevent or help treat depression and anxiety, improve memory, and decrease the risk of Alzheimer’s. Financially, expenses for yearly bike maintenance are modest .
While bikes are relatively cheap, there is a disadvantaged segment of our society that can benefit from bike donations as it can support their transportation needs and their livelihood. A classmate active in the farmer’s movement identified a cooperative in Borbon, Cebu who could benefit from such a donation.
As in any advocacy, we needed to translate the ideas into action. Fortunately, we found television personality and former volleyball star Gretchen Ho who has parlayed her celebrity status into being an ambassador for important social and health issues, including bicycles. It was also providential that Gretchen was a BS Management Engineering graduate.
The group learned that Gretchen Ho had a “Donate A Bike, Save A Job” campaign providing more than 1,000 bicycles to the most vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic. We reached out to her and with little hesitation, she helped us, explained her program, and connected us to suppliers not just of the bicycles but of the needed peripherals like helmet, vests, air pumps, etc.
We successfully made donations to a farmer’s cooperative in Cebu, scholarship students in a technical/vocational school in Cebu City, another rural cooperative in Talibon, Bohol and a forthcoming one for medical hospital employees, also in the Visayas.
Meanwhile, we learned about a pioneering biking class initiated by the Ateneo Senior High School (SHS) which is both innovative and inspiring. The inclusion of biking in the curriculum does not only provide exercise and improve mobility in a big campus like the Ateneo. It is a good way to get kids off their gadgets, go outside and connect with friends. Operating a bicycle is empowering, teaches the young adult to be responsible and independent.
To encourage the youth to bring their bikes to campus, there must be end of the road infrastructure and we decided to donate four pieces of four-loop, inverted-U bicycle racks to the SHS. We likewise donated a set to the Ateneo Loyola Schools, the college campus. This is to encourage safe biking and to provide security and orderly storage/parking in the campus. The vision is to have more of these bike racks in several strategic locations within the University so students need not bring cars to the campus, and parents can just drop the kids at entrances from where they can get their bicycles and ride to their specific units.
In 2016, the city of Portland, Oregon developed a bike share system called “Biketown”. It entered a $10 million deal with Nike which will make available 1,000 bikes and 100 stations throughout the city. Today, there are 1,500 bikes at over 180 stations across downtown and several neighborhoods. People can grab a bike whenever they need one and drop it off wherever they’re going.
The system is digitally smart (dockless with software and technology on each bike). The Portland Board of Transportation promotes the system as a transit/mobility tool but of course the sponsor has a fitness-centric business model. While the main bike sharing program requires rental fees, there is also a “Biketown-for-All” program that gives free bike share passes to people who meet income eligibility requirements.
During peak hours at the Ateneo campus, it will take around 30 minutes to get out of the campus. This is a challenge for the planners of the University which by the way is determined to make the whole school co-ed. A modest scale bicycle sharing program a la Portland could be one of the options to improve mobility within, and its success can inspire local government units to implement something similar.
This may be a small initiative, but we are hopeful some of our bigger corporations can consider more support to the bicycle community. The Portland model may be a dream. Putting in place measures, systems, and infrastructure (like bicycle racks) is a first step. We need to make biking convenient, easy, fun, and safe as it remains one of the most sustainable mobility systems around.
*** (Benel Dela Paz Lagua was previously EVP and Chief Development Officer at the Development Bank of the Philippines. He is an active FINEX member and an advocate of risk-based lending for SMEs. Today, he is independent director in progressive banks and in some NGOs. The views expressed herein are his own and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of his office as well as FINEX.)