Dr Piotr Kuropatwiński: THE CONTRIBUTION OF CYCLING TO PEACE AND QUALITY OF LIFE IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE
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Presentation at the Veloforum conference in Lviv. Ukraine, in October, 2014
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Dr Piotr Kuropatwiński: THE CONTRIBUTION OF CYCLING TO PEACE AND QUALITY OF LIFE IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE
- 1. THE CONTRIBUTION OF CYCLING TO PEACE AND QUALITY OF LIFE IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE Dr Piotr Kuropatwiński University of Gdańsk Pomeranian Association Common Europe European Cyclists’ Federation 5th VELOFORUM CONFERENCE, LVIV, UKRAINE 10TH-11TH OCTOBER 2014
- 2. Life’s like riding a bicycle – if you want to keep balance, you need to move on
- 5. Speaker as such • Senior lecturer of economic policy issues at the University of Gdańsk • Author of the „Concept of development of the cycling system in Pomeranian Voivodship – Green Paper • Initiator of the Gdańsk Charter of Active Mobility • Took part in 11 Velo-city Conferences and a number of EU sponsored cycling promotion projects • Author of a series of feuilletons on urban cycling issues in a popular Polish daily newspaper
- 6. Source: Gdańsk Lviv Donetsk
- 7. www.ecf.com
- 12. Road traffic safety records No. of fatalities resulting from road traffic accidents per 1 M inhabitants in EU-27 in 2011
- 17. Source: Alex Sully, BYPAD project presentation. Tczew 2008
- 20. Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world
- 21. Source: Do not ask what the country can do for you, rather ask what can you do for your country
- 23. Lord will empower his people. Lord will give his people the blessing of peace
Editor's Notes
- At the very start I would like to thank Ksenia, Viktor and the ECF staff back in Brussels for providing me with support and giving me the opportunity to address the audience of cycling advocates from several regions and countries of Europe, assembled here to discuss the issue of cycling. Cycling, as you know, is like living, if you want to keep balance, you need to move.
- For the more experienced this was a paraphrase of a statement of Albert Einstein: Life is like riding a bicycle – if you want to keep balance you need to move on. Giving a quality speech to such an eminent audience is not very difficult: you need to remember, to quote some recognized giants from the past. When you stand on their shoulders and see further.
- So what can an official from Brussels tell the statesmen like you? Statesmen, as you know, are different from politicians: they tend to think about the next elections, statesmen think about the next generations. This is the message I remember from the first Velo-city conference I took part in the Austrian city of Graz in 1999 – fifteen years ago. This message of Hillary Clinton who appeared there as a guest - on a film – explained her involvement in promotion of cycling among young Americans getting overweight and obese in catastrophical numbers because of lack of basic exercise on their way to schools.
- We may then rightly feel that we are statesmen: we need to have a long term vision and stamina to go a long way promoting cycling. The Chinese proverb says: if you want to start a long journey, you need to know how to make the first steps. I understand that the first steps on the road to create a liveable city thanks to the increased share of cycling trips in total daily journeys have already been made in Lviv. I understand, that you expect to hear from me some suggestions, which may help you to achieve higher efficiency of your efforts. Don’t worry, I will not disappoint you in this respect.
- First something about me: for those who have not been to the third Veloforum in Kiev in June 2011, where I arrived as a newly elected vice-president of the ECF, together with Frans Schoot – another ECF vice president and Bernhard Ensink – secretary general of the federation. To keep the story short, more will be given at my presentation tomorrow (later presentation today) I feel the need to tell something about the sources of my special emotional attachment to Lviv and Ukraine as such.
- My grandfather, a graduate of St Petersburg University of Technology, used to be a technical director of a coal mine located in Youzovka well before 1914. My father was born there in September 1917. I do not need to tell you, what happened in October/November 1917 in the area we live in, and I do not need to tell you, what is the current name of Youzovka (Donetsk).
- Thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit of my grandmother, she organized a journey back to Poland when my father was only several months old on a rented, horse driven cart. One of my dreams is then to visit the birth place of my father and have the opportunity to feel safe while riding a bike there. The ECF has already concocted even a more ambitious vision: to create long distance cycling routes across the whole European continent – from Lisbon in the West to Urals in the East, from the North Cape in the North to the Matapan Cape in the South. The north- south route has even been nearly doubled: the 13th EuroVelo route – in other terms the Iron Curtain Trail going from the Norwegian – Russian border point at the White Sea to the Bulgarian- Greek border point at the Black Sea.
- You remember perhaps the question to radio Yerevan: I have a radically critical opinion about the Soviet government: should I reveal it in public? The answer of the radio was simple: it depends, whether you want to eat black bread at the White Sea or the white bread at the Black Sea. The radio would now perhaps need to change that answer a little, but unfortunately the wisdom contained in it seems to retain much of its validity. If you want to understand the present and want to have a decent future, learn history. What is the lessons I learnt from the history of my city and from the history of cycling promotion there and in other parts of Europe?
- When I was a boyscout I could feel history and had to learn history. In Westerplatte, where one of the first shots of the 2nd world war were blown, I was standing in 1967 in a line of people greeting General de Gaulle, the president of France, who tried to promote the vision of Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals. I remember the big letters planted there “Never More the War!” at the order of a regime, which was not very friendly to its people. Three years after the De Gaulle’s visit, while studying at the university in Gdansk, I heard the gunfire used to intimidate the shipyard workers striking in the Gdynia shipyard in December 1970.
- No wonder then, that ten years later I greeted with unfettered enthusiasm the birth of Solidarność in August 1980 – at that time I did not know, that it was a start of a peaceful revolution, which after another period of 9 years has changed the face of Europe. Last year, from late November 2013 until now, I f have closely followed the developments in Ukraine and at the coast of the Black Sea, which I had visited on a yacht cruising from Odessa to Yalta in 1974 – the time of East-West detente.
- What does it have to do with cycling? The answer is simple: I got involved in cycling and was elected to the position of the vice-president of the ECF claiming, that cycling may fruitfully contribute to the cause of peace in an undeclared war: the war taking place between those who believe that only large and fast is beautiful against those, who think that the slow and fast is beautiful, even if they do not know about it.
- The war between car addicted road users, pedestrians and cyclists. Since the 2nd world war there were far more road accidents victims in the world then were killed during the actual fighting between 1939 and 1945.
- A speech needs metaphors: Here is one. Is it possible to reconcile the conflict between fire and water? The quick, short answer is usually: no. An answer based on a philosophical reflection would be: well.... it is possible but rather difficult. In fact, every housewife in millions of kitchens around the world does not need sophisticated reflection. They reconcile fire with water with the bottom of their pots, preparing meals for their families.
- Cycling promotion is in my perception that very tool: the way to reduce or to eliminate the perception of relations between people in road space as relations between members of hostile tribes: the motorists, the cyclists and the pedestrians. If you think about cycling as a sport, you may immediately think about rivalry, speed, helmets, collisions and conflicts.
- If you perceive cycling as a tool for every day mobility, you find, that it may mean relax, efficiently invested effort, health and good mood – everything that favours reflection, understanding and empathy. Everything that favours good quality of life in modern cities.
- I did not come here to tell you what you should do in your towns and cities to achieve the aims of the ECF – making more people cycle more often, or, in measurable terms, convert the non-cycling or beginner cycling city into a climber or champion climbing city – with at least 15% of total daily trips made by bike. The rule we need to apply while engaging in the promotion of cycling is to think globally and act locally. The content of any activities that enhance cycling need to take into consideration local conditions and apply tailor made solutions. When I say local conditions, I mean not only physical, geographical or climatic conditions, but also institutional, legal as well as social communication and behavioural aspects. Cycling is not only or mainly about quality of engineering solutions: cycling promotion is about improving the capacity to adopt change – change in the mind set. The term applied imaginology was invented by a Polish comedian, who ridiculed the oppressive regime in the 1970s. You will improve your conditions most when you extend your imagination – this is applied imaginology in a nutshell.
- When everybody around you claims that you cannot convert a car oriented city into a wealthy, active mobility oriented city with high quality of life, you may use the argument: history has often proved that when everybody thinks that something can’t be done, there appears a guy who does not know that it cannot be done and does it. This is recent Gdansk, Pomeranian and Polish history in a nutshell.
- Lech Walesa, a man with little formal education but a lot of practical wisdom, did not know, that there is no way out of the oppressive situation the Polish people experienced during several post-war decades. He was, however, able to understand, that you need to define your constraints and act, where you can have the best results to convert your apparently stubborn and stupid opponents into partners. While being given the opportunity to appear on a national TV programme, he grasped the opportunity to address not his immediate adversary, but to address the general public, longing for freedom but also longing for better life. The car in his historical speech of late November 1988, which started the last stage of disintegration of the communist regime in Poland was used as a symbol of progress: the western societies were developing fast as if going by car, while Poland was lagging behind on a bike.
- In 2007, while asked about the greatest practical benefits of the change in the system that he had initiated, while celebrating the 25th anniversary of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, he said: I am most happy with the high quality cycling tracks built in the city of Gdansk, where I can enjoy riding to relax and appropriately organize the ideas that come to my mind.
- The greatest challenge of grass root cycling advocacy organisations is not the resistance of opponents. The greatest challenge is to properly identify the points of support, which we can use to leverage change in their neighbourhood or the city. Now I quote Archimedes: Give me a point of support and a lever long enough and I will raise the Earth.
- This lever are our ideas and ways of communicating with the decision makers and the general public. More about it will be in my presentation, now I will only tell you, that we, as cycling advocates, should think like John F. Kennedy. We should not ask, what our town or city can do for cyclists. We should ask ourselves, what can the cyclists do for the people living in a given town or city. We may be labeled as cyclists, cycling is an element, that defines our identity to some extent, but we should oppose attempts to be labeled as cyclists – a frequent source of irritation for impatient drivers. If me manage to promote cycling together with the benefits it brings, like better health, better efficiency of spatial planning and greater fun for all, people and decision makers will understand, that it is a good catalyst of change of urban development thinking in the right direction.
- We need experts to plan high quality cycling networks and promotion campaigns. We need, however, to remember, that if we want to build a ship, we should not send people to the woods to cut trees to prepare planks and erect masts. We need to make them long for the immense magnitude of the sea. Cycling is about changing ourselves and our world. It is about understanding others and extending our imagination. Without it the world’s history of literature would not have a man born in Zhitomir, called Joseph Conrad. Few British know, that he was a Ukrainian born of Polish parents English writer. But he was a living example of a man who understood the role of words in the process of building bridges between people of different national backgrounds. He came from a far away country, of which the people of the “civilized” world knew nothing. This was the formulation I used while starting my first presentation at the world’s Velo-city congress. Ukraine, with its rich history and commitment to freedom needs to be better known in the world. Cycling may be a good tool to attain this goal, since direct discussions carried out at local round cycling tables with local and external experts may be a great school to learn how to achieve goals without resorting to the use of threat.
- We need peace in our world like never before. In summer1980, when the first stage of Poland’s process of transition was successfully completed with an agreement between the city striking committee and the government officials, Czesław Milosz, newly elected Nobel prize winner in literature, was asked to send a quotation of his poetry to be placed at the Monument of Fallen Shipyard Workers erected at the gate of the Gdansk Shipyard. He chose to select his translation of a psalm: Lord will empower his people. Lord will give his people the blessing of peace.
- I am profoundly convinced, that cycling promotion, properly conceived and implemented, will make a fruitful contribution to this process – so much deserved now and here. I wish you a fruitful and meaningful conference.