Title: From Mobility to Proximity Landscapes, Presenting Bicycle Mobilty Strategy for Mexico City Authors: Antonio Suarez Pedro Camarena

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http://mexicobiketour.com.mx/?src=tours&tour=3 http://www.flickr.com/photos/febobalam/4111135636/in/set-72157622819627862/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxPsLpSJIHg www.mexicobiketour.com How we did it and why? The modern society living in cities enforces the right of mobility, this single fact is turning huge territories into an endless travel landscape. While the epicenter of this phenomena is expected to happen mainly in the heart of urban areas, the panorama for mega cities is more complex, the vanishing of physical boundaries for urbanization and a rapidly urban sprawl, lead us to rethink about proximity in stead of unlimited mobility. What is the role that bicycle infrastructure should play in these social and ecological context? This was the reflexion from which we started the mobility strategy contracted by the city government willing to increase bicycle trips from existing 1% to 5 % Which are the kind of trips and bicycle infrastructures we must plan in a city of cities to enforce proximity while solving mobility? The social building of landscape through bike use: Designing Bicycle infrastructure goes farther beyond mobility, while studying the physical and social landscape in which 20 million trips occur every day expending each one an average of 120 minutes, we came up to the conclusion that bicycle infrastructure could help in many ways to optimize travel time, energy, health, traffic but over all, a carefully planned infrastructure can create a democratic landscape built by people in which bicycle communities offer proximity as an step for high quality of life. The strategy: It´s about proximity models allowing transportation and social interaction inside community, while planning bicycle infrastructure for Mexico city we realized that we were planning for a dynamic metropolitan scale and if we really wanted bicycle to become a main actor in the XXI century city, we must first envision the future society while consolidating a series of existing mobility transects and environmental services to place the bicycle infrastructure at the center of planning, including: Social interaction, future economic - labor dynamics, people´s integrated landscape. The experience proposed goes through scientific, social, administrative and holistic issues where bicycle infrastructure is design and placed to link people making community while moving. Other issues to share learning: Coordination of a international team of experts. Who does what? The outcomes, papers, manuals and initiatives. • Proponed poster: http://www.flickr.com/photos/46017992@N08/