As the end of Córdoba’s big week of 2024 approaches, it is essential to make an assessment of the access model, traffic management and mobility in general of this massive event. Which is basically the same one that has prevailed since its location was moved to the Arenal venue, thirty years ago. To do this, we will put it in front of the mirror of Mobility Week, which is celebrated in September, and with which it shares many similarities or, perhaps, one is a consequence of the other, regardless of which of them is the matrix.
Mobility Week and mobility at the Fair represent the beginning and the end of our city’s journey in matters of urban displacement. The alpha and the omega of catpardism institutional that stands out, paradoxically, for the immobility that perpetuates an already outdated logic of the monopoly of the private vehicle, chronic traffic congestion, the lungs of mourning and the dependence on fossil fuels.
Mobility Week is celebrated every September with the aim of disseminating and promoting means of transport that, due to systemic issues of enormous complexity (and whose literature is so extensive that it is impossible and unnecessary to stop here to explain it) are statistically relegated to residual figures. . Travel options that, however, provide enormous benefits to cities and people. And, among them, the bicycle, according to the UN itself, is the most effective option to achieve the omnipresent Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and in the fight against climate change. For this reason, in Córdoba, in the last Mobility Week, we deployed on the Vial Norte a giant open-air dealership for immense cars that took over all the space that, another paradox, is pedestrian. All very electric and neat, yes. Unsustainability and congestion dressed as Sunday.
It should not be surprising then that in the event where the city is most decorated, the Health Fair, the approach by the City Council and the results, offer a panorama similar to the image you see in the mirror in which you should look at yourself. Last week the traffic plan for the Córdoba Health Fair was published, which was echoed by the local media. It describes in detail how to overcome all the obstacles to, logically, park your vehicle on the other side of the highway and, after crossing it on foot, get to have a beer. Vehicle, of course, motorized, private and weighing several tons, which is almost the only one referred to when a mobility plan of this type is made in our society.
The Traffic and Safety plan for the 2024 Fair plagiarizes point by point, at least that of the last two decades. Easy to check by clicking on 2016, 2019 or 2023. Identical except for the image on the cover, like a student with little skill the day before handing in an assignment. And as if the city, the fair, social concerns or society itself had not changed in a decade. The blurry photocopy of the photocopy of so many other copies that can barely be read. What does it matter, “that’s how it’s been done all my life.” And the worrying thing about it is not that the word “bicycle” appears the same times as “New Jersey” (and it’s not a joke). That is, only once. The most alarming thing about the document is that its analysis does not reveal any ambition to propose another scenario. It is limited to a series of instructions aimed at replicating what has been done so far and detailing which streets need to be cut and where parking can or cannot be done.
Money, money, and more money
There is a very complex and expensive deployment to guarantee access to the fairgrounds. A labyrinthine network of fences that (laugh at Valladolid) guides the designs of pedestrians, buses, taxis, cars and motorcycles.
A large amount of personnel and furniture makes it possible for dozens of streets and avenues to remain closed to traffic in the Arenal area for almost two weeks. Conclusive proof that road traffic literally has no place in spaces where there is a minimum concentration of homo sapiens. Furthermore, huge surfaces of public spaces are “tidyed up” with more and more public money so that a few hundred cars can block the entire fair scene.
Just as typical as a jug of rebujito or a selfie On the cover, the image of endless waiting lines to catch a bus or a taxi are part of the folklore of the fair. Or that of dozens of people packed together, dressed as faralaes with their cheekbones pressed against the glass of the bus blocked in a traffic jam of taxis in a frenzy. Like a green whale stranded among the plastics on a beach. Its occupants, with snails grooming their impatient faces on the way out, and exhaustion on the way back, long for their evening walks making the same journey, on foot, but in half the time.
However, the traffic plan made public these days does not include any of these folkloric images. Nor that the Balcón del Guadalquivir, one of the two main access routes into and out of the enclosure, is blocked by a pharaonic work and the bottledrome. A small detail that reduces this itinerary to a pavement of just one meter. Forcing the crowd to move on the brand new, recently built, uninaugurated bike path. Yes, obviously, on the steel itself.
The pedestrian is always right
The solution to all this circulatory chaos may be closer than we can imagine. For example, the thousands of people who come dressed in shorts, taking advantage of the benign conditions and the privileged size of our city.
The excellent service that Aucorsa offers with shuttles from various points in the city, supplying the most remote neighborhoods of Arenal with an effective and affordable service. And by persisting every year with advertising campaigns, we must recognize those responsible for an extraordinary sense of public affairs and a great civic and environmental awareness, to promote the use of the bus to go to the fair. An option that is only diminished during peak hours for four reasons: a) the excessive delays resulting from not privileging Aucorsa in road access, b) the disproportionate use of taxis and other private vehicles; c) the mousetrap-shaped network of the itineraries and the dead end in which the fair is located; and, d) the inability (of personnel and material) to absorb the disproportion that occurs in demand at times of great influx and evacuation of the premises. These factors determine that this service is perceived as a very unreliable option for a large part of the fair owners, who mostly end up resorting to taxis, aggravating the problem, causing even more traffic jams and disproportionate queues for journeys that normally Most do not exceed 30 minutes on foot.
Finally, in recent years, the municipalities of the province, especially those belonging to the Consortium, have been consolidating a bus transportation service with various departure times both on the way there and back. This option, which is already very popular especially among youth, significantly reduces the movement of private vehicles from the towns, decongesting access, especially on weekend nights. And it avoids the thorny temptation to get behind the wheel after the ingestion of alcohol and other narcotics so tragically widespread in past decades, which reduces the need for road checks, accidents and personal and property damage. Win-win.
To the Fair by Bike
Due to their enormous impact, on certain occasions large events have the power to shape social dynamics that end up permeating the personal and everyday life. See how anti-racism has permeated today’s global football. And it has been assumed as a social and media objective of the first order, dominating debates, covers and hours of radio and TV.
From this perspective, an institutional nod would be enough to motivate people to go to the Fair by bicycle. The investment is minimal. It is only necessary to add a few paragraphs showing the benefits of this option to next year’s Safety and Traffic plan, there are technicians more than prepared for this work; a discreet dissemination from any means of the City Council (statements of the Corporation, press, etc.); print a logo on posters and radio spots that promote “To the fair by bike”; enable your own access for bicycles, or allocate existing ones to your use; and a couple of well-differentiated areas such as parking spaces, separated from road traffic, and located near the entrance.
In short, from a logistical and economic point of view, filling the Arenal area with bicycles is infinitely less expensive and complex than besieging it with fences, police officers and parking lots. Let’s not even talk about beauty, sustainability and wealth creation. A citizenry that moves by its own means, on foot or by bike, is a citizenry that does not get sick, or does so much less. And this is not an opinionable fact. The savings in medical and hospital expenses in countries with a long cycling tradition such as the Netherlands attest to this.
At the Health Fair, a model should be imposed in which fences, stressed areas or collapses in access were the exception and not the rule. An event that any neighbor can access in an effective, affordable and sustainable way. In which the false right to park of a minority privileged by immobility does not prevail over the well-being of the majority. In which health does not succumb to the unhealthiness of a highly polluting, ineffective and outdated model, which determines that we are on the state podium for the worst air quality on a continuous basis. On the contrary, our beloved Health Fair runs the risk of adding to the list of oxymorons of the Cordoba street scene, such as Las Quemadas, Vista Alegre or Los Olivos Borrachos. Very soon, if not already, Mobility Week will also be eligible for the same honor.
However, it moves.
The affirmation of the consequent is a type of fallacy in reasoning that is very common among all Earthlings and Lilliputians. Affirming “if A, then B” and then falling into the trap of “If B exists, then A exists”. In other words, stating that “if it rains, the ground gets wet” does not guarantee that seeing the ground wet means that it must have rained. Doing so would imply falling into a fallacious argument.
Institutions in general manage themselves very well on a theoretical level and are more reluctant to intervene in a disruptive way in the models that prevail in real life. Hence, the climate emergency is being addressed but the measures to address it do not materialize in concrete terms. Therefore, returning to the statement of the consequent, the fact that there are more and more people on bikes in Córdoba, in addition to a wonderful gift, does not derive from an institutional will to comply with the 2030 Agenda. Or improve the quality of the air that the lungs of our children will breathe. Nor do the new statistics on modal distribution corroborate this, since records have not been taken for decades. No. That’s not where the shots go. Rather, it is the consequence of a citizenry that begins to perceive the city for what it is: a city of the future (city of 15 minutes) on an unparalleled heritage and historical setting. An incipient awakening of the pragmatics of urban habitability among young and not so young. The expansion of a mobility criterion on a human scale of enormous transversality that decides to put itself at the center.