Entornos Amables
LED BY Alida Paola Becerra García FROM MEXICO
The project Entornos Amables or “Friendly Environment” seeks to develop in the city of Mérida, Yucatán to address the needs of children, young women, adult women, and urban cyclists (regardless of gender) who use cycling as a mode of transport or as a means to live a healthier life.
The first stage will be around diagnosing the area. The geospatial diagnosis of transit, housing, mobility events, and cyclist count. This will be done by collecting data to approximate a number close to the real number of people who travel in the city. With this, the behaviors and needs of cyclists and other road users can more or less be identified.
The second stage revolves around participatory workshops, awareness, and walks from the different perspectives of those who walk the streets. In this stage, different areas will be surveyed to identify safe and vulnerable spaces, especially for women and feminized bodies. There will also be information campaigns on digital platforms and media where dissemination and awareness campaigns will be carried out to discuss the importance of road safety and the collective construction of friendlier environments.
Photo from Alejandro Luna through The City Fix
ABOUT THE PROJECT LEAD
Alida was born in Mérida, Yucatán in 1989. She is a 33-year-old feminist activist with a degree in Psychology from the Autonomous University of Yucatán.
Paola specializes in group and collaborative processes. She has collaborated with the Reflexión y Acción Feminista (RAF) collective since 2014 and is currently coordinating the programs of women and territory. She has been an urban cyclist since 2010 and utilizes her experience as a female cyclist in Mérida to support and encourage other women to become cyclists in a safe and friendly way.
RAF has implemented the Bike School methodology and sensitive perception mapping since 2015 with methodological tools validated through repeated use and other scientific, psychological, and anthropological bases on which they were built.
PROJECT UPDATES
Project lead Alida Paola Becerra Garcia and their team from Reflexion y Accion Feminsita led a geospatial analysis and evaluated bike routes in an urban audit to identify elements of the road that needed to be addressed.
They also spoke with cyclists in five areas around Merida about what public policies needed to be improved to address the needs of female cyclists and road users who traveled using other modes of transport, excluding motorised and vehicles.
PROJECT GALLERY
