From USA.Streetsblog.org
new initiative aims to put thousands of purpose-built transportation bikes in the hands of people in underserved countries — and in the process, sparking a conversation about the role of bike design itself in making green mobility accessible.
Throughout the month of December, U.S. bike manufacturer Trek has announced it’s matching up to $500,000 in donations for World Bicycle Relief, an organization that provide residents of communities with minimal roadway and transit infrastructure with bikes specifically designed to meet their daily needs. Founded in 2005, the group has distributed more than 635,000 cycles to date in towns throughout Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, which their team estimates has enhanced the mobility of more than three million people, since the bikes are shared by a family of five people on average.
That success, though, might not be as profound without the right bike: namely, the Buffalo bicycle, which Trek helped the group to design. And while that super-sturdy vehicle was built specifically to handle dirt roads and heavy loads that residents of auto-centric countries would be more likely to transport by car, some of the group’s supporters have wondered whether vehicles like it might have a place in U.S. communities, too — and how their absence affects Americans’ likelihood to ride.
“People in the U.S. ask me all the time, ‘Can I buy this bike?'” said Eric Bjorling, Trek’s brand director.
