The vice president of the European Commission for the Green Pact, Frans Timmermans, has defended the contribution of the bicycle to sustainable public transport and to the improvement of air quality in cities, something that, in his opinion, “should not be part of the controversy policy”.
“Is improving air quality a policy of the left or of the right? It is a policy that benefits all people. It should not be part of the political controversy,” Timmermans defended in an appearance before the media, accompanied by the third vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, who this Monday attended the inauguration of the informal council of Environment and Energy ministers on an electric bicycle.
The head of EU climate policy has estimated the number of premature deaths in Europe at 300,000 due to poor air quality and has stressed that cycling and clean public transport help improve air quality.
In addition, within the framework of the second day of the heat wave, it has affected that the greener the cities are, the cooler they are and therefore, this statement “should attract everyone in Spain”.
“Going by bike is cool, it’s good and it has to be safe,” he stressed “as a German”, although he has demanded separate lanes for motorized traffic so that cyclists are not hit by a car.
In this sense, he added that the “policy of riding a bike is a family policy”, because if safe lanes are guaranteed, children can be taken on a bicycle from a very early age and, in his opinion, and after a “very long” experience there is “nothing more pleasant”. Finally, Timmermans has winked at the legendary cyclist Luis Ocaña.
