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Ana
Pereira
A graduate of FCT-UNL in Applied Chemistry / Biotechnology, Ana has been working in cycling promotion since 2006 in Cenas a Pedal which she co-founded. Ana also co-founded MUBi - an association for urban mobility by bicycle in 2009 and Bicicultura (launched in 2019). These two grassroots organisations work on ensuring that Lisbon and the city's transportation systems are greener and more efficient. Recently, nominated for the Bicycle Mayor of Lisbon 2019-2020 within the Bicycle Mayor & Leader Program. In this position, Ana aims to contribute to bringing down the barriers to cycling through her most recent project, “Casa da Bicicultura” (House of Cycling Culture). It is a centre for the promotion and education on cycling mobility, towards more sustainable and liveable cities.
PROJECT
Livability Pods by Bicicultura provides public micro parks as a service to local businesses wanting to attract customers and brand themselves as sustainability and community leaders. It's a win-win solution for both, the businesses and for the local communities who get these pockets of nature, seatings, play areas, bike parkings, cultural events spaces, and other perks of a liveable city. Our project aims to create all this in spaces currently used for car parking for two reasons: 1) to win back space for people and nature, and consistently reduce public space given over to cars, and 2) to vividly demonstrate to communities how much space is allocated to vehicles. We want to make our streets greener, more beautiful, more inviting, safer, more social. We want to provide seating and play areas for people, and parking for bicycles, to add green and natural infrastructure, to help enable walking and cycling as a means of daily transportation, to make street life richer. And of course, this means reducing the space for cars. Through the creation of our liveability pods we help fight climate change by reducing car use and by making streets and neighbouring houses cooler in the summer, so that people use less energy on cooling systems.
The idea was first inspired by the Park(ing) Day initiative. Then the challenge became to scale this solution so it would have a truly meaningful impact on our cities.
MOTIVATION FOR AND COMMITMENT TO CREATING A BETTER AND MORE SUSTAINABLE PLANET
I am very aware that all the great things I get to enjoy in my life were either built or preserved by someone else. I feel a strong duty to reciprocate, and I feel it's one's moral obligation to leave this world a little better than one found it.
