The Spanish socialist government wants everyone using the bike to hide its scandals

In Spain, the socialist Sanchez government needs to distract citizens from the “koldo” scandal and the agreement with various separatist parties, including the Catalan ones, that threatens the solidity of the nation-state, so something wacky and green has been studied.

The Sustainable Mobility Law project arrives. It is a law promoted by the PSOE government to try to force the communities that do not collaborate with its environmentalist desire to impose the bicycle as a means of transport. But it is also the latest smoke bomb to try to divert the debate from the obvious: the PSOE corruption scandal with the masks in full COVID.

The norm pretends to have the rank of law. It includes, for example, “measures to promote sustainable mobility. Specifically, it integrates a set of precepts, instruments, procedures, and initiatives on sustainable mobility that complement Law 7/2021, of May 20, on climate change and energy transition, with the aim of promoting the transition of the supply of the transport system towards more effective, energy efficient, safe, accessible, affordable, equitable, and equitable modes, means, services, and mobility patterns with fewer emissions”. What is more “equitable” than not having a car and moving on a bike, everyone?

Translated: prevent the use of cars, motorcycles, or trucks with combustion engines and drive people to public transport or by bike.

The law is therefore written with the usual tone full of good green intentions but also incredibly confusing, confusing good intentions and legal obligations and, if read literally, would force Spaniards, in the countryside and in the city, to abandon the car and ride bicycles or only public transportation, abandoning the car It will be a pleasure to see them pedaling along the summer day, maybe in 40-degree weather, on the beautiful and steep hills of Extremadura or Murcia

Last summer in Spain…

And the new law aims to impose itself in the communities or municipalities that have not entered into the environmentalist radicalism: “To achieve these objectives, the transition must be carried out through both vertical integration at all levels of public administrations, and horizontal integration between territories, modes of transport, related sectors of activity and citizenship, and in this way will also contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda and other international Agreements such as the New Urban Agenda of the United Nations or the Paris Agreement, contributing to the development of sustainable and inclusive urban settlements, the fight against climate change and long-term decarbonization,” ensures the text of the regulation.

This includes a “Document of Orientations for Sustainable Mobility (DOMOS), an essential framework of orientations for sustainable mobility planning by all public administrations, as well as the complementary documents of the DOMOS”.

The DOMOS includes the general guidelines for sustainable mobility, specifying those applicable to urban and metropolitan areas and “to rural or low population density areas, and a system of indicators as an information mechanism on the state of transport and mobility, as well as for the evaluation of the policies implemented”. And it is also in the villages or countryside areas that everyone is intended to go by bike.

“It also establishes the need to promote measures that favor awareness and sensitization and to include sustainable mobility in the educational system as well as in the training actions linked to the vocational training system, since access to reliable and relevant public information, regular and persuasive communication, as well as training in new knowledge and skills, are basic elements for the participation of society in the analysis and definition of public policies on sustainable mobility, as well as for the support of their adoption and evaluation,” adds the text of the intended rule.

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And it will promote “the design and implementation of safe urban routes to schools that guarantee children’s autonomy of movement, within the framework of the 1989 UN International Convention on the Rights of the Child.”.

Active mobility

One term emerges strongly in the text of the law: “active mobility.”. And this is where the bicycle comes to the fore. “It should not be forgotten that, in a decarbonized and efficient system, the role of the bicycle or cycle is presented as an absolutely sustainable transport option, whose use, in general, results in the improvement of people’s health and generates confidence, provided that conditions and measures are established that allow its use in a safe way.”.

Therefore, “the eighth additional provision focuses on the decisive promotion of active mobility and specifically on the role of the bicycle or cycle in the transport system, through the creation of a national plan to promote the use of bicycles, which promotes and coordinates the different policies and actions related to this mode of transport, considering not only its recreational and sporting use, its importance for the promotion of cycle tourism, or its health benefits, but understanding it as an essential element of daily mobility and taking into account its contribution to the value chain and the consequent boost to the business development of the sector,” states the text.

So in perfect green-bureaucratic style, Goveerno Sanchez has prepared a law that aims, at the cost of closing roads to cars, to force people to ride bicycles, regardless of whether it is in the city or the countryside.