Medellin is to become the first city in Colombia with a public bicycle hire system, following the success of similar initiatives in cities around the world.
The launch of “Medellin EnCicla” follows a three-month pilot scheme, in which the bicycles were made available to students of EAFIT University, one of Medellin’s private universities. The scheme proved a success, with 11,000 loans made during the three month period.
Both EAFIT and Medellin’s government have invested almost $600,000 in the construction of the 145 bicycles, which comprise 105 urban and 40 rural bikes.
With the system ready, the challenge now will be to make Medellin’s streets cycle-safe. This will require many more bicycle lanes than currently exist.
According to Martha Lucia Suarez,