A street where no cars can drive is a street where lots of other things can happen. Streets without motor vehicles are safer, cleaner, and more breathable. The World Health Organization (WHO) reminds us that as the quality of urban air deteriorates, the risks of strokes, heart disease, lung cancer and acute respiratory disease increase. A recent study conducted by the Barcelona Global Health Institute (ISGlobal) in 858 European cities concluded that Madrid is the urban area with the greatest mortality associated with nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution.

It turns out that bikes, those contraptions that are as lovable as they are criticized, are the most efficient types of urban transit there is, able to turn a city plied and abused by cars into a lived-in, cared for city beckoning for a stroll or a ride. Thanks to bicycles, real transformation can be brought about very simply, within anyone’s reach, bringing noteworthy health benefits for the entire city.

In September 2012, for Madrid’s Mobility Week, the City Hall’s Department of Mobility and the Environment took a further step in transforming calle de La Palma into a pedestrian priority street to improve pedestrian mobility. For two weeks, the street where we formerly had our offices was a place to walk, to meet, to sit down and to play. Those of us with businesses and shops there were asked to participate and take to the street. And that was where we wanted to play tribute to bikes for being so efficient, clean and wonderful.

 Our intervention consisted of placing a bicycle in our showcase over those few days. It was decorated with flowers for the occasion like an altar, and a bench on the sidewalk from which it could be admired. On Friday 21 September we took the bike out of the window and carried it on our shoulders in a procession: the Bike Procession.

That was how that fun parade along calle de la Palma began, with performances from balconies and a final party to glorify bicycles and celebrate and proclaim their use in our city. 

This performative and musical street action involved the entire neighborhood. We invited shops like Toma Café and La Bicicleta Café to join us and build their own floats devoted to bicycles. The neighbors along the street let us use their balconies like stages where bands, singers and poets performed.

 This original bike pilgrimage was a creative way of taking to the street to defend bikes and quickly turned into a bit of a new tradition taken up by dozens of people of all ages who accompanied us, plus other neighbors and tourists who, as simply by-passers, were surprised by the show and decided to join in. The parade ended in a party where the inhabitants of a Street where one normally needs to walk single file had the chance to stop and take a look, have a bit to eat, converse and get to know each other with all of the time and space in the world.