On World Bicycle Day on 3 June, the annual international Climate Alliance campaign “Stadtradeln” (City Cycling) begins again in Frankfurt: cycling instead of driving for 21 days, collecting as many kilometres as possible and thus saving climate-damaging CO2, that is the aim of the campaign. “Cycling is not only healthy, quiet and cheap, but also environmentally and climate friendly. Cycling is mobility without harmful air pollutants. Help us and cycle to work or to the shops. Every cyclist more is a local answer to global climate change,” promotes Climate and Environment Officer Rosemarie Heilig for participation in World Bicycle Day. “The campaign offers a good opportunity to try out the constantly new cycle paths being built in our city and to explore your daily journeys by bike in a new way,” adds Stefan Majer, Head of Department for Mobility and Health.
The campaign period for Frankfurt begins on Friday, 3 June and ends on Thursday, 23 June. Anyone who lives, works, goes to school or studies in the city can take part. Interested cyclists can register here.
Since promoting cycling and climate protection is a team affair, cyclists on the “Stadtradeln” platform join together in teams of at least two people – for example from city districts, companies, clubs or even school classes. In addition to climate protection, “Stadtradeln” is all about having fun and experiencing happiness on two wheels for yourself. The aim is to inspire as many people as possible to switch to cycling in their everyday lives.
After the campaign, the City of Frankfurt will award prizes to the winners in various categories. This year, extra prizes will be raffled for the special category “Families”.
Even beyond the campaign period, “Stadtradeln” aims to strengthen cycling in Frankfurt. Since there is hardly any spatial traffic data available for cycling so far, data on cycling traffic will be collected via the “Stadtradeln” app during the three-week campaign and made available to all participating municipalities in Hesse. This information can support the planning and expansion of cycling infrastructure locally.
During the campaign period and beyond, the Cycling Office also operates the Cycling Reporting Platform for all citizens. With this tool, cyclists have the opportunity to draw attention to annoying and dangerous spots in the cycle path via the internet.
A specially developed campaign video for “Stadtradeln” in Frankfurt is intended to make all participants even more enthusiastic about cycling: It shows in a humorous way why cycling is a much better choice than driving. The video can be viewed under this link.
According to a survey by the Federal Environment Agency, motorised transport accounted for about 145 million tonnes of climate-damaging carbon dioxide emissions in Germany in 2020. 19 per cent of these were caused by inner-city car traffic. If a fifth of these distances were travelled by bicycle instead of by car, about 5.5 million tonnes of CO2 could be avoided. Last year, around 672,000 kilometres were cycled during the three weeks of “city cycling”, thus avoiding 99 tonnes of CO2 in Frankfurt alone.
More information can be found here.
Text: Announcement of the City of Frankfurt
Image: Pixabay
Translation by the editors
