The promotion of non-polluting shared mobility solutions, such as bicycle rental services or electric cars, lags behind in large Spanish cities compared to their European counterparts, according to a report by Clean Cities, a campaign in which Ecologistas en Acción participates .
The study analyzes the situation in 42 European cities in relation to shared and electric mobility: shared bikes, electric bikes and VMPs (personal mobility vehicles), electric car sharing, zero emission buses and charging infrastructure.
According to the authors, reducing transport emissions in cities involves making it easier for the population to abandon private ownership of cars.
To achieve this, shared and electric transport services, the study adds, are much simpler, cheaper and faster to implement than large infrastructure projects, such as the construction of an underground rail service, metro or tram.
However, although Spanish cities are making progress in enabling shared micromobility services, they are doing so "very slowly", according to the report.
Thus, for example, Madrid has more than 4,000 shared electric bicycles on its streets, compared to the more than 18,000 that Paris has.
Madrid has 3.1 shared bicycles or VMP for every 1,000 inhabitants; while Barcelona "is doing somewhat better", with 5.7 per 1,000 inhabitants".
Likewise, the report points out that Spanish cities are lagging behind in the implementation of shared electric car services: Valencia has less than 0.01 per 1,000 inhabitants, the same as Barcelona.
In Bilbao or Granada, there are none, while the city that leads the table, Copenhagen, has 1.76 shared electric cars per 1,000 inhabitants.
Madrid does better in this part of the ranking, with 0.59 shared electric cars per 1,000 inhabitants.
When it comes to electrifying bus fleets, Granada has less than 3% of the bus fleet electrified, a rate that in Madrid rises to 8.59%. In Oslo (Norway), more than 66% of the city's fleet is electrified.
The "top ten" of the general classification are made up of Copenhagen (with a score of 87% out of 100%), Oslo (81%), Paris (70%), Amsterdam (68%), Hamburg (67%), Helsinki ( 63%), Milan (58%), Lyon (52%), Ljubljana (51%) and Lisbon (50%).
Madrid is ranked 22nd, with a score of 33%; Barcelona, 32 (21%); Bilbao, 35 (15%); Valencia, 37 (13%), and Granada, 40 (10%).
"In addition to the long road that remains to be traveled to promote shared mobility in cities, the current situation in which some municipal officials are proposing a reduction in bike lanes and exclusive bus lanes is very worrying," warned Carmen Duce, Coordinator of Mobility and Transport of Ecologists in Action.
