ThinkBike Workshop: Lisbon, Portugal

On April 18-19, 2023, the Dutch Cycling Embassy was in Lisbon for a ThinkBike Workshop hosted by Lisboa E-Nova– Lisbon’s energy and environment agency, Freguesia do Lumiar Borough, and the Municipality of Lisbon; and supported by the Netherlands Embassy in Portugal. In addition to Chris Bruntlett from the Dutch Cycling Embassy, it featured experts Moniek Jansen from Mobyon and Pieter Litjens from CROW. They focused on the topics of network and infrastructure design, as well as traffic calming and circulation; all viewed through the lens of enabling safe and active routes to school.

The event unofficially got underway on Monday with an informal cycling tour with the Dutch experts. Then on Tuesday morning, the group joined a local “bike to school train” of elementary school children cycling to school, followed by a visit to an “active school street” temporarily closed to motor traffic outside a nearby group of 4 public schools with 1,800 students with ages 3 to 18 years old (Kindergarten, Elementary, Junior High, and High School). From there, they proceeded to the event location, where after introductions from representatives from Lisboa E-Nova, Lumiar Borough, and Lisbon Municipality, and Netherlands Ambassador Margriet Leemhuis, the Dutch experts presented best practice in a series of plenary sessions. After a lunch break, the three case studies were introduced, and breakout groups then visited the three chosen schools (also employing child eye level inverted GDCI periscopes provided by Lisboa E-Nova and children’s view masks by Mobycon) and spent the rest of the afternoon working through potential design solutions. The day concluded with groups presenting solutions to the larger group and answering questions. A public event on the Wednesday evening saw community members gather for a screening of Together We Cycle and panel discussion.

We look forward to continuing to work with Lisboa E-Nova, Freguesia do Lumiar Borough, Lisbon Municipality and other Lisbon Metropolitan Area municipalities in the future to ensure the successful implementation of these Dutch-inspired projects.