The World Bicycle Day was globally celebrated on 3 June 2019 by organising group rides on the event to popularize the use of bicycles in daily life.
Background
- In 2018, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) declared 3 June as World Bicycle Day to observe the day as a celebration of “uniqueness, longevity, and versatility” of the bicycle. Professor Leszek Sibilski of Montgomery College, Maryland, United States with his Sociology class petitioned for the bicycle to have its own day and to recognize all its good qualities.
- Professor Sibilski and his class then led a grassroots campaign to promote a UN Resolution for World Bicycle Day which used social media to spread word globally and nominated 3 of June to mark as World Bicycle Day. The campaign eventually gained the support of Turkmenistan and 56 other countries and was finally materialized in 2018, when the UN declared it a world holiday.
Significance
- The day highlights bicycle as an affordable, reliable, clean and environmentally fit sustainable means of transportation also as they do not produce any air-borne pollutants, fumes, greenhouse gases and even reduce countries carbon footprints
- Amsterdam leads the number with 40% of all its commuters use a bicycle to go to work.
Celebrations Worldwide
- In an effort to bring bicycle and cycling habit back in fashion, the World Bicycle Day event in New York, saw the participation of various countries including Turkmenistan, Bahrain, Indonesia, Canada and even India’s Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Syed Akbaruddin and his team.
- In 2018, Vice President Venkaiah Naidu, and then Minister for Environment, Forests, and Climate Change, Dr Harsh Vardhan, , inaugurated the adoption of bike sharing system in the core area of New Delhi
- Also days ahead of World Bicycle Day celebration in 2018, Bengaluru appointed its first ever ‘Bicycle Mayor‘ the first of its kind in India, Satya Shankaran.