The Aveiro Region Intermunicipal Community (CIRA) known as “Aveiro Region” with a population of about 370 000 people, located in the Center coast of Portugal, aims the realization of common interests of its 11 municipalities (Águeda, Albergaria-a-Velha, Anadia, Aveiro, Estarreja, Ílhavo, Murtosa, Oliveira do Bairro, Ovar, Sever do Vouga and Vagos).
Its activities include the promotion of regional and local development, tourism, urban planning and management, water management, environment protection, energy efficiency and many clustered activities to promote cycling and its use as a differentiating identity in the region.
The strategic importance of the so called “Aveiro, Bicycle Region” was assumed in 2011 on the pioneer PIMTRA - Intermunicipal Mobility and Transport Plan of the Aveiro Region, who have some measures of bicycle’s promotion like reinvestment in lending networks, introduction of a bicycle loan network where there is no one, maintenance and expansion of the electric bicycle network, etc., and fully integrated in the intermunicipal dynamics in the 2020 Regional Pact.
This 2020 Regional Pact have these particular goals: Promotion of the bicycle cluster and sustainable mobility - promotion of the use of soft modes of mobility, with specialization and complementarity in particular through the development of the bicycle cluster, linking the production, design, knowledge and technology, and commercial activity, with impacts on the
sustainable mobility and welfare activity in the tourism sector and, in particular, urban and interurban mobility.
It should be noted that in Portugal, Aveiro Region is where more people cycle regularly, a figure eight times higher than the national average, according to data from the INE (National Institute of Statistics), and a very significant part of the industrial production associated with bicycles is located in this region.
Last year we´re first in Portugal in the ECC´s 16.
This is why the mobility theme, in particular cycling mobility is very important to the Aveiro Region, so over the past few years, this region has invested in equipment and major projects, creating pedestrian and cycle-paths in urban and rural context with the goals to enable the discovery of its cultural and natural heritage, as a touristic image, as we did in the recent Lisbon Travel Market 2017 and the creation the Big Rout of the Ria de Aveiro with multimodal characteristics that allow the experience of different valences, namely pedestrian, cycling and nautical. These cycle-paths are suitable for leisure and every day life dynamics and therefore this region has become a meeting point for cycling lovers.
Aveiro region has a long history of cycling transport, when inhabitants used bicycles on their way to work in factories, fields or to sell fish. Nowadays, some municipalities in this region still see people use the bicycle as a means of transportation to schools, to work and in all municipalities there is a culture of cycling for leisure and tourism
