More Jamaicans Urged to Ride Bicycles

Principal lecturer at Sam Sharpe Teachers’ College in St. James, Asburn Pinnock, is urging more Jamaicans to ride bicycles to foster a healthy lifestyle and reduce harmful gas emissions and congestion on the roadways.
“I am looking at a school or a workplace with a lot of bicycle stands instead of car parks,” Mr. Pinnock said as he addressed the press launch of the annual ‘Bikeathon/Jamaica Challenge’ on Tuesday (April 10) at the Sunset Beach Resort and Spa in Montego Bay.
A project of the Rotary Club of Montego Bay East, the bikeathon is a major fundraising event, through which scholarships are provided for needy students in western Jamaica.
Calling on the Rotary Club of Montego Bay East to lobby for more bicycles to be used in everyday life, Mr. Pinnock said that a cycle path could be incorporated as part of the North Coast Highway project, which involves the development of roadways from Negril to Port Antonio.
Meanwhile, he commended the club for channeling the proceeds of the annual bikeathon into education. “I congratulate you on the amounts that you have donated thus far, because God knows that we need it. It is organizations like yours, doing the work you are doing now, that make life for us in the field of education a little easier, in fact a lot easier,” he stated.
The 2007 Rotary Club of Montego Bay East ‘Bikeathon/Jamaica Challenge’ will take place on Sunday, April 22 starting and finishing at the Fairview Shopping Centre in Montego Bay. This year marks the 12th staging of the event, which targets professional, amateurs and recreational cyclists and children.
The club hopes to raise $1 million from the event for its scholarships programme. In 2006, some 17 scholarships valued at approximately $400,000, were awarded to students at the tertiary, vocational and high school levels.