The future of urban mobility is here and the bike is at the centre of it.
Our cities keeps growing rapidly.
It’s estimated that by 2050, two-thirds of the world population will live in urban areas. In Europe and in the US this share is already much higher.
The way we move within cities plays a crucial role in defining the quality of our life and in fighting the climate change.
Most of our cities, even those with a good public transportation system, are still largely dominated by cars. Traffic, pollution and road injuries keeps degrading our health and our environment. We all deserve better cities.
If we want to invert the trend we need a radical shift in the way we approach urban mobility and rapidly transit to a more sustainable transportation system.
Bikes are the perfect mean to enable this transition.
Why bikes?
The bicycle as a vehicle has been around since almost 200 years. It’s the most energy-efficient mean of transportation that humans invented.
It’s light, sustainable, easy to repair and fairly cheap.
It has been the most widespread vehicle for several decades until it was rapidly replaced by cars during the post-war economy boom.
Leading examples like Dutch cities have shown us how cycling can be used again in modern cities as the primary mean of transportation, freeing public space, reducing carbon emissions and increasing the quality of life.
But can this model be exported to all cities? What are the key aspects that affect bike adoption? How can we help to reach this goal?
Let’s look at the three key factors that make up a mobility system and which role they can play in this transition:
- Users (the riders)
- Vehicles (the bikes)
- Environment (the infrastructure)
Users
There have been several studies on biker personas that analysed the needs and pains of cycling in urban environments.
But what are the key reasons preventing people switching from cars to bikes when moving through cities?
Trip duration is definitely not the biggest concern: For short to medium distances in dense areas a bike ride is, in most cases, equal or even faster than driving or taking public transport.
There are definitely important aspects linked to the convenience of using a car:
- Comfort
- Protection from different weather conditions
- Large room to transport kids or groceries
- No physical effort needed
Interestingly enough these are not decisive factors when it comes to bike adoption. In fact most of these needs can be solved by choosing the right type of bike among all of those available nowadays on the market (see section “Vehicles”)
Culture is an important aspect affecting the way we move around.
If we just look at Europe the way how cycling is perceived across different countries and regions is quite different. While in Northern countries cycling has become integral part of people’s lifestyle and it’s spread across all demographics, in other areas biking is still only perceived as a sport activity or limited to groups promoting sustainable habits.
Culture is determinant to enable another decisive factor responsible of increasing bike usage: the infrastructure.
A robust cycling infrastructure, by reducing barriers and improving safety, plays a more decisive role in driving bike adoption than other factors such as the weather or the terrain conditions. (see section “Environment”).
Vehicles
In the recent years the bike industry has seen very positive trends and the market demand is constantly rising everywhere.
Today countless of models are available to purchase, rent or lease for any type of road and biking need.
Among the models that have recently seen a boost in sales:
- Cargo bikes are becoming increasingly popular for families. They are perfect for transporting kids while protecting them from rain and wind.
They can reach big volumes and carry any type of goods. More and more companies are using cargo e-bikes instead of vans for last miles deliveries. - E-bikes represents the recent big revolution in the bike industry.
They have democratised cycling enabling a larger group of people who cannot (or don’t want to) do physical activity to use bikes on a daily basis and beyond.
Different analyses suggest that about a quarter of e-bike buyers bought their electric bikes to replace or substitute their car, not as an upgrade to a regular bike. - Folding bikes are specially convenient for commuters who combine biking with public transport. They can be taken literally everywhere, on a train or to the office, and take very little space for storage.
Wait.. what about the weather? No matter what bike, you’ll still get wet or?
Well, it looks like there’s still room for innovation in the industry and we’re seeing more concepts coming up aiming to solve those needs.
But even if the bike market is evolving so fast, the roads on which they ride are still stuck at 100 years ago. This leads us again to key aspect of the problem: Infrastructure.
Environment
Cities that have been pioneers in reshaping their infrastructure to meet cycling needs have shown how the shift from cars to bikes can actually happen quite fast.
The recent example of Paris shows that clearly. The mayor has committed to make the entire city bikeable by 2026, investing 250 million euros into infrastructure. The bike ridership raised by 54% in just one year.
Build it and they will come, someone said.
Of course this needs vision and political commitment from the city administration. If everyone waits to have more cyclists before building bike lanes we’ll be stuck forever in a chicken-egg limbo.
But politicians can’t act alone. People have the power to demand changes.
Activism and civil movements were essential to drive the mobility transformation in dutch cities during the 70'.
Recently we’ve seen actions as pop-up bike lanes been created during the pandemic. Also more participation to movements like Critical Mass are signals that the awareness is rising.
Unfortunately a few more bike lanes are not enough to push cars out of the city centres. A more holistic plan it’s needed to establish a network of cycle paths that can serve not only residents but also commuters travelling every day from suburban areas.
Parking hubs at key nodes are necessary to enable a better connections across different means of transportation. Switching from train (or car) to bike should be as seamless as possible for commuters.
And if that means building advanced parking infrastructures, that’s exactly where we have to invest in. And surprise.. the Dutches have done it already.
Last but not least: Safety
It’s not just important to build a cycling infrastructure but also how you build it. Bikers are not alone on the road.
A well planned infrastructure can improve safety not only for cyclists but also for pedestrians and other vehicles.
Several studies have shown how wide, protected bike lanes with colored surfaces are much safer than any other hybrid solution.
The same applies to crossings. Having protected intersections or dedicated traffic lights for bikes largely reduce the probability of accidents caused by blind spots on turns.
Of course, taking these actions implies limiting or removing completely the car access from large city areas.
It takes vision and commitment to reshape our approach to urban planning and come up with new mobility solutions. But if this is the way to regain public space and have a healthier a more sustainable lifestyle, it’s definitely something worth fighting for.
TL;DR
We can’t sustain anymore the environmental and social consequences of cities dominated by cars.
We need a radical shift towards a more sustainable mobility and cycling plays a key role towards this transformation.
Infrastructure is the core challenge. It takes political will to improve the status quo but people have a huge leverage to influence the decisions.
Lastly, we‘ve already seen visionary administrations committing to this vision. And once the transformation is triggered, changes can happen quickly.
If you’re also passionate about mobility topics and enjoyed this post, feel free to leave a comment below or write me at @pierluigirufo. Looking forward to hear your feedback! 🙌
