An Analysis of the Role of Cycling in Sustainable Urban Mobility: The Importance of the Bicycle 1527548902, 9781527548909

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An Analysis of the Role of Cycling in Sustainable Urban Mobility

An Analysis of the Role of Cycling in Sustainable Urban Mobility: The Importance of the Bicycle By

Ricardo Marqués

An Analysis of the Role of Cycling in Sustainable Urban Mobility: The Importance of the Bicycle By Ricardo Marqués This book first published 2020 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2020 by Ricardo Marqués All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-4890-2 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-4890-9

To my family, Asun and Ricardo And to all my friends of 'A Contramano'

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword ................................................................................................... ix Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 Chapter One ................................................................................................ 6 The History and Physics of the Bicycle Part I: The invention of the bicycle: from the draisine to the safety bike. Part II: The physics of bicycle. Part III: The evolution of the bicycle up to the present. Chapter Two ............................................................................................. 38 Mobility in the Quagmire Part I.- The unstoppable ascent of the car. Part II.- Mobility: the Achilles heel of the fight against climate change. Part III.- Other undesirable effects of the motorization-privatization of urban mobility. Part IV.- A personal reflection on the undesired effects of motorizationprivatization of mobility and its relation to neo-liberal thinking. Part V.- The technological solutions: biofuels and electric cars. Chapter Three ........................................................................................... 65 The Role of the Bicycle in Urban Mobility Part I.- A short overview of urban cycling on a world scale. Part II.- The potential of the bicycle in urban mobility. Part III.- The place of the bicycle on public roads. Mixed or separate? Part IV.- Urban cycling and road safety. The need for a comprehensive approach.

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Chapter Four ............................................................................................. 92 The Integration of the Bicycle in Urban Mobility Part I.- Cycle paths as spaces for active mobility. Part II.- Traffic calming and Bicycles Part III.- Virtue is in the small things: parking, anti-dooring, stairways and other details. Part IV.- Bicycle and public transit. Part V.- Bikesharing. Part VI.- Beyond infrastructure: Planning, promotion, cycle-logistics, participation, gender. Chapter Five ........................................................................................... 130 Seville: A Successful but Imperfect Experience Part I.- The bicycle 'boom' in Seville. Part II.- The precedents. The onset of a strong pro-bike social movement in Seville. Part III.- The 'Seville Model'. Planning and development of cycling infrastructure between 2004 and 2011. Part IV.- The impact on city mobility Part V.- Beyond the 'boom': Stagnation and slow recuperation Final Remarks......................................................................................... 153 References .............................................................................................. 157

FOREWORD

Readers of this book are setting out on an interesting adventure as well as an incredible learning experience. Professor Ricardo Marqués provides a comprehensive examination of the past, present, and future of cycling. The main purpose of the book is to examine how cities can make cycling a mainstream mode of daily, utilitarian travel, even if they have no historical cycling culture, are car-oriented, and have very little, if any, cycling infrastructure to start with. “An Analysis of the Role of Cycling in Sustainable Urban Mobility: The Importance of the Bicycle” superbly achieves that purpose, while providing an extraordinary wealth of information on other aspects of cycling and the bicycle itself. In his introduction, Professor Marqués invites readers to skip Chapter One if they are not interested in the bicycle’s history and physics. Following his advice, I did just that, but I am very glad indeed that I went back and read that chapter. Indeed, I read Chapter One twice because it was so full of new information for me. I probably learned more from that chapter than any other part of the book. That is because I had known so little about the detailed history of the bicycle’s evolution over nearly two centuries since the invention of the first crude prototype of the bicycle in 1817, with dozens if not hundreds of different kinds available for purchase now. Moreover, I knew nothing at all about the physics of how a bicycle operates and why it is about three times as energy-efficient as walking and fifty times as energyefficient as the average car. Thus, my advice to readers is not to skip Chapter One, but to read it first, just as it appears first in the book. That chapter provides an excellent foundation for the rest of the book. Although it contains much technical information, Prof. Marqués does a superb job of presenting the information in a clear and understandable way that is accessible to readers (such as myself) with no technical background at all. As I discovered, Chapter One is far more interesting and informative that I could have imagined. My own background is in urban transport planning and policy research, and for the past twenty years I have focused on the same cycling issues that Prof. Marqués examines in subsequent chapters of the book. Thus, I was

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especially impressed by the author’s insightful, well-organized, and clear exposition and analysis of the wide range of cycling infrastructure, programs, and complementary policies necessary to make cycling safe, feasible, and appealing for all social groups. Moreover, Marqués provides a fully international perspective, with specific examples and illustrations from dozens of countries on six continents. The book’s description of various kind of cycling infrastructure benefits greatly from the author’s technical background in physics and engineering. Using diagrams, photos, charts, and tables, Marqués provides a clear and easily understandable explanation of each type of infrastructure option and in what circumstances it is appropriate. City and transport planners and engineers will find this part of the book an extraordinarily useful and practical guide to building cycling systems in their own cities. That is perhaps the most important strength of this book: practical, easily understandable, comprehensive, and well-organized advice for anyone involved in planning for cycling-friendly, sustainable cities. In addition to cycling infrastructure, the book includes a detailed analysis of the wide range of complementary programs and policies that are necessary for cycling to become a mainstream means of travel feasible for almost everyone. Some examples of supportive programs are cycling training, bikesharing, bike parking, integration of cycling with public transport, celebratory bike rides and regular mass cycling events such as Ciclovías. Marqués emphasizes the crucial importance of car-restrictive policies as well. To improve traffic safety for cyclists and pedestrians, it is essential to traffic-calm most residential neighborhood streets by imposing speed limits of 30km/h or less. Such traffic-calmed neighborhoods can be found in hundreds of cities around the world. Extensive scientific research has shown that the most important benefit of traffic calming is that it dramatically reduces child injuries and fatalities from traffic, while increasing rates of child walking and cycling and enhancing the recreational possibilities for children in their own neighborhoods. Indeed, such streets are made less stressful, more pleasant, and more usable for residents of all ages. Trafficcalming also reduces air pollution and noise from motor vehicle traffic, thus making such neighborhoods healthier and more livable. Many northern and central European cities have embedded smaller ‘home zones’ within some of those traffic-calmed neighborhoods. Also called ‘shared streets’ or ‘play streets,’ such home zones lower speed limits even further, ranging from 1020km/h. The intent is to make those designated streets open for children to play and for all residents to enjoy as if they were extensions of their front yards, sort of a neighborhood park right in front of their houses. The lower

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speed limits in traffic-calmed neighborhoods and home zones are passively enforced by altering roadway design through road narrowing, speed humps, raised intersections and crosswalks, traffic circles, artificial dead-ends for cars (diverters), and curves (chicanes). Such measures not only reduce speeds but also volumes of motor vehicle traffic in residential neighborhoods since they greatly deter through traffic, which does not belong in residential neighborhoods anyway. The book includes a detailed examination of traffic calming measures. Most readers will be especially interested in the author’s detailed, firsthand experience with the transformation of his hometown Seville, Spain from a city where cycling was a marginal, hardly recognized means of travel to a mainstream way to get around Seville for daily, utilitarian purposes, used by women as well as men, all age groups, all income groups, and all ability levels. In short, the conversion from cycling for a few to cycling for everyone. And that should be the goal of any city’s transport policy. The indepth case study of Seville provides a wide range of lessons that can be applied to other cities around the world. Marqués explains the historical, cultural, economic, and political factors that influenced transport developments over various periods. Cycling planners, engineers, and public officials will obviously find useful the specific infrastructure, programmatic, and policy measures implemented in Seville over a few years to dramatically increase cycling. But even more fascinating is the political analysis of how public and political support was generated to support the financing and implementation of those measures, often involving removing roadway space from cars and shifting it to the bicycle. Car-restrictive measures are usually the most politically difficult to implement. Thus, the story of how it was done in Seville is both fascinating and useful for other cities trying to generate public and political support for new and controversial measures to promote cycling. Whatever your background, whatever your profession, whatever your interest in bicycles and cycling, there is a wealth of information in this book that will interest you. For those readers who are professionally engaged in city transport planning and engineering, especially those dealing with cycling, you will find much practical information you can use in your profession. In short, this book has something to offer for anyone interested in any aspect of bicycles and cycling. John Pucher Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University, New Jersey USA

INTRODUCTION

'A los cincuenta años, hoy, tengo una bicicleta. Muchos tienen un yate y muchos más un automóvil y hay muchos que también tienen ya un avión. Pero yo, a mis cincuenta años justos, tengo sólo una bicicleta.' Rafael Alberti 'Balada de la Bicicleta con Alas'

The publication of this essay on the importance of the bicycle, which is an improved English-language version of a previous book written in Spanish 1, comes more than 200 years after the construction of the first precursor to the bicycle, the draisine, invented in 1817 by Karl Drais in the German town of Mannheim, and more than 100 years after Lawson, Starley and Sutton built the first prototypes of the modern bicycle. Despite the fact that the bicycle is definitely not a recent invention, it is increasingly becoming a symbol of modernity throughout the world, especially in post-industrial cities and metropolises, where the abuse of motorised mobility has led to unsustainable situations of congestion and pollution that, periodically and with increasing frequency, are reported on in the mass media. What makes such a comparatively old mode of transport still so modern in the truest sense of the word? When one rides a bicycle in the city, one establishes a relationship very different from that experienced by the user of any mode of motorized transport. A cyclist, wandering around the city, can smell it, hear it, perceive it and, at the end of the ride, can get off the bike and continue walking alongside it. Thus, the cyclist may stop to chat with a friend, to buy a newspaper, some fruit or a cake, attracted by the fragrance of the pastry. In short, the cyclist immerses himself in his city in a very similar way to how 1 Marqués, R. (2017) La Importancia de la Bicicleta. Ed. Universidad de Sevilla, Seville, Spain

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Introduction

a pedestrian does, although enjoying a longer route. That is why as citizens around the world begin to consider not how to simply survive, but how to live in their cities, they turn their eyes towards the bicycle as the ideal way to embrace the whole city again, without losing quality of life or becoming mere spectators of the lives of others through the windows of their cars. Consequently, the bicycle, which is also the daughter of the industrial revolution, becomes the ideal vehicle to give back to cities the human scale that the industrial revolution itself snatched away from them by turning them into motorised metropolises. But if the massive use of the bicycle is to help to return human scale to post-industrial cities, the city, in turn, must be returned to the bicycle, which will not be an easy task because, although bicycles were the predominant vehicles in most of the industrialised world during the 1930s, 40s and 50s, the automobile boom has reduced them to insignificant percentages of the modal split in almost all of the world’s cities, with the exception of a few that we all know and admire. It is easy to understand why: the bicycle is a machine and, as such, is often unwelcome on the pavements next to pedestrians. Nor does it enjoy the power and speed of a motor vehicle, so its accommodation in the road, next to such vehicles, is not easy, although for reasons opposite to the previous case. The result is that the bike has run out of space in cities. And, of course, space is the most precious commodity in a city. When I say that the bicycle needs to recover its place in the city, I do not mean only in the public road, but generally speaking in the whole city (workplaces, parks, neighbourhood communities, businesses, places of study and leisure, public transport... ) including in the minds of its inhabitants. In fact, the latter is perhaps the most important because, although there is today some consensus on the benefits of cycling as a mode of transport, the bicycle is still seen as little more than a complementary vehicle when it comes to developing mobility policies. The main thesis of this essay is, however, that from politicians and planners to ordinary people, we must all become aware of the importance of utilitarian cycling (hence the title of this book) as an essential component of any project of sustainable and healthy urban mobility. Personally, I am convinced that, without massive use of the bicycle, it is not possible to advance in practice towards that goal. And that is what I hope to be able to demonstrate in this book. As for its contents, this book draws on the experience of the University of Seville free choice subject “The Bicycle and Sustainable Mobility”,

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which the author coordinated from the 2007-08 academic year until the umpteenth reform of university education in Spain ended free choice subjects in 2015. The materials for this course provided a first basis for the elaboration of this book, which were later supplemented by further research and reflections. I must also say that this book would not have been written if it were not for the remarkable experience recently developed in Seville, the city where I have lived and worked for more than 40 years. In just 5 years, Seville went from a city where the use of the bicycle was hardly perceptible to a place where the consolidated presence of this mode of transport in its daily mobility is a reality, with tens of thousands of users cycling through its streets and causing a change in the urban landscape that is obvious to the naked eye. This experience, to which I have devoted a chapter, motivated me, in part, to write this book. Just a few words about terminology before describing the contents of this book. The word bicycle is used throughout this book in the etymological sense of the term: a two-wheeled cycle or, more precisely, a humanpowered vehicle having just two wheels situated in the same plane, one behind the other. This excludes unicycles, tricycles and quadricycles, which have sometimes also been named and studied as bicycles, but I shall also use the word to include all kinds of modern bicycles, as well as their predecessors, such as the draisine and the michauline. As will be summarized in Part II of the First Chapter, bicycles show relevant physical advantages over other cycles. It is probably for this reason that the bicycle is the most popular and relevant human-powered vehicle. Only in the specific field of cycle-logistics do tricycles and other bicycle-related vehicles become relevant and, consequently, they will also be considered in this book. The book is organised as follows: Chapter One briefly describes the history and physics of the bicycle. It is one of my deepest convictions that nothing is truly understood until its history is known, at least in a summarized way. This is even more true when we are dealing with a human invention like the bicycle, which dates back more than 200 years. As for the physics of the bicycle, I was at first unsure as to whether or not to include it in the book but, being a physicist, it would have seemed somewhat disrespectful to myself not to include something about the physics of the bicycle, which in many ways helps to explain why the bicycle is so useful and convenient as an urban mode of transport. Two main questions will be

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Introduction

addressed from this perspective in that part: the stability and efficiency of the bicycle, both of which have a high impact on its usefulness as an urban mode. I have tried to do this in such a way that it will be understandable to the average reader and, of course, without using any complex formulae. If, in spite of this, I have not achieved my goal, the reader can simply skip this part, which will not be an impediment to the correct understanding of the rest of the book. In Chapter Two, I try to describe the dead-end street to which the dominant policies of mobility, based on the petrol-fuelled automobile and its technological sequels, such as biofuels and electric cars, have led us. I analyse the reasons why these policies succeeded in the past, the problems they are now causing and how they have become the most unsustainable and unhealthy aspect of the current way of life in the so-called 'developed' countries. This analysis includes, as well as the physical and ecological limits faced by the dominant model of urban mobility, the difficult social and public health problems it creates. Chapter Three is possibly the crux of this book. It describes the potential of urban cycling as an essential and unavoidable element of any urban mobility policy aimed at sustainability, and it answers the key question about the role, in my opinion, essential, that the bicycle can and should play in the transition towards a sustainable urban mobility model. Two key questions that must be faced by any policy of promotion of the bicycle as a mode of transport are then addressed: what should its place be in public roads and how can a comprehensive approach be given to the policies of road safety in relation to the bicycle. Chapter Four, while not meant to be a manual, is dedicated to describing in a global way the main concepts and techniques of promoting cycling mobility in the urban environment. There have been many experiences that have failed because they lack a holistic vision and focus only on specific and not always essential aspects of the problem. When to integrate and when to separate bicycles from motorized traffic? What essential characteristics should a network of cycle paths have? When is the coexistence of bicycles and pedestrians possible? How to effectively combine cycling and public transport? What aspects determine the success of a public bicycle system? What complementary infrastructures does the bicycle need to thrive? How to socially integrate the bicycle in the city? These are all essential issues that need to be assessed before undertaking a minimally successful bicycle promotion programme.

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Finally, Chapter Five describes and critically analyses a successful example of urban cycling promotion in which the author had the opportunity to participate. Seville has been the scenario of a successful experience of urban cycling promotion, starting practically from zero. This experience may be inspiring for many other cities in the world sharing a similar starting situation (in fact, unfortunately, most of them). What were the differential factors that led to success in Seville? Which are the bottlenecks presently faced by urban cycling in the city? How can they be overcome? The book ends with some final remarks and with a bibliographical appendix compiling the references cited throughout the text. I am indebted to the Editorial Universidad de Sevilla for allowing for the reproduction of much of the material which originally appeared in the first Spanish version of this book. I am especially grateful to Prof. John Pucher of Rutgers University for reading the book, writing the foreword and making very useful suggestions. I am also grateful to Manuel Calvo-Salazar and Vicente Hernández-Herrador for making useful comments and providing many photographs. Francisco Manuel García-Farrán, Elena Huerta, Juanma Mellado, 'Okocycle' and 'Santa Cleta' also provided photographs and graphic material for the book. I should also like to thank the Bicycle Office of the Municipality of Seville, and especially Emilio Minguito and Javier Huesa, for providing invaluable graphic material and information for Chapter Five. Special thanks are also given to James Langford, who revised the English text and made many corrections.

CHAPTER ONE THE HISTORY AND PHYSICS OF THE BICYCLE

'The development of the bicycle is a long love-affair between the human body and mechanical ingenuity.' Andrew Richtie 'King of the Road' (1975)

Part I: The invention of the bicycle: from the draisine to the safety bike The earliest precedent of the bicycle which has written records 2 is the célerifère, supposedly invented by the French aristocrat Mede de Sivrac in the middle of the French Revolution (Baudry de Saunier, 1891, pp. 4-8; Richtie pp. 17-18). The célerifère was nothing but a rigid frame of wood, to which Sivrac coupled two wheels and provided with a saddle and a fixed handlebar. The célerifère was impelled by means of strides, alternately supporting the feet on the ground and pushing. The célerifère did not have any type of steering mechanism, a fact which would certainly make its handling quite uncomfortable, turning it into a toy rather than a true means of transport. This absence of a steering mechanism implies, as will be seen below, that the driver of the célerifère would need the support of his feet to keep his balance. Therefore, the célerifère was not a true bicycle. 2 In April of 1974 the news spread of the discovery of a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci (or of one of his disciples) that represented a bicycle. The resemblance to a modern bicycle was surprising, incorporating even the chain transmission which was, as will be seen, the last advance in the evolution towards the modern bicycle. Unfortunately, most experts now agree that this was a fraud: there are no other references to such a “bicycle” in all Leonardo's work, the style of the drawing is not recognizable and, to top it all, the ink was dated in a period well after Leonardo. See, for instance, (Navarro 2010, pp. 15-21) or (Penn 2010, pp. 100-103). Moreover, in the drawing there is not a clear steering mechanism (Roberts 1991, p. 18) which, as we will see later, is essential for balance and, therefore, for the device be properly considered a bicycle.

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More recently, bicycle historians (see, for instance, Seray, 1988, pp. 1317) put into doubt the the historical existence of the célerifère, attributing its 'existence' to a misconception propagated in 1891 by the aforementioned French journalist and historian of the bicycle Louis Baudry de Saunier. In any case, the célerifère was for many years considered to be the first case of a bicycle having written record, and as such deserves to be cited. On the other hand, the basic idea of the célerifère - to couple a pair of wheels to a frame - is so simple and evident that it seems more than plausible that designs similar to the célerifère may have been conceived and even constructed more than once throughout the history of mankind. What there can be no doubt about is the invention of the 'draisine' in 1817 by Karl Drais von Sauerbronn in the german city of Mannheim (see, for instance, Seray 1988, pp. 19-47 or Herlihy 2004 pp. 19-30). The existence of this 'laufmaschine' or 'running machine', as its inventor called it, is perfectly documented and all bicycle historians agree on this. The draisine can be described as a célerifère whose front wheel incorporates a steering mechanism, that originally resembled more the tiller of the helm of a ship than a modern handlebar. The incorporation of this steering mechanism to the draisine made it much easier to ride than the célerifère (if it did exist), allowing the rider to maintain his balance independently of his stride (by making small turns on either side, as will be explained in Part II of this Chapter). Thus, whereas the rider of the célerifère, had to use his feet as much to keep his balance as to move forward, the rider of the draisine used them only to move forward, which is why one could 'keep them both in the air, to take a rest, while the machine rolls at high speed', as is stated in the text of the French patent requested by Karl Drais in 1818 (cited by Seray 1988, p. 37). A few years later, in 1819, the English coachmaker Dennis Johnson developed an improved model of the draisine, the so-called 'hobby-horse' (see, for instance, Herlihy 2004, pp. 31-38, Richtie pp. 20-27). Dennis Johnson introduced the handlebar and other steel parts, and even developed a version of the hobby-horse for ladies, with a step-through frame so that they could easily accommodate their long skirts, in what can be considered the first precedent of ladies' bicycles (Woodforde 1970, pp. 10-11; The Online Bicycle Museum n.d.). Johnson and his company, Swift Cycle & Co. Ltd., had some success, selling between 300 and 400 hobby-horses, mainly among the dandies of London. However, conflicts soon began to emerge. Some pedestrians

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Chapter One

thought they were being attacked by this new vehicle and its sometimes anarchic drivers, who invaded the pavements searching for a smoother surface, which resulted in criminal cases with fines being given to some of the most daring and/or inexperienced drivers and, finally, in the banning of hobby-horses on pavements. To make matters worse, the London College of Surgeons issued serious warnings about the health problems that could result from a continued use of hobby-horses, such as severe hernias or cramps (Herlihy 2004, p. 38), in what can be considered the first precedent of the prejudices that have accompanied the use of the bicycle ever since. Whether it is because of these causes or just because the fashion ended, the truth is that sales plummeted and the hobby-horse boom ended around 1821.

Figure 1.1: The draisine is still present in our lives as a toy that many boys and girls use to practise keeping their balance and to get started in bicycle riding.

If making the balance independent from the stride by incorporating the steering mechanism was the starting point of the bicycle, the next challenge to be solved was to separate the progression of the stride, so that it would not be necessary to put a foot on the ground to propel the bicycle. Riding a draisine or a hobby-horse could be considered as an activity halfway between walking and cycling as we understand this latter activity today. In

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fact, we have already commented that the name Karl Drais gave to his invention was that of 'laufmaschine' or 'running machine', and hobby-horses were also known in England as 'swift walkers'. But the efficiency of the stride as a propelling mechanism decreases drastically as speed increases. This can be easily understood by taking into account that the speed relative to the ground of the foot is the difference between its speed with respect to the draisine and the speed of the draisine itself with respect to the ground. Thus, as the draisine acquired speed, its occupant had to increase the speed and frequency of his strides; otherwise, the impulse obtained from each stride would vanish. Clearly, this has a biomechanical limit, which is reached fairly soon. To overcome this drawback, it was necessary to imagine a propelling mechanism whose efficiency did not depend on the speed of the vehicle, which can only be achieved if the driving force is applied directly to the wheel, instead of to the ground. The first step in that direction seems to have been taken by another Englishman, Lewis Gompertz, who in 1821 proposed an ingenious mechanism to power the front wheel of the draisine by using a hand lever connected to the wheel by a gear (see, for instance, Seray 1988, p. 64). But nothing came of it. Many books and articles devoted to the history of the bicycle mention the attempts made in Scotland to endow the draisine with a propelling mechanism applied to the rear wheel by using connecting rods and cranks (see, for instance, Richtie, pp. 34-37). The mechanism would be similar to the one used by the newly invented steam locomotive of George Stevenson. Kirpatrick McMillan is claimed to have applied such mechanism to the rear wheel of a draisine in 1839. However, the first documented reference to this is the velocipede built in 1869 by Thomas McCall, which is conserved in the Museum of Science of London (Herlihy 2004, p. 68). Therefore, McCall's velocipede would have been built after the invention of the front wheel pedal drive in France. McMillan/McCall's velocipede had a rear wheel which was somewhat larger than the front wheel and was propelled by connecting rods and cranks applied to it. The connecting rods were in turn connected to two vertical bars hanging from the frame, with pedals on its opposite ends (see Figure 1.2). The rider of the velocipede pushed the connecting rods back and forth by swinging his legs on the pedals, thus propelling the velocipede forward. It was, in essence, the same mechanism that propelled the first steam locomotives, except that the driving force did not come from a piston driven by steam pressure, but by the cyclist's legs. However, McMillan/McCall's velocipede, while solving the problem of the transmission of the force to the

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Chapter One

rear wheel, generated other problems. First, the leg-swinging movement needed to propel the velocipede is not entirely efficient from a biomechanical point of view (Navarro 2010, p. 27). Second, swinging the legs back and forth in order to propel the velocipede hampers the steering of the front wheel, generating a conflict between the propulsion and the steering of the vehicle (Richtie 1975, p. 36; Navarro 2010, p. 27).

Figure 1.2: Schematic representation of a draisine (a), the velocipede of McCall (b), a michauline (c) and the 'bicyclette' of H. J. Lawson (d), precedent of the 'safety bike'.

Presently, many bicycle historians (Seray 1988, pp. 65-67; Herlihy 2004, pp. 66-71) grant little credit to McMillan's vindication and attribute directly to McCall the idea of endowing the draisine with rear propulsion through connecting rods and cranks, in the image and likeness of a locomotive. It is even possible that McCall’s invention was inspired by earlier tricycles or quadricycles that used this kind of propulsion, which was much more suitable for such vehicles than for a bicycle, where the conflict with the steering mechanism seems difficult to avoid (see Fig. 1.2). There are other claims related to the introduction of a rear transmission for the drasine based on levers and/or connecting rods and cranks, such as

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those of another Scot, Gavin Dalzell, (Seray 1988, pp. 65-68) or the French emigrant to California, Alexandre Lefebvre (ibid., p. 69) 3. But in any case, whether or not these claims were true and/or prior to the transmission by means of pedals attached to the front wheel, the fact is that they did not have any influence on the subsequent development of the bicycle, although, in the end, the transmission to the rear wheel triumphed, but not by levers or cranks, but by a chain, as we will see later. The introduction of pedals directly coupled to the front wheel of the bicycle took place in France during the 1860s. Although historians differ as to the precise date of the invention and the role played by each contributor (There is some controversy on this point. See, for instance, Seray 1988, pp. 71-96 and Herlihy 2004, pp. 75-101.), it is clear that the invention and its first developments must be attributed to the Parisian blacksmith Pierre Michaux and his son Ernest, to the brothers René and Aimé Olivier, or to Pierre Lallement, who patented the invention in the United States. In 1867 Michaux and the Olivier brothers founded in Paris the first factory of 'michaulines' 4 on the two upper floors of the Michaux workshop in Paris. Almost simultaneously, Lallement patented a similar invention in the United States in 1866. The genially simple idea of the Olivier brothers, Michaux and Lallement was to couple two pedals to the front wheel of a draisine, by means of a pair of cranks directly attached to the wheel axle. The front transmission allowed a much more efficient movement of the legs from a biomechanical point of view and, at the same time, prevented the conflict between propulsion and steering of McCall's velocipede. Michaulines were very successful: Hundreds of copies a year were made first in France and then in Britain (where they were nicknamed 'boneshakers' due to their rather rough ride), the United States and Germany by various manufacturers, who also introduced some improvements. It can be wondered why the idea, in principle quite simple, of coupling two pedals to the front wheel of a draisine took more than forty years to develop. Indeed, many people asked themselves this question after the michauline was developed. A stunned editor at the New York Clipper, writing in the fall of 1868, described the new pedals as a 'mechanism so 3

Curiously, the drawings we have of Dalzell and Lefebvre’s machines (see, for instance, Roberts 1991, pp. 25-26) do not show the aforementioned conflict between propulsion and steering, apparent in McCall's velocipede. 4 In fact, the name “michauline” did not appeared until more recently to refer to the Michaux velocipede (Roberts 1991, p. 29). I will use this name, however, in order to differentiate Michaux type velocipedes from other designs.

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Chapter One

simple that everybody wonders [why] they had not thought of it before.' (Herlihy 2003, p. 47). Herlihy attributes this fact to the already mentioned 'hostility' of the public towards the draisine, which prevented further developments. We may also consider that the reason might have also been psychological: To imagine for the first time that it was possible to maintain one’s balance on two wheels without putting one’s feet (or additional wheels, as in tricycles and quadricycles) on the ground at any time would not be easy. The michauline was the first truly popular bicycle. In May of 1868, 'Michaux & Co.' sponsored the first official cycling races in Paris, which inspired other contests that summer in and around the French capital (Herlihy 2004, p. 96). The use of the velocipede also became popular amongst women, and in November of that same year, the first women's cycling race took place in Bordeaux with thousands of spectators present (Herlihy 2004, p. 100). The craze soon extended beyond the sea to the United States, where the michauline became so popular that a journalist proposed building an elevated cycle path to run the entire length of Manhattan, probably the first proposal for a bikeway ever made (Richtie 1975, p. 66). Nonetheless, the michauline was still a vehicle for the rich. Its cost, between 200 and 250 francs, was high for the middle class, and unaffordable for the working class. Voices were raised calling for the manufacture of velocipedes made for the working class and not simply for the amusement of the rich. 'The velocipede will amuse the idle rich for a while, but they will abandon it one day, for the simple reason that they all own horses and carriages. The velocipede will thus become the carriage of the poor. That is its true destiny', wrote a journalist of the time with unquestionable historical vision (cited by Herlihy 2004, p. 130). Despite their success, the michauline still had a serious technical problem: The short distance travelled by each pedal stroke of the cyclist. Both in the michauline and in McCall's velocipede, the distance d travelled by each pedal stroke could not be other than the total length of the circumference of the wheel receiving the impulse, i.e. G ʌU, where r is the radius of the wheel. In the case of the michauline, although its front wheel was larger than the rear wheel, to actually alleviate this problem, the distance advanced by each pedal stroke was not much longer than 3.14 metres (for typical wheels of 1 metre in diameter). For the sake of comparison, a typical modern bicycle advances between 7 and 9 metres by each pedal stroke.

The History and Physics of the Bicycle

13

Figure 1.3: With the arrival of the high-wheelers, which were unsuitable for ladies, tricycles became very popular amongst them, while bicycles were used by young and athletic gentlemen. In the photo, members of the 'Club Velocipedista El Porvenir' (Seville, Spain), in 1890. Source: Memorias de Sevilla.

As a result, michaulines were slow and pedalling was tiring and inefficient. The maximum speeds attainable on a michauline were determined by the cyclist's pedalling pace which, for biomechanical reasons, could not be much higher than one pedal stroke per second. Therefore, the maximum speed

14

Chapter One

of a michauline with a front wheel of one metre in diameter cannot be much higher than 11 km/h. Thus, for example, in the first Paris-Ruen race, held in 1869, the winner, the Englishman James Moore, rode the 123 kilometres between both cities in 10 hours and 40 minutes, at an average speed of approximately 12 km/h (Richtie 1975, p. 60), a speed that is now easily exceeded by any urban cyclist, regardless of their physical fitness. As for the fatigue caused by pedalling, the reader can get an idea of it by riding a commercial 27-speed mountain bike and trying to advance by pedalling with the chain on the smallest chainring and the largest sprocket. Following the basic design of the michaulines, the only way to increase the distance travelled with each pedal stroke was to increase the radius of the front wheel. Thus began a race towards the construction of bicycles with larger and larger front wheels, the so-called 'high wheelers' 5, which incidentally raised interesting engineering problems linked to the manufacture of large wheels with the necessary resistance and flexibility which led to technological innovations such as tensioned wire spokes. The front wheel of high wheelers eventually reached a diameter of around 60 inches (about 50% larger than a typical michauline's front wheel). It was not possible to go much further, both due to the difficulty of driving the velocipede and the limitations imposed by the cyclist's anatomy. Although ingenious solutions were attempted, including lever extensions to the pedals such as in the 'Xtraordinary' and the 'Facile' designs (Seray 1988, pp. 121122), both in 1878, and chain transmission to the front wheel, such as in the 'Kangaroo' (Seray 1988, p.120) of 1884, the time of the high wheelers was coming to an end. The high wheelers, on the other hand, were expensive and difficult to ride, so their potential market was limited to young, rich and athletic men, largely excluding women, middle-aged men and most working class people, who were not able to afford a high wheeler, unless it were a second-hand model. Then began a golden age for tricycles and quadricycles of one or several seats, which were used by ladies, middle-aged gentlemen and couples, although, for obvious reasons, these machines were still more expensive than bicycles and, therefore, even more difficult for workers to afford. The democratic spirit of the first michaulines was lost, and replaced by an aristocratic and elitist spirit. 5

It was only after other bicycle designs appeared that the high wheeler was named as “ordinary”, just to differentiate it from these other designs. The high wheeler was also nicknamed the “penny-fartingh” due to the very different sizes of its two wheels, which resembled the different sizes of these coins.

The History and Physics of the Bicycle

15

The solution to all these problems came in the form of chain transmission to the rear wheel 6. The transmission chain was invented by Leonardo da Vinci, who produced several drawings in which this transmission mechanism was applied to several devices, although not to a bicycle, whose concept was unknown to him, as we have seen. It seems that the chain transmission was first applied to some tricycles which, as we have mentioned, experienced a huge expansion during the high wheeler era. In 1879, Henry J. Lawson patented a bicycle driven by a chainset connected to a sprocket on the rear wheel by a chain, which he called the 'bicyclette' (see Figure 1.2). This was the first precursor of the modern bicycle 7. Lawson's bicyclette had little success, but in 1885 John Kemp Starley and William Sutton developed an improved model of Lawson's bicyclette, which they called the 'Rover Safety Bike' or, in short, the 'safety', whose name indicates its biggest advantage over the high wheelers: safety. Although the first models had a somewhat different design, the safety bike soon evolved, and by 1900 their basic design was already that of a modern bicycle, with wheels of similar size 8, a diamond frame and a steering mechanism which was attached directly to the front fork (see Figure 1.4). The safety bike solved the aforementioned problem of the small distance advanced by the michauline with each pedal stroke by introducing a new variable in the formula giving this distance: The 'gear ratio’, i.e. the ratio between the number of teeth in the chainring N and the number of teeth in the rear wheel sprocket n, so that G 1Q ʌU. It is apparent that now the distance travelled with each pedal stroke can be increased, in principle indefinitely, by just increasing the gear ratio (N/n). This solution was much safer and more economical than increasing the size of the front wheel. 6

Apart from McCall's velocipede, the transmission to the rear wheel has a precedent in the “Star” bicycle (Seray 1988, p. 123) of 1880, which reversed the standard high wheeler configuration, by placing a small wheel in the front and a large wheel driven by levers in the rear. 7 Although it is possible that there were some French and English precursors of Lawson's bicyclette (see, for example, Richtie 1975, pp. 122-124 and Seray 1988, pp. 125-131) they must have been, in any case, isolated embodiments of an artisanal nature, without any further influence on the bicycle industry, whose centre of gravity moved, after the Franco - Prussian War (1870-1871), from France to England. 8 Probably as a souvenir of the michaulines, Lawson's bicyclette as well as the first designs of Kemp and Sutton still had a front wheel which was somewhat larger than the rear one, a characteristic that had no functional purpose and that disappeared in later designs.

16

Chapter One

Figure 1.4: Safety bike (France, around 1900) with front lantern and fixed rear sprocket showing a design quite similar to present bicycles. The head angle and the trail are marked. Photograph of the author, bicycle courtesy of Santa Cleta (Seville).

The safety bike had a resounding success, to which women, whom the high-wheelers had relegated to riding tricycles, contributed in no small way. Some manufacturers recovered Dennis Johnson's old idea and began to design safeties for ladies. However, many women opted for the simpler and more direct solution of wearing trousers. By 1850, the feminist Amelia Bloomer had introduced the fashion of 'bloomers' in the United States, while in 1881 Lady Harberton introduced the divided skirt in England. Both innovations became enormously popular with the arrival of the bicycle and its widespread use by women (Herlihy 2004, pp. 138-139 and 266-271). Thus, during the 1890s the enormous success of the 'safety' among ladies generated a wide debate about what kind of clothing women should wear on a bicycle (see, for instance, the interesting contemporary testimony of F. J. Erskine, 1897), which helped the revolution in women's clothing and transformed the bicycle into a symbol of women’s liberation. As an example of this link between the bicycle and women’s liberation, when in 1897 the University of Cambridge decided to admit female students, part of its male students organised a protest during which they symbolically hanged the mannequin of a woman riding a bicycle, as an example of the kind of woman they did not want to have in 'their' university (Macy 2011, p. 76). By the end of the 19th century, the bicycle and women's liberation were inextricably linked and the American civil rights leader, Susan B Anthony, said in 1896:

The History and Physics of the Bicycle

17

'I think [the bicycle] has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride on a wheel.' (cited by Macy 2011, p. 77).

By 1890, the safety bike already dominated the market and all the surviving manufacturers had incorporated it into their catalogue. Thanks to mass production, the safety had gone from being a toy for the rich to being a utilitarian product for mass consumption. With the safety bike the history of the modern bicycle begins, something that we will see soon. But first we will make a brief interlude to better understand how this wonderful machine works.

Part II: The physics of bicycle The bicycle is a machine of complex behaviour whose dynamic balance and incredible stability defy intuition, and whose efficiency exceeds that of any other vehicle. For years it has been the subject of innumerable improvements and innovations that have given rise to the different bicycle models that are now on the market: the urban bicycle, the racing bicycle, the mountain bike, the hybrid, the folding bicycle, the recumbent bicycle, the cargo bicycle, and so on. The physics and engineering behind them is a huge field of research in continuous evolution which we cannot address here even in a summarised way. We will therefore limit ourselves to briefly answering two questions, possibly those which are the most relevant to our purposes and which most intrigue the general public. The first one can be formulated in a simple way: Why do cyclists not fall over? The answer to this first question will also tell us why a moving bicycle is so stable, even more than a tricycle, for example, which, in principle, is counterintuitive. The second question has to do with a key aspect for this essay: Why is the bicycle so efficient? Why, if a walker and a cyclist share the same driving force (that provided by their heart and muscles), is the cyclist several times faster than the walker, being able to travel with similar effort and in the same time four times more distance? In 1869, just at the beginning of the bicycle craze in the United States, Scientific American pointed out 'That a velocipede should maintain an upright position is one of the most surprising feats of practical mechanics.' (quoted by Heirlihy 2004, p. 107). In fact, the bicycle only has two points of support; therefore, the static balance is impossible. So, it is apparent that cyclist’s balance is a dynamic equilibrium, which only occurs on the condition that the system formed by the bicycle and the cyclist are moving. Reversing Albert Einstein’s well-known sentence, we could say that the

18

Chapter One

bicycle is like life: to keep your balance, you have to keep moving forward. According to what we might call the 'standard theory' of the cyclist's dynamic equilibrium, this is based on one of the fundamental laws of physics: the law of conservation of angular momentum. This law can be stated in a qualitative way by saying that every symmetrical body (for example a wheel) in rotation around its axis tends to maintain invariant said rotational movement, which includes the tendency to maintain its axis of rotation always in the same direction. In essence, this law is just one of the manifestations of the 'law of inertia' discovered by Galileo Galilei, whose statement marks the beginning of modern physics. The reader can get an idea of how the law of conservation of angular momentum affects the wheel of a bicycle by holding the axle of one of them with both hands (for this you can use one of those axle extensions or 'pegs' used by BMX lovers) as shown in Figure 1.5 (left). If you now ask an 'assistant' to spin the wheel quickly and, with the wheel in rotation, you try to change the orientation of its axis, you will notice that it offers some resistance, and the higher the frequency of the wheel’s rotation, the more resistance there will be. According to a first and rather naive version of this 'standard' theory, it would be this tendency of the wheels of a moving bicycle to maintain the orientation of their axis of rotation which would explain the cyclist's balance, at least while it is moving in a straight line. According to this theory, the célerifère described in part I of this chapter would be able to maintain its balance - at least for a certain time – if it is ridden in a straight line on flat ground, due to the aforementioned effect. However, this is not exactly so. If we simulate a célerifère by tying the handlebar of a bicycle so that it cannot turn and, after putting it upright, we give it a strong push forward, we will observe how the bicycle is able to travel a short distance before falling to the ground, although the experiment is quite disappointing because such a distance is too short to talk about the self-stability of the simulated 'célerifère' 9. The shortness of this distance becomes apparent when we compare it with the distance that the same bicycle is able to travel with its handlebar free of ties 10. In this last case, the bicycle can travel a much longer distance while tracing a wide curve on the ground. This behaviour is called self-stability of the bicycle. We will conclude, therefore, that the mechanism by which a cyclist acquires balance on a bicycle is a more complex issue than the simple tendency of the wheels to keep their axis of rotation unchanged. In this respect, and in view of the second 9

The experiment con be seen in the video of A. Schwab (2011a). The experiment can be seen in the video of A. Schwab (2011b).

10

The History and Physics of the Bicycle

19

experiment, everything indicates that the presence of a steering mechanism is essential for the dynamic stability of the bicycle.

Figure 1.5: On the left, a bicycle wheel rotates while it is supported by its axle. On the right, snapshots of the experiment showing the precession of a wheel as described in this section. Photographs V. Hernández-Herrador.

Following with the law of conservation of angular momentum, we can go a step further by including in the theory the precession of the wheel due to the gyroscopic effect. To understand how it works, I suggest that the reader perform the small experiment that physics teachers have done for years to illustrate this gyroscopic effect to their students. For this, you will only need a rope, a tie-down point and a normal bicycle wheel 11: Attach the upper end of the rope to the tie-down point and tie its lower end to the wheel shaft as shown in Figure 1.5 (right). Then put the wheel in a vertical position (ie, with its axis along the horizontal) and make the wheel rotate as shown in the illustration. Then release the free end of the wheel’s axis. You will see that, contrary to what would happen if the wheel were not turning, it does not fall towards the horizontal but remains in a position close to the vertical, although somewhat inclined, while it slowly turns around the rope. This movement (called precession) will continue as long as the wheel keeps turning around its axis. If you repeat the experiment by spinning the wheel in the opposite direction, you will notice that the precession of the wheel around the string also changes direction. The experiment shows that precession occurs when some external force (in this case gravity) causes the wheel to tilt with respect to its original position. It also shows that the direction of precession depends on the direction the wheel is spinning in: if it changes, the direction of the precession also changes. 11

The experiment can be seen in the video of W. Lewin (2011).

20

Chapter One

From this simple experiment, we can begin to understand, not only why cyclists do not fall off of their bicycles, but how it is possible to ride a bicycle with no hands. Firstly, the tendency of the wheels to stay vertical when they rotate prevents the cyclist from falling off when he and his bicycle are both in motion and perfectly vertical. On the other hand, if the cyclist (and the bicycle) tilts for any reason, the tendency of the forward wheel to precess around the steering axis when it tilts makes the handlebar turn in the same direction of the tilt, changing the direction of the bicycle, even if the cyclist's hands are not touching the handlebar, so that the centrifugal force pushes the cyclist and his bicycle out of their curved trajectory, thus contributing to straighten them, or even to tilt them towards the opposite side 12. For this reason, as has been mentioned, the bicycle with free handlebar takes longer to fall than the bicycle with blocked handlebar, oscillating with respect to the vertical and describing a sinuous trajectory during which there are continuous turns of the handlebar that follow the oscillations of the bicycle, before finally falling while describing a wide curve in the direction of the fall (Schwab, 2011b). Therefore, the presence of a steering mechanism applied to the front wheel not only allows for changing the direction of the bicycle, but is essential to maintaining the bicycle’s dynamic balance. According to this theory, the cyclist keeps his balance by making small micro-turns in the direction of his fall, which stabilizes him and leads him to 'fall' in the opposite direction, which he compensates for again with micro-turns in the opposite direction, and so on. To change direction, the cyclist leans in the direction of the desired turn, which allows him to turn the handlebars with very little effort and, at the same time, maintain his balance (this is the 'secret' of riding with no hands). As any cyclist can easily check, it is precisely in curves where bicycles demonstrate their superiority with regard to tricycles and quadricycles, which cannot tilt in the direction of the turn, and therefore tend to fall outwards from the curve, pushed by centrifugal force while their riders find it much more difficult to control the changes of direction 13. 12

It happens too that this turn of the handlebar also contributes to stabilize the bicycle by a second order gyroscopic effect, whose detailed description goes beyond the scope of this book. This mechanism, however, seems to be weaker that the centrifugal force effect. 13 It is interesting to note that, during the golden age of tricycles, which competed with bicycles during the late 1870s and throughout the 1880s as a safer alternative to the high wheelers, tricycling accidents seem to have outnumbered bicycling accidents, according to newspaper reports (Woodforde 1970, p. 67).

The History and Physics of the Bicycle

21

According to a recent review by J. P. Meijaard et al (2011), the theory that we have just outlined, mainly based on the law of conservation of angular momentum (also known as the 'gyroscopic explanation'), dominated the scientific scene throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Subsequently, and without denying the pertinence of gyroscopic theory, other stabilizing effects different from the gyroscopic one have been described. Among these are the effects derived from the inclination of the bicycle front fork, or 'trail effects' 14 (Jones, 1970) which, for conventional bicycles, also cause a turn of the front wheel in the appropriate direction 15, even if the bicycle is at rest, as a consequence of the change in the height of its centre of mass, something that any cyclist can easily check by simply tilting bicycle while it is not moving. This trail effect also explains, with the help of centrifugal force, both riding with no hands and the self-stabilization of the bicycle. Increasing the trail increases the bicycle’s self-stability (Jones 1970). In practice, however, making bicycles too self-stable by using large trails also make them harder to steer. Thus, most modern bicycles have head angles 16 EHWZHHQၨDQGၨDQGSRVLWLYHEXWVPDOOWUDLOVRIDURXQG one tenth or less of the front wheel diameter. More recently, an article published in Science (Kooijman et al., 2011) has shown that it is possible to build a 'bicycle' (of a rather strange aspect, however) that self-stabilizes without the help of either the gyroscopic effect or the trail effects described by Jones, by using effects related to the distribution of masses of the vehicle, which causes the 'bicycle' to turn to the same side when it starts to fall to one side. In summary, the most recent research has shown that there is a whole set of effects, apart from the gyroscopic effect, that helps to stabilise cyclists and their bicycles, whose relative contribution will depend on the specific design of each bicycle. In any case, it seems clear that, on a conventional 14

The trail is the distance between the point where the front wheel meets the ground and the point where the prolongation of the steering axis meets the ground (see Figure 1.4). The trail is positive if this last point is ahead of the point where the front wheel meets the ground and negative otherwise. In conventional bicycles the trail is always positive. 15 The 'appropriate' direction is, as it was already mentioned, the same direction of the tilt. 16 The head angle is the angle between the steering axis and the ground (see Figure 1.4). Small head angles, apart from increasing the trail, help to pull apart the front wheel from the pedals, avoiding conflicts between pedalling and steering the bicycle. Therefore, “ceteris paribus” a maximum value for the head angle is imposed by the necessary clearance between the front wheel and the pedals.

22

Chapter One

bicycle, the cyclist manages to stay in dynamic balance by making small left and right turns of the handlebar (performed almost always unconsciously), whose effect is to compensate for the oscillations with respect to the vertical plane of the bicycle. Thus, 'the key to balancing a bicycle is learning to steer the handlebars the way the bicycle is leaning (Penn 2010, p. 55)'. That is why, while the draisine can already be considered to be a bicycle, the célerifère, if it had existed, would still not have been a true bicycle. Regarding the second question, posed at the beginning of this section, we have all heard at one time or another that pedalling a bicycle is the most efficient way to move and, in fact, it is true as long one is riding over smooth terrain. As this is generally the situation in cities, it should be pointed out that pedalling a bicycle is the most efficient way to move through cities. But why is it more efficient to ride a bicycle than to walk around the city? The main reasons were explained in an article written by S. S. Wilson in Scientific American, published in 1973: 'In walking the leg muscles not only support the rest of the body in an erect posture but also raise and lower the entire body as well as accelerate and decelerate the lower limbs. All these actions consume energy without doing any useful work' (Wilson 1973, quoted in Richtie 1975, p. 170). In other words, when we walk, it is inevitable that our centre of mass rises and falls as we move (see Figure 1.6), thus changing our gravitational energy, and the energy spent in such changes is lost without contributing in any way to horizontal displacement. Moreover, additional energy is lost in accelerating and decelerating our body. However, when we pedal a bicycle, our centre of mass remains more or less at the same height with regard to the ground and our bicycle moves smoothly forward, so we take advantage of almost all of the energy that we communicate to the pedals to advance. This is the main reason why pedalling a bicycle is a much more efficient way to get around most cities than just walking or running. As Karl Drais anticipated, the bicycle is, in essence, a 'laufmaschine', i.e. a device for walking in a faster and more efficient way. The energy consumption linked to the basic metabolism of the human body implies a power of approximately 100 watts (similar to that of a standard incandescent bulb). This is the power we consume when we are sitting or lying down without doing any special physical activity. When we walk or cycle comfortably, we consume almost another 100 additional watts 17. With this power consumption an urban cyclist can easily travel 1517

Actually something less, but we will take this figure as an order of magnitude to

The History and Physics of the Bicycle

23

20 km in an hour. On the contrary, a pedestrian with the same power consumption would travel approximately 4-5 km in the same time. That is, a cyclist is between 3 and 5 times more efficient than a pedestrian for city trips (assuming a flat pavement).

Figure 1.6: Schematic representation of the behavior of the centre of mass of a runner and a cyclist during its ride. While the centre of gravity of the runner oscillates up and down with amplitude h, with the consequent expenditure of energy, that of the cyclist remains at a constant height, so that this expense is eliminated. Thus, the power developed by the cyclist is applied in full to the horizontal movement, while the runner has to use part of his power to maintain the above mentioned oscillations of his centre of mass.

Table 1.1 reproduces a classic comparison (Lowe 1989, p. 21) between the energy consumed to travel a mile on foot, by bicycle, by public transport and by car. Calculations for the automobile and public transport refer to the energy contained in the fuel consumed per occupant. Data for cyclists and pedestrians refer to the energy contained in the extra food they have to consume for their trip.

simplify the calculations. An elite professional cyclist can achieve power consumptions of up to 300-400 watts for some time (hours), with peaks up to 800900 watts for a few seconds during sprints, but such power is quite exceptional among untrained people. For a short but comprehensive description of the force and power developed by a cyclist in different situations, see Gupta n.d. pp. 19-24.

Chapter One

24

Table 1.1: Energy consumption per occupant for selected modes. Data are for USA, 1984. Source (Lowe 1989, p. 21).

Energy consumption Mode Automobile (1 occupant)

Kilocalories per mile 1,860

Transit bus

920

Transit rail

885

pedestrian

100

bicycle

35

As can be seen in the table, a cyclist in the United States in 1984 would be about three times more efficient than a pedestrian, about 50 times more efficient than the driver of a car and about 25 times more efficient than a public transport user, a fact that sometimes goes unnoticed in many mobility analyses. Of course, the data in Table 1.1 for the automobile and public transport depend to a large extent on occupancy rates, the driving regime and the efficiency of the internal combustion engines. With regard to the efficiency of the engines, it has increased considerably since 1984. Even so, the improvements have not been spectacular if we consider average consumption values 18, so the results of Table 1 can still be taken as valid approximations, at least as an order of magnitude. Regarding public transport, it may be surprising that, according to Table 1.1, public transport would only be twice as efficient as the automobile. Other sources (Dekoster & Schollaert 1999) raise this efficiency to triple. Still, other authors differentiate between urban and interurban public transport, evidencing a notable loss of efficiency of public transport with regard to the average private car in urban environments. Thus, in the case of Spanish cities, a recent analysis shows that the average fossil fuel consumption of urban buses (the most used urban transport in Spain) per 18

In a more recent report (Monzón et al. 2009), the energy expenditure of the average automobile in Spain was estimated to be 0.96-0.86 Kw-h per km, which implies an energy consumption of 1,322-1,183 Kcal/mile, not too far below the figure in Table 1.1.

The History and Physics of the Bicycle

25

passenger and km is only 10% less than the fuel consumption of private cars, also per passenger and km (Sanz et al. 2014, p. 60). This low efficiency occurs despite the fact that the potential efficiency of urban buses trebles the efficiency of the private car, which is attributable to low bus occupancy rates and traffic congestion. We can therefore conclude that, in many cases, cyclists turn out to be more efficient than users of public transport by a ratio even higher than the ratio that is deduced from Table 1.1. Let us say, finally, that reducing all forms of energy to a single type of unit is feasible and rigorous from the point of view of physics, but it may not be so from the point of view of the social sciences. The energy source used by a cyclist or a pedestrian to move is the food they eat, whereas for a car or a bus it is fossil fuel. This difference may be as relevant from the point of view of ecology or the social sciences as the gross energy consumption measured in calories. In any case, this last figure is always something to be taken into account.

Part III: The evolution of the bicycle up to the present As we have seen, the history of the invention of the bicycle is the history of how a series of technical problems were solved: • • •

The steering mechanism and the dynamic balance of the cyclist. The transmission of the driving force to the wheels. A gear ratio appropriate to the cyclist's biomechanics.

Once such problems were solved with the invention of the 'safety bike', the true history of the modern bicycle begins, both in the technological and social aspects. In the technological field, the great success of the safety bike would not have taken place without some key innovations, some of them much earlier that the safety bike itself. As early as 1869, ball bearings were introduced, first for the wheels and pedals axles, and then for the rest of the bicycle's moving parts. Shortly afterwards, the freewheel, which allows the cyclist to stop pedalling while the bicycle is still moving, was introduced 19. The introduction of the freewheel made the presence of brakes essential, and many of the first bicycles were already equipped with a rudimentary brake consisting of a 'shoe' pressing directly on the front wheel; these were 19

It seems that the aforementioned winner of the first Paris-Rouen race, James Moore, benefited from riding a bicycle with ball bearings in the pedal axle (Richtie 1975, p.60) and probably a freewheel as well (Seray 1988, p. 102-105).

26

Chapter One

also known as 'spoon' or 'plunger' brakes (Fig. 1.7). Pneumatic tyres were introduced by Dunlop in 1889, and played a crucial role in the success of safety bikes, making their ride much smoother. But, with the introduction of pneumatic tires, spoon brakes caused a great deal of wear on them, so brakes that pressed directly on the tyre soon evolved towards ones which pressed on the rim. Subsequently, drum and disc brakes were introduced, although rim brakes have remained dominant except for high-end bicycles.

Figure 1.7: Images of a bicycle spoon brake pressing directly on the front wheel tyre. Photographs of the author.

Around 1900, the 'back pedal' or 'coaster' brake integrated into the hub was introduced, sometimes together with an internal three-speed gearbox, a combination that became the standard for utilitarian bicycles in Northern and Central Europe and remains popular today. The modern external change of gears with derailleur and multiple sprockets appeared later, soon becoming a standard, first for racing bicycles and then for mountain bikes 20. Lights, in turn, evolved from the primitive oil or carbide lamps, to electric 20

The main difference, from a functional point of view, between the internal change of gears in the hub and the external derailleur change is that the first one requires to stop pedalling to change gears, while the second demands just the opposite: it is not possible to change gears without pedalling. This makes the first one more appropriate for the urban cyclist, who has to stop and start riding frequently (for instance at traffic lights), while the second is more appropriate for sport cyclists, who must be able to change gears without stopping pedalling.

The History and Physics of the Bicycle

27

lights powered by a friction dynamo and, later, to the modern LED lights powered by a magnet integrated in the hub or by an induction mechanism coupled to the spokes. The beginning of the twentieth century also brought profound changes in the social history of the bicycle. At the end of the nineteenth century, more than one million bicycles per year were being produced in the United States, by then the world leader in bicycle manufacturing, at a typical price of $150 per unit, the equivalent of three months' salary of an average worker. It was a production aimed at middle class and high-end consumers, who used the bicycle mainly for recreational or sports purposes. Although there must have been a thriving second-hand market, the purchase of a bicycle was beyond the budget of working class families. However, just a few years later, the bubble burst and sales plummeted. Be it because the same abundance of bicycles made them lose their 'glamour', or because such glamour moved to the first motorcycles and cars, or simply out of boredom, the case is that the well-off classes turned their backs on the bicycle, causing a deep crisis in the industry. Some companies went bankrupt and others started to build simpler and cheaper bicycles. By 1900, a safety could be purchased for $25, the equivalent of a worker's two-week salary. For many workers who lived in the suburbs and spent between $50 and $200 each year on public transport, buying a bicycle became a good investment (Herlihy 2004, p. 7, 294, 300). The era of utilitarian cycling had begun throughout the world. With the new era of utilitarian cycling, the centre of gravity of the industry moved from the United States, where utilitarian cycling never developed completely, first to Europe and then to Asia. In Europe, millions of bicycles were manufactured each year, aimed at a market composed of all social classes, but above all of workers. It was a time of long queues of workers with their bicycles at the entrances and exits of factories equipped with enormous bicycle parking lots filled each day with the workers’ bicycles. Soon this image moved, first to Japan and then to China, India and Southeast Asia. Thus, at last, the prophecy that the bicycle would become 'the carriage of the poor' was fulfilled.

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Chapter One

Figure 1.8: Parking lots for employees’ bicycles were, at the beginning of the twentieth century, an essential part of any factory complex. In the photograph a bicycle parking module from 1928, of curious design, rescued from the San Carlos military factory in San Fernando, Cádiz, Spain, on display in a public park there. Photograph courtesy of Francisco Manuel García Farrán.

The period between wars and the period short after the Second World War is the period of the hegemony of the bicycle as the mode of daily transportation throughout Europe 21. Bicycles had an important presence in the daily life of citizens, which is expressed in films such as 'The Bicycle Thief' by Vittorio de Sica, a masterpiece of the cinema, the other great social phenomenon of the time. Sports cycling also undergoes a remarkable evolution. By these years the stage races, such as the Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia or the Vuelta a España which, like the graphic and radio serials, were followed daily by millions of enthusiasts reach their highest popularity. Their worldwide known heroes are children of the town with whom all people can identify without difficulty 22: Fausto Coppi started 21 An exhaustive description of the evolution of urban cycling in 16 representative European cities can be found in the book edited by Ruth Oldenziel et al. (2016). 22 As an example, see how Marc Augé tells in his Eloge de la Bicyclette (2008) his passionate youth relationship with the Tour de France and their heroes.

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29

cycling as a delivery boy at a grocery store, Louison Bobet was the son of a baker and Federico Martín Bahamontes' father was a road pawn who had to emigrate in search of sustenance for himself and his family. However, after the postwar period, with the arrival of the automobile and the cheap oil in the 1950s, utilitarian cycling plummeted throughout Europe (Oldenziel et al. 2016). Even in the Netherlands, the number of kilometers cycled per year and per inhabitant fell from 1,700 in 1950 to just over 600 in 1978 (Pucher & Buehler, 2008). In the rest of European countries utilitarian cycling followed an even worse evolution during this period, which in many countries continued to reach levels of cycling as low as the 24 km cycled per year and per inhabitant in Spain at the beginning of the 1990s (Dekoster & Schollaert 1999, p.19). In 1975, in his well known book about the history of the bicycle, the historian Andrew Richtie complained: '… our Ministry of Transport [UK] remains blind to the existence of bicycles. For all the publicity and discussion recently, there is no any indication that anybody in central government is interested in them. There is hardly any recognition of bicycle riders in traffic surveys, road schemes or street planning... Far from being accepted as a valuable contribution to economy, safety and tranquility on the roads, bicycle-riders are the most disadvantaged group of road users. Where there should be initiative and action on the part of the authorities there is only ignorance and inertia.' (Richtie 1975, p. 174).

And by no means less important: 'Bicycle-manufacturers who should be militant in the forefront of a campaign to remedy this neglect, have not used the environmental and ecological arguments very wisely in promoting their products. In fact, one suspect that they are as inert as the politicians. While they are still making the old-style functional roadster, the emphasis is now on novel designs and on 'fun' machines, on leisure rather than on utility. The manufacturers seem to have capitulated to the car along with everybody else.' (ibid.).

From the 1970s, however, after the first oil crisis, some industrialized countries such as the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany, pushed by strong social movements, began to develop active policies of bicycle promotion, which gradually spread out to other countries throughout the world, including non-European countries such as Japan and other countries in the

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Asian Southeast 23. Including China, which never abandoned utilitarian cycling as a part of its transport policy under the communists governments. Moreover, in most part of the world buying a car continued to be beyond the means of most people, so that the bicycle remained the main vehicle for individual transportation for the majority of the world's population (Lowe 1989). As a result, bicycle sales in the world remained permanently above the sales of automobiles and, since 1970, exceeded them widely until reaching in 2007 more than 120 million bicycles a year for less than 60 million cars. However, the relationship between bicycle sales and their daily use is not linear, since most bicycles sold in industrialized countries have a recreational use. Thus, for example, in Spain more than 600,000 bicycles were sold in 1996, while in the Netherlands, that same year, more than twice that number were sold. However, the average Dutch cycled more than 1,000 km that year while the average Spaniard cycled just 24 km, about 40 times less. At the beginning of the 1950s there were basically two types of bicycles on the market, 'racing' bicycles with their lightweight frames, cableoperated 'caliper' rim brakes, external gear shifter with derailleur, and their characteristic curved handlebars; and 'utilitarian' bicycles. Typical utilitarian bicycles were heavy, resistant and made to last many years with hardly any maintenance. They had steel frames with small seat tube angles, so that the rider's foot may reach the ground while sitting in the saddle, as well as handlebars higher than the saddle and swept back, so that the rider pedals in an upright position, something essential when pedalling in the traffic (Lovejoy & Handy 2012). The typical utilitarian bicycle was single-speed, with chain-guard, mudguards, and rod brakes with less maintenance than the brakes operated by cable used in racing bicycles. Other models of utilitarian bicycles, also very popular in countries like the Netherlands, for instance, but less popular in other countries, incorporated gear changes and coaster brakes integrated in the rear hub.

23

For an overview of bicycle promotion policies worldwide see Pucher & Buehler (2012a), as well as Oldenziel et al. (2016). See also Pucher et al. (2010). For a review focused on Central European countries see Pucher, & Buehler (2008). The video from Bicycle Dutch (2011) is also interesting and illustrative of the role of social movements in the birth of such policies.

The History and Physics of the Bicycle

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Figure 1.9: A typical lady's utilitarian bicycle from the 60s. Photography from Elena Huerta.

In the 1950s and after, with the automobile boom, folding bicycles began to invade the market. The origin of folding bicycles is military and acquires its first great development during the first world war. The military experimented with cycling bataillons that could travel long distances quickly and silently. However, the problem of what to do with the bicycle during the combat persisted. The solution was the soldier-cyclist, who carried his bicycle with him, as if it were a backpack. They were bicycles with a simple folding mechanism (the frame just folded by half), which weighed about 15 kg (Navarro 2010, p. 44). Although there is evidence of some military actions involving cyclist battalions equipped with folding bicycles during the First World War (Seray 1988, pp. 174-179), the truth is that this type of military actions were scarce and the cycling battalions soon fell into oblivion. However, this type of bicycles with wheels smaller than a conventional bicycle, that could be stored comfortably in the trunk of a car, would have to find a rebirth during the first boom of the automobile. In the decade of 1970 the bicycle began to be used massively in connection with public transport, not always fitted for this combined use. It also began, as we have seen, a new boom in utilitarian cycling, often between people whose homes or jobs were not adapted to the bicycle. For

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those people the storage and/or the transportation of the bicycle became a problem and the folding bike was a solution. Compact folding began to appear, with the design of more sophisticated folding mechanisms. In 1981 the English engineer Andrew Richtie began to manufacture the Brompton folding bike, capable of folding up to occupy a size of 585x565x270 mm, with a weight of up to 9 kg for the lighter model and performances similar to those of a conventional bicycle (Navarro 2010, p. 46). The Brompton soon became a mythical brand in the universe of utilitarian bicycles. Today it shares a flourishing market with other less compact but cheaper folding bicycles. Nowadays, the evolution of the folding bicycle does not stop, with the appearance of unconventional solutions such as the 'Strida', with belt transmission, which is folded up to the dimensions and appearance of a folding baby cart. On 1970 also began to develop in California a movement of young people fond of off road cycling on unpaved paths and mountain tracks, using bicycles with balloon tires (Penn 2010, pp. 127-134). In the late 1970s some manufacturers began to built 'mountain bicycles' specifically designed for such purpose, using light materials such aluminum, and multiple gears. This is how the mountain bike or BMT, which soon dominated the market worldwide, came about. The BMTs were first developed to ride through rough areas, with paths in poor conditions and steep slopes. But soon many riders discovered that these characteristics were also useful in many cities, not always adapted to the use of the bicycle, where the characteristics of the BMTs allow a very versatile and highly practical riding. Soon, versions of the BMTs adapted to both the city and the mountain emerged, which were called 'hybrids'. The BMTs and the hybrids incorporated numerous technological innovations, such as front and rear suspension, articulated frames, multiple speeds, disc brakes, hydraulic brakes... The BMT boom has been largely responsible for the increase in bicycle sales around the world since the 1980s; a boom that, as we have already seen, has not always been associated with a parallel increase in the use of the bicycle as a mode of transport. It has served, however, to that in virtually every household in the richest countries there were one or more bicycles, sometimes idle, but available for use. Among the varieties of bicycle designs that have been maintained over time but without reaching the popularity of conventional bicycles are the 'recumbent' bicycles, in which the pedals are placed in an advanced position, allowing the cyclist to sit in a saddle with a backrest and use the reaction of his back on such backrest to give more strength to his pedalling. The first

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recumbents were designed almost at the same time as the first safety bicycles, at the end of the 1890s, and had a parallel development (Herlihy 2004, p. 288). In 1934, a barely known cyclist, Francis Faure, managed to beat the world champion on board a recumbent bicycle, the 'velocar', in a 4 km race (Herlihy 2004, pp. 388-389). The International Cycling Union (UCI) reacted by prohibiting non-conventional bicycles in all types of cycling races, which undoubtedly was a hard blow for the recumbent. Currently, recumbents participate in the races organized by the International Human Powered Vehicle Association (IHPVA), where with the help of fiberglass shells they have demonstrated speeds above 100 km/h (Herlihy 2004, p. 409). One may wonder why such an efficient bicycle has not succeeded as an utilitarian vehicle. Perhaps the longer wheelbase of the recumbents with regard to conventional bicycles and the lower position of the cyclist's head made their driving in the city problematic for most people.

Figure 1.10: Recumbent bicycle with Cardan transmission and a compact urban design. Photography courtesy of Okocycle Madrid.

As for electric bicycles or 'pedelecs', the idea of adding an electric engine to a bicycle to help pedalling is as old as the idea of adding an internal combustion engine. But while this second idea soon underwent a broad

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development, giving rise to the motorcycle, the first has not had an impact on the market until very recently. This has been a consequence of both the developments in the technology of electric batteries and the regulations and incentives to control growing urban air pollution. China is undoubtedly the leading country in the production and use of electric bicycles, with an estimated fleet of 120 million electric bikes 24, and sales in 2010 of 23 million units. That same year, sales in the rest of the world were approximately, 3 million units, led by the rest of Asia (1.5 million units), Western Europe (847,000) and the United States (275,000) (Lovejoy & Handy 2012). In 2014, sales in Western Europe (European Union) reached 1.3 million units (EEA 2016, p. 37), which gives an idea of the rapid expansion of the market 25. However, the concept of electric bicycle, as in its days was that of moped, is not without contradictions. It must be remembered that in the Netherlands, the first country to systematically develop specific routes for bicycles, the circulation of some kind of mopeds through these routes is still allowed. This is a consequence of the fact that the first mopeds were just bicycles assisted by an engine, something that changed with time until the current situation, in which a moped is a vehicle closer to a motorcycle than to a bicycle. This evolution of the moped created quite a few problems in the Netherlands, to the point that the Mayor of Amsterdam recently requested a change of such regulation, so that bike paths were restricted to bicycles. To prevent something similar from happening with the electric bicycle, the European Cyclists Federation (ECF) 26 started a European-wide campaign to define the concept of electric bicycle in a precise way. As a result, the European Union has established several directives by which an electric bicycle or 'pedelec' is defined as an electric pedal-assisted bicycle (ie, the motor is disconnected when the rider stops pedalling), with a power 24

However, it must be said that most of these electric bikes are not pedal assisted vehicles and therefore do not comply with European regulations regarding pedelecs (see below), so that they should be considered more as electric mopeds than as electric bicycles properly. 25 For comparison purposes, the same year 2014 were sold in the EU 38.000 electriconly (or battery-only propelled) cars, (EEA 2016, p. 48), 34 times less than pedelecs sales. We can wonder about the future of electric mobility in Europe, but which is the present seems quite clear. 26 ECF is an umbrella organization that brings together cyclists' associations from across Europe, which in turn represent hundreds of thousands of individual members, with the aim of promoting sustainable mobility on bicycle. Recently, cycling associations from all over the world have in turn joined the ECF as the first step towards the establishment of a federation on a global scale.

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limited to 250 watts and with speed limited at 25 km/h. It is expected that, over time, other countries establish similar regulations which limit the characteristics of electric vehicles that can be homologated to bicycles, the rest being considered as electric mopeds or motorcycles, to which all the legislation regarding conventional mopeds or motorcycles would apply. One of the most striking novelties in the recent history of cycling have been the bicycle sharing systems, to which we will dedicate a section of this book. Anyway, we will dedicate a few lines to them in this introduction, which would not be complete if we did not mention this authentic social phenomenon on a world scale. The first precedent of bicycle sharing is the 'White Bicycle Plan' sponsored by the 'Provos', an anarchist-oriented political group that in the 60s got representation in the Amsterdam City Council. In 1965 they proposed a Mobility Plan that, among other measures, involved closing the city centre to motorised traffic (in exchange six 'dissuasive' car parks would be created at the city entrances) and to acquire 20,000 bicycles that would be painted by white and distributed across the city for public use (Kempton 2007, pp. 30-32). The Plan received some enthusiastic supports, including the Municipal Planning Service itself, generating a broad citizen debate. Meanwhile, the Provos painted white bicycles every Saturday at noon in a central Amsterdam square, which they then left on the street to promote their Plan. The police seized the first white bicycles because they considered them 'abandoned objects'. After the bicycles had been returned to the Provos, they left them again along the city, but this time tied by combination locks with their keywords painted on the bicycle frames (Wikipedia – Provo movement n.d). Finally, in September 1965, the Provos declared the campaign concluded, which they considered a political success despite the fact that their Plan was not approved. And certainly it was, at least in the long term, since today, 50 years later, his 'White Bicycle Plan' is universally recognized as the birth of the bicycle sharing systems It took 30 years for another City Council to take the proposals of the Provos seriously. In 1995, the City Council of Copenhagen inaugurated 'Bicyclen', a very simple sharing system by which municipal bicycles with a very characteristic design can be picked up and returned in certain places of the public road, by means of a system similar to those of the trolleys of the supermarkets. In 1998 the 'Veló a la Carte' was inaugurated in Rennes (France), the first bicycle sharing system that we can describe as 'modern', similar to those that we can see today in cities such as Paris, London or Barcelona. After that, there was a world burst: in 2010 there were more than 400 public bicycle systems worldwide, with a total fleet of 250,000 bicycles

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(Midgley 2011), a number that has not stopped to grow. Modern systems of public bicycles are systems of complex technology, involving the telematic control of the bicycles, which must be collected and returned in automatic stations distributed throughout the city or the neighborhood where they are implanted. Subsequently, the German railways company S-Bahn launched the 'Call a Bike' system, by which bicycles can be picked up and left anywhere on the public road using a key that is communicated to the user by mobile phone. Other systems have incorporated electric bicycles, GPS tracking, user information by mobile phone... Finally, one of the most recent innovations in the field of utilitarian bicycles are the 'cargo bikes'. Tricycles and 'rickshaws' for the transport of loads 27 and people, have been and still are an everyday image in many cities around the world. In the cities of the rich countries these images have been giving way in recent years to the benefit of motor vehicles. But with the generalization of pedestrianization policies in historical centres, cargo tricycles and rickshaws have also re-appeared in many cities. Currently, the European Federation of Cyclists (ECF) promotes a campaign with the aim of promoting the transport of goods in its final stage, or 'last mile' transport, using tricycles and cargo bikes (Wrighton & Reiter 2016). Cargo bikes arise in parallel with such reappearance of the transport of goods in human powered vehicles. The typical cargo bike, also known as 'Long John', is an evolution of the conventional bicycle that incorporates a cargo drawer between the handlebar and the front wheel. Steering is transmitted to the front wheel through an articulated mechanism that connects to the handlebar. Typically, cargo bikes can transport loads of up to 100 kg, being advisable to use a tricycles for larger loads. They can also be easily adapted to transporting children, by placing seats in the cargo drawer. Cargo bikes became very popular in countries with large cycling tradition, such as the Netherlands, Denmark or Germany 28 for their superior maneuverability and stability compared with tricycles 29. 27

The first use of cycles for carrying and distributing goods seems to date from 1884, when some newspapers began being distributed by specially designed tricycles (Woodforde 1970, p. 84). 28 It is estimated that in Copenhagen 25% of families with two or more children have a cargo bike (Lovejoy & Handy 2012). 29 As we have already seen in Part II, the driver of a bicycle can self-stabilize by tilting itself in the direction of the 'fall' or, in the curves, compensate the centrifugal force in the same way, which increases its stability compared to the driver of a tricycle.

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So far this brief summary of the history of the bicycle to present days. At the beginning of the 21st century, more than 100 years after the invention of the safety bike, this basic design evolved and diversified to adapt to the different human needs and covering a wide spectrum of social activities, from sports and leisure to most needs of everyday life. While awareness of the serious drawbacks of the current model of urban mobility based on the private car is growing, everything seems to indicate that a new golden age of utilitarian cycling is approaching, in which the new designs above mentioned and some others that will probably appear, will undoubtedly find application.

Figure 1.11: Cargo bikes are very popular in the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany, among other countries. In the photograph a cargo bike parked on a street in Amsterdam. Photograph of the author.

CHAPTER TWO MOBILITY IN THE QUAGMIRE

'Oh Lord! Won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?' Janis Joplin (Pearl)

Part I.- The unstoppable ascent of the car Fascination with cars by citizens of wealthy societies can be easily understood. The car offers, to anyone who can afford it, the promise of unlimited mobility without physical effort and with little maintenance. Unlike the horse, the car does not need special care or maintenance between trips, and can be stored at no cost for an indefinite period of time in a garage or in public roads. Unlike active modes of transport, such as walking or cycling, car travel requires no physical effort and provides more power, speed and comfort, without losing, in principle, the freedom to choose the time and itinerary that active modes offer. In addition, the petrol or dieselpowered car offers virtually unlimited autonomy (provided there is a good network of petrol stations) and, unlike mounts, does not need rest periods between the successive stages of its journey, beyond its driver’s and occupants’ need to rest. Therefore, it is not surprising that the car became, as soon as technological developments and the availability of cheap fuel allowed it, the favourite consumer item of the middle classes of the wealthy countries and the dream of the citizens of the poor ones. The first victim of the private car boom was undoubtedly the bicycle, which in previous decades had become the vehicle par excellence of the working class. The process of replacing bicycles with cars on the streets of European cities was extremely fast. Traffic counts and modal split data in most European cities show that bicycles were clearly the predominant mechanical mode of transport before 1960, reaching a peak in the period between 1930 and 1955, when bicycle shares (among all vehicles) of around 70% or more were not exceptional. However, bicycle modal shares

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plummeted in the 1960s, reaching an absolute nadir around 1970. After that year, while bicycle modal share recovered in a few cities, it continued its decline in most others and has not stopped doing so until today (Veraart 2016). Measured by the number of km cycled per inhabitant per day, there was also a steep fall-off. Between 1952 and 1975, the number of km cycled per inhabitant per day in the United Kingdom fell by 80% (from 1.4 to less than 0.3), while in the Netherlands they fell by 62% (from 4.8 to 1.8, approximately). The difference was that, after 1975, the number of km cycled descended to 0.2 km in the UK, while in the Netherlands it recovered to 2.5 km in 2003 (Pucher & Buehler 2008). Similar changes are currently taking place in many 'emerging' countries with a traditionally large presence of bicycles, such as China and India (Pucher et al 2007), although growing concern about the environmental consequences of such phenomena could serve as a brake on these trends (Peng et al. 2012; Shaheen et al. 2011). What factors contributed to this rapid decline in the use of bicycles? Since the bicycle is a very efficient vehicle for urban trips 30 the reason cannot simply be a supposedly higher efficiency of the automobile. The first factor to consider is safety. An urban cyclist moves at a speed of between 15 and 20 km/h, developing power on the order of 100 watts, with no more protection than his own body. On the contrary, a car can reach speeds of up to 100 km/h in a few seconds, and can produce 500 times more power than that which the average cyclist can (see Table 3.2 below). In such conditions, the coexistence within the same space of both modes is perceived as risky by cyclists. Thus, a possible explanation of the urban cycling decline is that cyclists gradually disappeared from the streets because of the fear of suffering accidents. In fact, surveys made in three U.S. cities in the early 1990s reported that more than half of respondents cited lack of safety as an influential factor in their decisions not to cycle (Horton 2007, p. 133), and a report from the UK Department for Transport concluded that 47% of adults strongly agree that 'the idea of cycling on busy roads frightens me' (ibid...). However, it is hard to imagine that this effect by itself could explain the fast decrease in the number of cyclists in the streets of European cities 30 As will be discussed later, the bicycle is the most efficient vehicle for urban trips of 5 km or less in terms of travel time. This kind of trip constitutes 50% of the total trips made by private cars in the European Union (Dekoster & Schollaert 1999; ECMT 2004). Therefore, the bicycle could replace 50% of the car journeys in the EU, which would mean approximately a 30% modal share for the bicycle, far from the current 5%.

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between 1955 and 1970. After all, cars were a clear minority in roads in most cities at the beginning of the period, and the risk of accidents for cyclists should not have been so great at the time. Fear of cycling can be more a consequence of the predominance of cars than the cause of it. In fact, historical research (Oldenziel et al 2016) has shown that this predominance of cars was actively promoted by the city planning departments in most European cities after the Second World War. Architects, planners and traffic engineers saw in the damage caused by war an opportunity to change the design of cities according to the theories of modernist urbanism, thus paving the way for the automobile, the ‘transport of the future’. In many European countries, traffic engineers promoted regulations to prioritise ‘fast’ (i.e. motorised) traffic over ‘slow’ (i.e. non-motorised) traffic, so that slow cyclists did not interfere with car traffic. Sometimes cyclists were directly prohibited in the main avenues as, for instance, in Budapest, where cyclists were banned on the iconic Chain Bridge (as well as from its centre's main streets), a ban that would last from 1927 to 2012 (Toth 2016, pp. 161, 165). Planners were not far behind traffic engineers. In Amsterdam, a city that is now a cycling icon, it was seriously proposed in 1954, when cyclists made up 75% of traffic, that the historic canals should be turned into car parks (Oldenziel & Albert de la Bruheze 2016, p. 21). In Copenhagen, another of today's iconic cycling cities, 34 km of cycle lanes were removed between 1935 and 1975 (Emanuel 2016, p. 82). And, where cycle paths were created, it was more for the convenience of car drivers than for the convenience of cyclists. For instance, the minutes of the first Road Congress organised by the Dutch Road Congress Association (NWC) in 1920 recorded that it was a misunderstanding to believe that the construction of bicycle paths was only intended to benefit cyclists: 'After all, the construction of bicycle paths along the larger roads relieves traffic along these roads of an extremely bothersome element: the cyclist.' (quoted in The Dutch Bicycle Master Plan 1999, p. 22). Therefore, there were active policies inspired in the modernist urbanism ideology and undeniable lobbying activities by automobile and road construction associations, such as the aforementioned NWC in the Netherlands, which actively supported the progressive disappearance of the bicycles from the streets of European cities. In fact, these policies still continue in 'developing' countries, as is exemplified by the traffic restrictions and even the bans imposed on rickshaws in the late 80s in many cities of Southeast Asia. Such bans and restrictions were justified by the need to ‘reduce traffic congestion’, despite the fact that traffic congestion is more likely linked to motorised traffic than to bicycle traffic, and in spite

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of the evidence that rickshaws give work and economic support to hundreds of thousands of people (Lowe 1989, p. 28). Only after such active policies had been implemented in many cities throughout the world did private cars begin to dominate in streets which had previously been crowded with cyclists, and the ‘fear of cycling’ became a very effective deterrent to any cyclists who wished to return to the streets. Together with this ‘fear of cycling’, it is also important to consider the progressive loss of prestige of the bicycle as a mode of transport in a society that mainly aspired to travel by car, which meant that travelling by bicycle ended up being stigmatised as a sign of social failure. Also, as a consequence of this loss of prestige, the bicycle was systematically ignored in transport planning to such an extent that finding reliable data about the modal share of bicycle trips in many cities and countries around the world became a difficult if not an impossible task. As an extreme example of this, in a 1985 400-page World Bank study on China, the ‘Kingdom of Bicycles’ at the time, entitled ‘China Transport Sector Study’, the word ‘bicycle’ did not appear even once (cited by Lowe 1989, p. 29). Bicycles were not the only loser after the ascent of the private car. The car boom also brought a considerable decrease in pedestrian mobility in most European cities (Oldenziel et al 2016). To give an example, in the Spanish city of Seville, which can be considered a good example of a medium-size Southern European city, in 1990 non-motorised trips (at that time almost exclusively trips made on foot) accounted for 50% of total trips. Only 17 years later, in 2007, the modal share of non-motorised trips had been reduced to 32%, at a rate of more than one percentage point each year (see Figure 2.1). The reasons for this evolution are somewhat more subtle than in the case of the bicycle, but ultimately concurrent. One of the most important factors that cause this loss of relevance of non-motorised or 'active' mobility is the phenomenon of suburbanisation, created and made possible by growing motorisation. Suburbanisation implies the transition from a compact and accessible city structure to a disperse structure, not only physically, but also in its functionalities, with a growing specialisation in land use, which means long daily trips for access to work, study, shopping or leisure activities. The availability of private cars made possible and fuelled this urban sprawl, which became generalised in the 1960s in close connection with the aforementioned active policies of promotion of cars as the ‘transport of the future’.

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Figure 2.1: Evolution of the modal share in the Metropolitan Area of Seville for nonmotorized modes (on foot and by bicycle), public transport, and private motorized modes (car and motorcycle). Source: The author's own elaboration from data of mobility surveys (Junta de Andalucía 1990, 1995, 2003, 2007).

In the United States, this dynamic of suburbanisation and city sprawl led to the well-known phenomenon of the 'decentralisation' of cities and to the degradation of city centres, that is, the abandonment of historical centres as residential areas and their conversion into dual territories: business centres by day and, at night, degraded and dangerous places which are to be avoided by 'good citizens', and are only inhabited by the dispossessed of society who cannot afford to live in the suburbs. In Europe, this phenomenon has not yet taken place and it is possible that it never will because of the totally different dynamic that has been generated. The historical centres of European cities are immersed in a process of gentrification and accelerated real estate speculation, the result of which is similar for the middle classes, who are expelled to the suburbs, designed according to the North American model of dispersed urbanisation. This process has been characterised by Donzelot (2004) as 'the city of three speeds': The city is structured in three concentric rings, a gentrified city centre where, due to the high concentration of jobs and services, many trips are short and can be made on foot or by bicycle; a second traditional working class ring where mobility is scarce and heavily relies on public transport, and a third middle class suburban ring where mobility is strongly car-dependent.

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In both models, the effect over mobility is that many citizens living in the suburbs have to face daily routes whose length exceeds those which can be reasonably travelled on foot or by bicycle. There is therefore a drastic decrease in walking and cycling trips, as well as a vicious circle in which, in the absence of pedestrians and cyclists, the new roads are made exclusively for cars (hard shoulders are removed, no pavements or pedestrian itineraries are built between estates or even within the same estates, small local businesses disappear and are replaced by big box stores, etc.), effects that, in turn, contribute to the decrease of active mobility, and so on.

Figure 2.2: 2007 modal split for the entire Metropolitan Area of Seville (Total), for trips within the Municipality of Seville (Seville) and for the remaining trips (Other). Source: Compiled by the author on the basis of the 2007 mobility survey (Junta de Andalucía, 2007).

The case of Seville in recent times, which corresponds, as might be expected, to the European model of suburbanisation, is quite illustrative in this regard. To understand this, one need only compare the modal split of trips within the Municipality of Seville (inhabited by 700,000 people and with a compact urban structure, which is comprised of the two inner rings of Donzelot's model), with the corresponding modal split for the remaining trips, which imply origins and/or destinations in the suburbs (see Figure 2.2). Such trips show a modal share for private motorised modes (car and motorcycle) that are much higher than those of trips internal to the municipality, which remained at levels similar to those of 1995 (see Figure 2.1). This case study is an example of how the suburbanisation processes

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generated by car-oriented urban planning and real estate speculation fuel the growing rates of car trips in modern cities.

Part II.- Mobility: the Achilles heel of the fight against climate change Despite the powerful mechanisms that have driven and continue to drive the preponderance of the private car as a mode of transport in urban environments 31, it is increasingly evident that the process of motorisationprivatisation of urban mobility, based primarily on the private car, is increasingly unsustainable due to its almost absolute dependence on fossil fuels 32. The effects of such dependence become apparent when the European Union policies against climate change are analysed. Since the EU is the region that seems to be leading policies against climate change on a global scale, the conclusions drawn from the analysis of such policies can provide a good insight into the effects of car dependent mobility on these policies on a global scale. The long-term EU policy against climate change is summarised in the document 'A roadmap for moving to a competitive low carbon economy in 2050' from the European Commission (EC 2011). The objectives of reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by economic sectors are summarised in Table 2.1. Regarding the actual evolution of GHG emissions by sector, figure 2.3 shows the evolution of such emissions for the whole economy of the EU-28, for the transport sector and for the remaining sectors from 1990 to 2015. Both Table 2.1 and Figure 2.3 show that transport is indeed a singularity in EU policies and achievements regarding reduction of GHG emissions. Table 2.1 shows that the transport sector is the only economic sector allowed to grow its GHG emissions after 1990, including the possibility of growing 20% over the values of 1900 by 2030. Similar conclusions are deduced from Figure 2.3: While total GHG emissions decrease at the rate that can be expected from the predictions of Table 2.1, emissions from the transport 31 This preponderance of the private car can be illustrated by the fact that this mode of transport accounted for 71.5% of the total motorized transport of passengers in the European Union in 2015 (measured in passengers-km). This figure implies that an average European travels more than 9,000 km a year by car, about 25 km a day (EU 2017). 32 EU transport still depends on oil and oil products for 96% of its energy needs (EC 2011b, p. 4).

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sector also grow in agreement with such forecasts, showing a maximum growth of 32% (over 1990) in 2007, followed by a local minimum of 20% in 2013, and rising again after that date. Table 2.1: Expected GHG reductions by sector in EU. Source (EC 2011, Table 1).

GHG reductions compared to 1990

2005

2030

2050

Total

-7%

-40 to -44% -79 to -82%

Power generation (CO2)

-7%

-54 to -68% -93 to -99%

Industry (CO2)

-20%

-34 to -40% -83 to -87%

Transport (CO2, excl. maritime)

+30%

+20 to -9%

-54 to -67%

Residential services (CO2)

-12%

-37 to -53%

-88 to-91%

Agriculture (non CO2)

-20%

-36 to -37% -42 to -49%

Other (non CO2)

-30%

-72 to -73% -70 to -78%

Sectors

Figure 2.3: Evolution of the emissions of GHGs in the EU between 1990 and 2015 for all sectors, for the transport sector only and for the rest of the EU economy. Arbitrary units, 1990=100. Source: Compiled by the author on the basis of the 2017 EU pocketbook ‘Transport in Figures’ (EU 2017).

The recipes for achieving the goals of Table 2.1 for the transport sector are the weakest part of the aforementioned Roadmap (EC 2011) and its

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companion document, the White Paper on Transport (EC 2011b). The reduction of GHGs emissions in the transport sector relies mainly on the promotion of 'sustainable mobility through fuel efficiency, electrification and getting prices right' (EC 2011, p. 7), which includes ‘improved fuel efficiency’ (the main policy up to 2025) ‘in combination with measures such as pricing schemes to tackle congestion and air pollution, infrastructure charging, intelligent city planning and improving public transport’ (ibid....). These measures alone, however, are not expected to be able to reverse the growing trend of higher GHG emissions. New technologies with still low penetration in the market, such as ‘electrification’ and ‘alternative fuels’ or 'biofuels' are expected to be the main drivers for reversing the trend of increasing greenhouse gas emissions after 2030 (ibid....). Despite the key role played by bicycles in urban mobility during past decades, the words bicycle or cycling do not appear even once in the first document. Regarding urban mobility, which accounts for about a quarter of EU emissions of GHGs from transport, EU policy still relies strongly on the substitution of oil by electricity and/or biofuels as less polluting alternative sources of energy for cars, although it also includes promoting the modal change from private cars to public transport and ‘facilitating walking and cycling’ (EC 2011b, p. 8). There is no more information about how to facilitate cycling in the aforementioned White Paper. To find a short paragraph on this topic we must move to the previous Green Paper, ‘Towards a new culture for urban mobility’ (EC 2007, p 6). More recently, a document from the European Environment Agency (EEA 2010) analysed the actual possibilities of reduction of GHG emissions from the transport sector, concluding that a reduction of 20% (over 1990 emissions) can be achieved by a combination of modal shift and mobility reduction measures 33 and an additional 44% by ‘improvement' measures 34, leading to an overall reduction of 64%, well inside the goal of Table 2.1. An important part of this reduction is to be brought about by electric cars, from which a reduction of 35% is expected with regard to the ‘business as usual’ scenario in 2050 (EEA 2010, pp. 29-30). Once again, the role to be played by modal shift towards walking and cycling is not clear. In a more recent document of the same agency (EEA 2013), the role of this modal shift is analysed in a closer way, although without quantitative estimations. 33 Which include road pricing, car clubs, increasing population density in cities, travel planning, etc. 34 Which include improved engine and vehicle design, electric cars, low-carbon fuels and technologies encouraging behavioural change.

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47

It is necessary to move to the NGOs side to find some estimations of the real impact of modal shift towards cycling on the reduction of GHG emissions in the EU. A recent document from the European Cyclists Federation (ECF 2011) quantified the impact on GHG savings of a rise in cycling levels in all the EU to the current level of cycling in Denmark in 2000, ie to 936 cycled km per year per person. If each European citizen cycled such a distance by 2050 for utilitarian purposes (as most Danes do), the total savings of GHG emissions would range between 63 and 142 millions tons of CO2eq (ECF 2011, p 15), which represents between 7% and 15% of the total emissions of GHGs from transport in the EU in 1990. Of course, higher levels of cycling would lead to even higher savings. Even more recently, and partially as a consequence of the lobbying of cycling associations, the European Committee of the Regions issued an 'Opinion' asking for an EU roadmap for improving utilitarian cycling in cities (OJEU 2017). This document, for the first time, calls for a change of paradigm in transport planning and land use policy '...which requires a new sustainable travel hierarchy, prioritising incentives and measures to make active modes (walking and cycling) safer and more attractive first, accompanied by the promotion of public transport second, the development of car-sharing/pooling third and private individual car use last and enabling the necessary integration of the different modes of transport.' (OJEU 2917, p. 49).

Therefore, it has been necessary to wait until 2017 to have an official document from the EU calling for a specific policy for promoting cycling (and walking) as an essential part of the EU policy against climate change. According to this document, such a policy must include cycling infrastructure, promotion of links between cycling and public transport, cycling integration in urban and transport planning, adequate funding and adequate measurement of cycling data in European cities, among other quite obvious proposals. In summary, mobility seems to be the 'Achilles heel' of EU policy against climate change: Transport is the only economic sector which has no clear objectives of reduction of GHG emissions until 2030 (see Table 2.1), and the objectives after this date mainly rely on the availability and wide penetration in the market of new technologies such as biofuels or electric cars (EC 2011; EC 2011b; EEA 2010) with a small presence in the present modal share. Moreover, as will be shown in Part V of this Chapter, the availability and market penetration of biofuels and/or electric cars is far

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from being clear in the near future. Taking into account that the transport sector accounted for 23.5% of total GHGs emissions in 2015 (EU 2017) and that this percentage has been growing since 1990, it becomes clear that the aforementioned drawbacks could strongly jeopardize the whole EU policy against climate change. The fact that curbing mobility is not considered an option for such policy (EC 2011b, p. 5) does not help at all. In this context, moving to a new paradigm that prioritizes avoiding unnecessary mobility and returning to high levels of cycling in urban mobility is something that deserves to at least be considered, not only in Europe but all around the world.

Part III.- Other undesirable effects of the motorizationprivatization of urban mobility. Before analyzing the potential of biofuels and electricity to effectively come to the rescue of private cars in order to stop GHG emissions 'without curbing mobility' (EC 2011b), it would be worth considering the other major drawbacks of our current car-based urban mobility, which are in fact shared by cars no matter how they are fuelled. In addition to its unsustainability both from the point of view of the progressive depletion of natural resources and its increasing contribution to global warming, the prevailing model of urban mobility involves a series of effects on the environment and health that we can briefly summarize as: • • • • • •

Local pollution Traffic congestion Excessive occupation of public space High traffic accident rates Worsening of public health Social inequity

Automobiles are the main source of local air pollution in most cities, especially nitrogen oxides, particulates, ozone and unburned hydrocarbons; as well as noise pollution. Thus, 'in 2010, the nitrogen dioxide (NO2) annual limit value was exceeded at 44% of Europe's urban traffic stations (EEA 2012, p. 6), while pollution by particulate matter is growing, and noise from road transport affects many people in the largest European cities (with populations above 250,000), where more than 62% of the population are exposed to long-term average road traffic noise levels exceeding 55 decibels

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(dB), the EU threshold for excess exposure' (ibid....). The usefulness of catalysts in urban traffic is, on the other hand, questionable, as they are quite ineffective during the start and the first minutes of driving, and there are no catalysts for diesel-powered cars, which are increasingly common in cities. Air pollution generates respiratory problems and diseases of all kinds, apart from damage to the urban environment and the historical heritage of cities, while the noise produced by traffic generates stress and illness due to lack of sleep.

Figure 2.4: Often, damage to historical heritage caused by pollution from motorised traffic does not become apparent until it is eliminated. In the photo, a detail of the façade of the Seville Cathedral after its cleaning once its surroundings had been pedestrianized. The darker coloured spot was left on purpose as a witness of the deterioration of the stone due to the pollution produced by traffic during previous years. Photograph by Vicente Hernández-Herrador.

Another negative effect of the growing motorisation-privatisation of urban mobility is traffic congestion, which causes huge losses of time and money. A recent analysis (Moll & Nadal 2008) has estimated that traffic congestion in the access roads to the biggest Spanish cities (Madrid and Barcelona) is responsible for a loss of 55 and 26 million hours per year; and monetary losses of 840 and 384 million euros per year, respectively. Traffic congestion, which can be defined as the difference between the supply of road space and the demand for it by drivers, is closely related to the large amounts of space required for car driving and to the fact that private cars are the most inefficient mode of transport in terms of road space needed for circulation, as shown in Figure 2.5. This inefficiency of the automobile has to do with the greater surface area occupied by this vehicle

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and by the fact that any increase in the speed of the cars is compensated for by the larger distance between them that safety considerations impose. Therefore, the determining factor when establishing efficiency in the use of the road is not, contrary to what is sometimes thought, the speed but the space per passenger occupied by the vehicle, something that can be seen in Figure 2.5.

Figure 2.5: Number of people crossing a 3.5 m-wide space in an urban environment during a 1-hour period. Source: Dekoster & Schollaert (1999).

An important part of the available space in cities is now taken up by circulating and parked cars. As early as 1987, the land compiled in the Public Roads Inventory of Madrid represented 24% of the total land classified as 'urban' in the city (cited by Estevan & Sanz 1996, p. 81), to which the space dedicated to off-road public and private car parks should be added. Although these areas cannot be considered fully devoted to cars because other modes, including bicycles, also use them, and they also include pavements and squares, quite frequently cars dominate in these areas, as can be seen in Figure 2.6. As for the new urban developments, the growing demand of space for the circulation of motor vehicles has, as a direct consequence, led to urban sprawl, of which we have already spoken. This sprawl produces distances too long for walking, with the consequent decrease in the number of the trips on foot, which leads to a vicious circle in which more trips by car produce more congestion, more demand of space for circulation and parking, still longer distances, fewer trips on foot and by public transport, more trips by car, and so on (Knoflacher 2007).

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Figure 2.6: The need of space for the circulation of motor vehicles sometimes causes dramatic situations in the historic centres of cities which were not designed with the car in mind. On the left, a delivery van completely occupies a pedestrian priority street in Seville. On the right, a line of cars at the entrance to a school in the same city. Photographs by the author.

Traffic accidents are another of the most negative effects brought about by the motorisation-privatisation of mobility. According to the 2016 Annual Accident Report from the European Road Safety Observatory (ERSO 2016), in 2014 there were in the EU 25,254 fatalities due to traffic accidents, 9,741 of which were inside urban areas. In Spain 35, according to the 2014 Statistical Yearbook of Accidents of the General Directorate of Traffic (DGT), in that year there were 91,570 accidents with victims, of which 1,329 were fatal (DGT 2015). Of the total number of accidents, 56,423 were located inside urban areas, of which 345 were fatal accidents (ibid....). However, the above figures are just the tip of the iceberg if we consider unreported accidents, which for cyclists can be a percentage of total accidents as high as 89% (Harris 1990). Not all the victims of these accidents are drivers of cars or motorcycles, but it must be borne in mind that the vast majority of pedestrians and cyclists who are injured are hit by motor vehicles. For instance, in Spain, in the year 35

Spain is quite a representative country in the EU, with 51 fatalities per billion passenger km in 2014. This same year there were 53 fatalities per billion passenger km in the EU (EU 2016).

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2010, 97% of pedestrian accidents inside urban areas were struck by motor vehicles (DGT 2011, p. 26), with similar figures for the previous years. As for bicycle accidents, in the UK in the period 2005-2007, more than 80% of all bicycle casualties of all kinds were collisions with motor vehicles (cited in ECF 2010, p. 6). Therefore, most traffic accidents, including pedestrian and bicycle accidents, are linked in some way to motorised traffic. It is hard to imagine that any other technology of massive use could be responsible for such a high number of victims each year and not be immediately prohibited 36. However, in the case of traffic accidents, these figures are accepted routinely. As for the diffuse effects on health, the WHO considers the sedentary lifestyle associated with private motorised transport as one of the main causes of obesity, coronary heart diseases, diabetes and hypertension (WHO 2000; WHO 2007). The increasing spread of these diseases could be avoided by performing some kind of moderate exercise daily, such as commuting on foot or by bicycle (ibid....). The reduction of children’s autonomy as a result of the risks caused by traffic and, in particular, the barrier to their development that the general impossibility for them to play freely in the streets creates, is considered by the WHO as one of the most negative consequences of the current transport model on public health (WHO 2000). In this regard, the pedagogue Francesco Tonucci writes: 'The mobility of children, which up to a few decades ago was similar to that of their parents, today has almost disappeared, while that of adults is greatly increased. Today children can not go out on the street because their parents move too much, making the streets and public spaces dangerous in the city.' (Tonucci et al. n.d.)

This loss of the role of the street as a space for children's mobility has meant a radical change in the way children move around the city. There are fewer and fewer parents who let their children go to school alone. A survey conducted in the city of Rome at the end of 1990s (cited in Tonucci 2005) shows that: •

36

Most children (68%) go to school accompanied by adults, by car or on foot.

Traffic accidents are also the leading cause of death among adolescents all around the world (WHO 2014, p. 5).

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• • • • •

53

Only 13% of children go to school alone. 8% of children only occasionally had the opportunity to go by themselves. Children feel they are accompanied because parents are afraid (67.2%) and to a lesser extent because they are small (18.8%). The majority of the children who are accompanied declare themselves able and willing to go to school alone (76.2%). While the main justification that children cite for their loss of autonomy is their fear of 'dangerous people' (drug addicts, thieves, kidnappers...), they perceive that the prevalent fear of their parents is motorized traffic.

Parents even demand regulations, such as those that allow the schooling of children near their workplace, which encourage driving children to school. These measures are later contradicted by the development, by the same administrations, of programmes to promote children's mobility of the 'walking to school' or ‘cycling to school’ type. In this way, what previously happened in a natural way, now becomes a regulated activity, protected by specialised monitors, and sometimes causing the counterproductive effect of giving the image that walking or cycling to school is something by nature dangerous and exceptional. Moreover, official policies to promote road safety are often designed so that, instead of warning drivers about the possible presence of children in the road, discourage the autonomy of children to walk and play in the streets. An extreme example of this is the 'Pedestrian Guide' recently published by the Spanish Directorate General of Traffic (DGT 2011) and aimed mainly at children. In the brochure, children are warned: ‘Do not play on the pavements’. The interactive version is even more explicit: ‘Do not play in the street’, says a voice-over. This loss of children's autonomy is one of the more extreme results of the general loss of the function of the street as a place of human interaction and a manifestation of the inequalities that the generalisation of motorised individual mobility implies. But not are children the only ones who suffer this loss of the relational function of public space: It has been known since the 1980s that there is an inverse relationship between traffic volumes and social interaction in the street (Appleyard 1981, pp. 20-24). As for the uneven distribution of mobility, it is a consequence of both urban sprawl and the increasing danger in the street for those who do not

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have a car. The philosopher Ivan Illich formulated this in a striking and brilliant way: 'Beyond a critical speed, no one can save time without forcing another to lose it. The man who claims a seat in a faster vehicle insists that his time is worth more than that of the passenger in a slower one. Beyond a certain velocity, passengers become consumers of other peoples time, and DFFHOHUDWLQJYHKLFOHVEHFRPHWKHPHDQVIRUH൵HFWLQJDQHWWUDQVIHURIOLIHtime.' (Illich 1974; p.30).

And later on the same page: 'Beyond a certain speed, motorized vehicles create remoteness which they alone can shrink. They create distances for all and shrink them for only a few.' (ibid....).

Data from the successive mobility surveys carried out in the Metropolitan Area of Seville corroborate this hypothesis. Table 2.2 shows the average number of daily trips per person made in this urban agglomeration, as well as the number of cars in the family unit. These data show that the increase in motorisation does not result in a significant increase in the number of daily trips per person as was already noted by Knoflacher (2007) 37. They also show an increasingly unequal distribution of mobility: As years pass and motorisation increases, the mobility of families without cars decreases, while the mobility of families with more cars increases. Table 2.2: Daily mobility per person and availability of cars in the family household according to the successive mobility surveys conducted in the Metropolitan Area of Seville. Source: Compiled by the author on the basis of the reports of the surveys (Junta de Andalucía 1990; 1995; 2003; 2007). Data only partially available for 2007.

Average number of daily trips per person Number of cars per household

Year 1990

Year 1995

Year 2003

Year 2007

No cars

2.12

1.96

1.91

--

1 car

2.36

2.46

2.50

--

2 cars or more

2.59

2.93

2.65

--

Average for all families

2.32

2.34

2.46

2.33

37

Although the total distance travelled increases as a result of urban sprawl.

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Figure 2.8: This photograph illustrates in a single image most of the problems associated with the growing motorisation-privatisation of urban mobility: congestion, abusive occupation of urban space, pollution, restriction of autonomy and independence of children and the elderly, a breakdown of social communication, unequal distribution of space and mobility ... Oddly, it does not correspond to a city in a highly motorised country, but to the city of Cairo, in Egypt, a country where most people cannot even dream of owning a car in the short term. Such is the fascination and power that the private automobile exerts over societies throughout the world. Photograph by the author.

In summary, the negative effects of the growing privatisation and motorisation of urban mobility go far beyond the effects on climate change associated with global air pollution. As we have seen, these negative effects include: • • • • • •

Local air and noise pollution. Traffic congestion. Excessive occupation of public space. High traffic accident rates. Negative effects on public health associated with local pollution. Diffuse negative effects on health due to sedentary lifestyles.

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• • •

Loss of autonomy of children and the elderly. Loss of social communication. Uneven distribution of mobility.

All these effects must be taken into account in the analysis of the impact of private cars on urban mobility.

Part IV.- A personal reflection on the undesired effects of motorization-privatization of mobility and its relation to neo-liberal thinking Many authors have criticised from many different points of view the growing motorisation-privatisation of urban mobility, both for its ecological impact, and for its impact on public health, urbanism and social inequity. The considerations and citations of the preceding sections are only a small sample of them. To conclude, we can again quote Ivan Illich, whose ironic criticism could be summarised in the paragraph transcribed below, which is one of the most cited in the history of criticism of car abuse in Western culture: 'The typical American male devotes more than 1,600 hours a year to his car. He sits in it while it goes and while it stands idling. He parks it and searches for it. He earns the money to put down on it and to meet the monthly installments. He works to pay for gasoline, tolls, insurance, taxes, and tickets. He spends four of his sixteen waking hours on the road or gathering KLV UHVRXUFHV IRU LW $QG WKLV ¿JXUH GRHV QRW WDNH LQWR DFFRXQW WKH WLPH consumed by other activities dictated by transport: time spent in hospitals, WUD൶FFRXUWVDQGJDUDJHVWLPHVSHQWZDWFKLQJDXWRPRELOHFRPPHUFLDOVRU attending consumer education meetings to improve the quality of the next EX\7KHPRGHO$PHULFDQSXWVLQKRXUVWRJHWPLOHVOHVVWKDQ¿YH miles per hour. In countries deprived of a transportation industry, people manage to do the same, walking wherever they want to go, and they allocate only 3 to 8 per cent of their society's time budget to traffic instead of 25 per cent. What distinguishes the traffic in rich countries from the traffic in poor countries is not more mileage per hour of life-time for the majority, but more hours of compulsory consumption of high doses of energy, packaged and unequally distributed by the transportation industry.' (Illich 1974, pp. 18-19).

After Illich's seminal analysis, a number of studies have developed this concept of 'effective speed' of the automobile, obtaining similar results 38. In 38 A good summary of these studies, including updated information about effective speeds in a series of representative cities on a global scale can be seen in Tranter

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light of these figures, one could ask: Given the damage that the abuse of the private car causes at the social level, and given the limited individual benefit that one can derive from this abuse, what is the origin of the fascination with the private car that our society suffers from? The roots can probably be sought in the rabidly individualistic philosophy that permeates our culture. In fact, few processes better illustrate the fallacy of the liberal aphorism, attributed to Adam Smith and known as 'the invisible hand', than the evolution of urban mobility during the second half of the XX century: The process of motorisation-privatisation that has characterised the evolution of the mobility of the richest countries during this period, symbolised by the unstoppable rise of the private car, is the result of the pursuit of individual well-being by the middle classes in an environment of cheap oil. Considered one by one, cars are wonderful machines that offer their owners almost unlimited mobility at speeds never reached before and at a more than reasonable cost for the average Western citizen. It is hardly surprising, then, that from the principle sacralised by the neoliberal belief which holds that the search for individual happiness is the path to collective happiness, that an absolutely uncritical fascination with the private car should be held by the average citizen of Western societies. And, as far as such societies represent the model to follow, that this fascination should spread to citizens around the world. Problems begin, however, when the use of the car becomes widespread, and the social and environmental effects of mobility based on its use and abuse become relevant. Then, the sum of the efforts to achieve individual well-being through private automobile ownership is transformed into the social malaise described in the preceding sections, without implying, on the other hand, substantial advances in the individual welfare of the economic actors themselves, such as Illich aptly describes in the paragraph quoted above. Based on the above considerations, it can be deduced that there is a need for a radical change in our culture of mobility. Calls for such a change should not be interpreted as the demonisation of the private automobile, as is sometimes proclaimed, but simply as its desacralization, i.e., its rational use. Citizens of motorised societies must begin to internalize the negative consequences of the compulsive private motorisation of mobility in all its spheres, as well as its growing unsustainability, and perceive the alternatives to such motorisation as what they actually are: alternatives that ultimately liberate us from the increasingly unbearable burden of compulsive private motorisation. (2012).

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But I would not want to give the false image that it is a purely individual option. Western societies are structured by and for the abuse of the private car, so that the compulsive nature of private motorisation is not, in many cases, the result of an individual option, but rather the result of very specific political decisions, which historically have favoured certain patterns of mobility, limiting or impeding others. The aforementioned contempt for the bicycle in the EU policy against climate change is a good example of this. It is, therefore, a political option in the broadest sense of the word. One that in a democratic society should be based on a cultural change of the majority, but which ultimately must be translated into planning, regulation and public investment policies.

Part V.- The technological solutions: biofuels and electric cars Biofuels and electric cars are often presented as solutions that would allow the current car-based mobility schema to be maintained while overcoming the drawbacks that call into question its sustainability. However, from the drawbacks listed in Part III of this Chapter, there are many that would not be affected by the direct substitution of conventional cars by biofuel or electrically propelled cars. These include: • • • • • • •

Traffic congestion. Excessive occupation of public space. High traffic accident rates. Diffuse negative effects on health due to sedentary lifestyle. Loss of autonomy of children and the elderly. Loss of social communication. Uneven distribution of mobility.

With respect to biofuels, it would be possible, in principle, to replace fossil fuels with biofuels (alcohols and oils) of vegetable origin, without major technological changes. As long as the biofuels came from sustainable farms, they would be a source of renewable and, therefore, inexhaustible energy. On the other hand, given that the carbon contained in such biofuels has been previously set by the plants at the expense of atmospheric CO2, the burning of said biofuels would not produce a net increase of GHGs in the atmosphere.

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However, there are important practical and theoretical objections to such a program. In the first place, the yield per Ha in the production of biofuels is very low. In the most favourable case of the production of bioethanol for automotion from sugarcane, the average yield (for example in Brazil) is approximately 5,200 litres of bioethanol per Ha per year (Twidell & Weir 2006, p. 378). For a typical automobile that travels 25,000 km per year with a consumption of 6 liters of bioethanol each 100 km 39, the ecological footprint generated by this annual fuel consumption alone would be approximately 0.3 Ha per automobile. Just to give one example, for the Spanish automobile population, which is around 25 million units, this ecological footprint would represent more than 7.2 million Ha, approximately a third of the agricultural area of the country. If we were to opt for the production of bioethanol from corn, the corresponding ecological footprint would increase considerably, as the productivity per hectare of corn bioethanol is considerably lower. In both cases we would also face an evident problem of water consumption for the irrigation of such crops. Although the above examples are purely theoretical and nobody would think of developing such programmes, they serve to illustrate the exorbitant consumption of agricultural land that the massive replacement of fossil fuel by biofuels for the automotive industry would entail. On the other hand, the massive production of bioethanol from sugarcane, corn or wheat (the most energetically and economically profitable crops) competes with the production of food, directly or through the transfer of farmland to agroenergy crops, which in the end introduces serious doubts about the social viability of the mass production of bioethanol and other biofuels Furthermore, the energy efficiency of obtaining biofuels is not always evident and depends on the primary energy used for agricultural work, and on the process of obtaining and refining biofuel from vegetable raw material. Although in some cases, such as obtaining bioethanol from sugarcane in Brazil, this yield can be quite high, on the order of 6 to 1, in other cases, such as obtaining bioethanol from corn in the United States, it is reduced to values on the order of 1.3 to 1 (Twidell & Weir 2006, p. 364). Obviously, it does not make too much sense to produce a litre of biofuel if we have to spend a similar amount of fossil fuel for that purpose.

39

Fuel consumption by volume in similar cars using petrol or pure ethanol is in the ratio of 1:1.2, i.e. pure ethanol is 20% inferior by this criterion (Twidell & Weir 2006, p. 378).

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For these and other similar reasons, future forecasts of biofuels consumption for the automotive sector in the EU are under review: 'Growing doubt about the real ability of first generation biofuels - agrofuels - to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions and growing awareness of negative impacts of biofuel production on biodiversity, water and soil, both directly and through indirect land-use change at the global level, point to the need for great caution in promoting agrofuels further.' (EEA 2008, p. 20).

As far as electric mobility is concerned, it is clear that the massive replacement of conventional cars fueled with petrol by electric cars could solve some of the problems related to the current mobility model. For instance, all the inconveniences related to local air pollution would be largely solved. The drawbacks associated with oil dependence and global GHGs emissions would also largely disappear, provided that the related objective of obtaining all electricity from renewable sources were achieved. This last aspect is essential, given that the GHG emissions linked to electric mobility depend crucially on the origin of the electricity. Indeed, when all the emissions related to electric cars, including those associated with the complete lifecycle of the car, are taken into account (i.e. when the emissions emanating from their manufacture and disposal are included), it turns out that only in a fully renewable electric generation scenario are the emissions of GHGs of an electric car substantially lower than those of a conventional diesel car (EEA 2016, p. 45). In the case of the current EU electric generation mix, the GHG emissions of an electric car are substantially similar to those of a conventional diesel car of similar performances (ibid....). Of course, we are talking about battery electric vehicles. For plugin hybrid vehicles, the GHGs emissions turn out to be substantially similar to those of a conventional car, even in a fully renewable electric generation scenario (ibid....). Consequently, we can conclude that only for battery electric vehicles and in a fully renewable scenario of electric generation, would GHG emissions from electric cars become substantially lower than for conventional cars. However, once again, the realisation of such a scenario faces many technical and economic difficulties. In the first place, it must be taken into account that energy consumption by road transport in developed countries is comparable to total electricity generation. In the EU, for instance, it amounted to approximately 359 million equivalent tons of oil in 2015, which is equivalent to 4,175 Tw-h approximately. This amount of energy exceeds the annual electricity production of the EU, which was 3,234 Tw-h this same year (EU 2017). Even taking into account the higher energy

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efficiency of electric cars compared to conventional vehicles driven by combustion engines, it is clear that the massive replacement of the present oil-propelled vehicles by an equivalent electric mobility would require an increase in electricity generation by an amount on the same order of magnitude as the total production of electricity at the present time. It is also clear that this scenario would negatively affect the substitution of the old non-renewable power plants with renewable ones, extending the life of the former and delaying the goal of a fully renewable electric generation scenario. Another aspect to take into consideration is that the envisaged performance of electric cars is far from that of cars powered by traditional internal combustion engines, a fact that seriously compromises their market penetration. This low performance is almost inevitably linked to the low energy density of the batteries and, above all, to the relatively low power flow unavoidably associated with the transmission of electric energy. For instance, the petrol tank of a typical automobile can store about 50 litres of fuel, equivalent to more than 400 kW-h of energy. On the other hand, a modern lithium battery with a weight similar to that of the full tank of our example can barely store 7 kw-h of energy, about 60 times less, or, in other words, we need a battery 60 times heavier to store the same amount of energy. Even taking into account the higher efficiency of electric cars (they are about three times more efficient than petrol cars in terms of energy), this is a serious comparative drawback that limits the performance of electric cars. Even more serious are the limitations associated with refuelling (Marqués 2016, 2016b). Petrol is an incredible source of energy, with properties never known before by mankind. A litre of petrol stores an energy equivalent to, roughly speaking, 10 kw-h, and since it is a liquid at room temperature, it is very easy to transport and store. It is also very easy to transfer: The fuel dispenser of a typical petrol station can transfer a power flow of around 23 Mw 40, which is the power of a medium-sized solar electric power plant. Of course, power suppliers for electric cars can never compete with such performance. Table 2.3 shows a comparison between the refuelling times of conventional and electric cars needed for providing an extra autonomy of 100 km. The third row shows the results for a conventional car with a consumption between 5 and 10 liters per 100 km and a fuel dispenser providing 10 US gallons per minute. The remaining 40 Assuming a fuel flow of 10 gallons per minute, according to USA regulations and well below EU regulations.

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rows show the calculated refuelling time and power for a typical electric car (EEA 2016, pp. 26-27). For times between 10 and 30 minutes, there is the so-called 'fast charging', which requires special DC chargers and DC/AC converters in the charging equipment. These fast chargers are expected to be located in motorway service areas or in specific urban charging areas, substituting conventional petrol stations (ibid...). From 1 to 3 hours there is the so-called semi-fast charging, which needs three-phase AC current and special sockets, and are expected to be located along streets, workplaces or special residential areas (ibid....). Finally, from 6 to 8 hours is the so-called domestic or household charging, which does not need either special sockets or special cables, and can be implemented at home (ibid....). From 3 to 6 hours is an intermediate charging time, using special cables and some protection devices (ibid....), but there are not many domestic installations able to manage an additional 7.4 kw power. Table 2.3: Some refueling strategies for conventional and electric cars. Source: (EEA 2016, p. 27) and the author's own elaboration.

Refueling times and characteristics to provide 100 km extra Time

Power

Type

Characteristics

8-16 s

23 Mw

Petrol

Conventional fuel dispenser

10 m

120 kw

Electricity

DC current

20-30 m

50 kw

Electricity

DC current

1-2 h

22 kw

Electricity

AC three phase

2-3 h

10 kw

Electricity

AC three phase

3-4 h

7.4 kw

Electricity

AC single phase

6-8 h

3.3 kw

Electricity

AC single phase

Even assuming that 10 minutes every 100 km is an acceptable refuelling time, the task of building charging areas every 100 km along the main motorways with a number of charging points, of 120 kw each, able to give service to a massive flow of tens of thousands of electric vehicles each day seems quite unaffordable. It is important to realise that this is a fundamental objection to the massive use of battery electric vehicles as an alternative to conventional petrol vehicles, because it relies on the fundamental properties of electricity and petrol respectively. Such properties imply that what is quite an affordable power flow for petrol is not for electricity, no matter

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what battery is used to store the energy. Although some technological alternatives have been proposed to overcome the aforementioned problem, such as battery swapping or the use of supercapacitors, it is not clear that such technologies, if they finally do become available, could solve the aforementioned problem without creating new and perhaps even worse ones. As a consequence, the electric car turns out to be, at present and probably for a long time to come, a vehicle which must be recharged every night in the garage (if the owner has one) and whose usefulness is limited to short urban or suburban trips. It is true that, as its promoters never tire of repeating, these trips constitute more than 50% of the journeys made by car in the EU and in most developed countries. But it is also true that almost all such trips could be carried out in a much more convenient way on foot, by bicycle, on public transport or in a combination of these modes. On the other hand, since electric cars cannot massively substitute conventional cars for long trips, it is quite possible that the final result of the efforts that are currently being made from industry and public administrations to promote electric cars will be that such electric cars become the 'second car' of certain families (those having a garage or some kind of charging system available at home), used for urban trips, but without replacing the conventional petrol car for longer trips, a scenario which is undoubtedly appealing to the automobile industry, but not very helpful for the environment As for plug-in hybrid cars, these are often claimed to be an intermediate step towards fully electric mobility. In fact, they are vehicles that take advantage of the energy that conventional cars spend on braking and starting, providing a more efficient use of the energy contained in the fuel tank. Also, by being pluggable, they could eventually become electric vehicles at will. However, it can be said, in terms of utility and performance, something similar to what has been said about electric cars: they are particularly suitable for urban trips, where frequent starts and braking make them more efficient than conventional cars, but on long-distance journeys, their efficiency is not substantially higher than that of a conventional car; nor do their batteries allow them greater autonomy as electric vehicles. Therefore, we are again faced with the dilemma that these vehicles would be, in essence, competitors of trips taken on foot, by bicycle and by public transport in urban environments, without solving the problem of GHG emissions for long-distance mobility. We should clarify, finally, that all of the above considerations do not mean that electric cars cannot have its place in a sustainable mobility

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system, mainly in cities. First, its use can be very convenient for certain trips in particularly sensitive environments, where local air pollution is especially harmful and the use of other more sustainable modes, such as walking or cycling, becomes difficult. Hybrid cars can be especially useful for certain urban professionals, such as taxi drivers or delivery drivers of bulky goods. These market niches and others that will undoubtedly appear portend a sustainable future for the electric car industry. On the other hand, since batteries are the weak point of electric mobility, public electric transport connected to the electric network undoubtedly offers many advantages in cities, due to low generation of local pollution. In fact, what emerges from the foregoing considerations is not the absence of a future for electric mobility, but rather that the simplistic 'solution' implying the massive replacement of current petrol cars by electric cars fuelled totally or partially by batteries is not viable. In summary, technological 'solutions' such as biofuels or electric cars are only partial solutions that cannot overcome all of the environmental drawbacks of the present car-based mobility model. We are therefore led to a change in our mobility and consumption patterns 41. This change will undoubtedly be less traumatic if we start creating the conditions for it right now. We will analyse what the role of the bicycle might be in such a task in the next chapter.

41 A recent survey of 200 senior executives from leading companies in the global automobile industry highlights their concern that young people around the world are increasingly less interested in traditional purchases such as cars or homes, and redirect their preferences towards other consumer objects such as mobile phones or clothes: ‘The so-called 'millennial' generation of young adults appears less interested in traditional purchases such as houses and cars (preferring alternatives such as mobile devices and clothes)’ (KPMG 2014, p. 21). The fact that the car no longer exercises on youths the fascination it exercised over their parents may be bad news for the automobile industry, but it is undoubtedly good news for the planet.

CHAPTER THREE THE ROLE OF THE BICYCLE IN URBAN MOBILITY

'The taboo on wheelbarrows in America before Cortes is no more puzzling than the taboo on bicycles in modern traffic.' Ivan Illich 'Energy and Equity' (1973)

Part I.- A short overview of urban cycling on a world scale Urban or 'utilitarian' cycling, unlike sports cycling and cyclotourism, does not have as its main objective recreation or the improvement of the cyclist’s fitness, but to satisfy ordinary mobility needs. In countries where urban cyclists are a minority, this fact is often a source of a great deal of confusion on the part of local governments, which tend to focus on cycling as a sport rather than as a means of transport We have already seen, however, how after the first oil crisis of the 70s local authorities in many countries became aware of the danger and longterm unsustainability of the dominant mobility model, with its dependence on the automobile, and began to develop specific policies for the promotion of viable alternatives in the short, medium and long term, including the promotion of urban cycling. At present, it can be said that there is a growing consensus in the world scientific and technical communities on the need to develop cycling promotion policies, especially at the urban and metropolitan levels, as a part of more general policies of promotion of the 'sustainable modes': walking, cycling and public transport (Pucher et al. 2010). As an example of this, we can cite the following paragraph from the Aalborg Charter (1994) or 'Charter of the European Cities Towards Sustainability', approved by the participants at the European Conference on Sustainable Cities & Towns in Aalborg, Denmark, inspired by Rio Earth

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Summit’s Local Agenda 21 plan: “We, cities & towns, shall strive to improve accessibility and sustain social welfare and urban lifestyles with less transport. We know that it is imperative for a sustainable city to reduce enforced mobility and stop promoting and supporting the unnecessary use of motorized vehicles. We shall give priority to ecologically sound means of transport (in particular walking, cycling, public transport) and make a combination of these means the centre of our planning efforts. motorized individual means of urban transport ought to have the subsidiary function of facilitating access to local services and maintaining the economic activity of the city.” (Aalborg Charter 1994)

This text is especially suitable for the bicycle since it is a very appropriate mode of transport for distances of a few kilometres, and promotion policies for this type of travel have to be developed mainly at the local level. This local nature of most initiatives to promote the bicycle as a mode of urban transport often results in great differences between the different geographic regions of the globe, probably more for cultural and economic reasons than for political decisions (Pucher et al. 2010). Likewise, great differences can also be found even within the same geographic or cultural area. Thus, for example, in Europe there are big differences between countries (ECMT 2004). The same thing happens in other parts of the world, where there are many examples of small and medium-sized cities with high percentages of bicycle use in an environment of little interest towards this mode of transport (Handy et al 2012). All this goes to show that such policies can be developed anywhere in the world, independently of the cultural or political constraints that might exist there. The case of Seville (see Chapter Five) is a good example of this. Below are some examples of how promoting cycling as a mode of transport has been focused in different regions of the world: Europe: With the leadership of the Netherlands and Denmark first, and of Germany later (Pucher & Buehler 2008), bicycle promotion policies based on the construction of networks of bike paths separated from motorised traffic have been developed with varying degrees of success in many European cities (Oldenziel et al 2016). They were combined with traffic calming policies and the pedestrianization of residential areas (Pucher & Buehler 2008), as well as with the promotion of bicycle and public transport intermodality, mainly through 'bike and ride' systems (Martens, 2004). Road safety policies, in accordance with the theory of

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'safety in numbers' (Jacobsen 2003) focused on urban planning and regulatory actions aimed at creating safe environments for cycling, disregarding restrictive regulations that could discourage the use of the bicycle, such as the compulsory use of helmets (de Jong 2012). Based on this philosophy, many European cities have managed to reverse the decline of the use of bicycles as an urban mode since the 1970s, reaching bicycle modal shares of around 30% or more in many cities, as well as the lowest cyclist accident rates in the world (Buehler & Pucher 2012).

Figure 3.1: Bicycles were once ubiquitous in China. In the photo, bicycles parked in a manually guarded parking lot next to an underground station in Beijing in 1997. Photograph by the author.

China: Like most communist countries, China imposed big restrictions on the expansion of private cars, focusing its mobility policy on the promotion of public transport. But, unlike other communist countries, China soon realised the advantages of the bicycle as a mode of urban transport: it was cheaper and more flexible than public transport and offered enormous possibilities, not only in cities, but also in their wide and very populated rural areas. Apart from creating bicycle infrastructure, such as separated cycle paths, China subsidised the purchase of bicycles by the population (Replogle 1992). As a result, by 1988 the total number of bicycles in China had reached 300 million, while the total number of cars barely exceeded one

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million (ibid....). At that time, the bicycle reached figures of between 50% and 80% of the modal share in most Chinese cities (ibid....). More recently, however, the growing problems of congestion and pollution, as well as the increasing number of traffic accidents, mainly associated with the substitution of bicycles by mopeds and motorcycles, are driving substantial changes in urban mobility policies, which now include increasing restrictions on cars, motorcycles and mopeds (Peng et al 2012, Pucher et al 2007)42, as well as the implementation of bicycle sharing systems, usually working in connection with public transport (Shaheen et al 2011, Elizabeth Press 2011a, 2011b). Therefore, policies promoting pedestrian and cycling mobility seem to now be experiencing a renaissance in China, after the dark decades of the 1990s and 2000s Japan: Japan represents to a great extent a special case amongst bicycle promotion policies, perfectly symbolized by its capital, Tokyo. With a population of 13 million people in its central area and 36 in the metropolitan area, Tokyo has reached a bicycle modal share of around 17% (Pucher et al 2012), a level without precedents in cities of their size and per capita income. It has achieved this goal with hardly any separated bicycle paths: 20 times fewer kilometres of bicycle paths per capita than Paris or London, for instance, whose bicycle modal shares are between 2% and 3% (ibid...). This does not mean, however, that cyclists usually ride in the carriageway, amongst motorised traffic. They mostly ride on the pavements alongside pedestrians (Berent & Yoshida 2017, Koike et al. 2000). This habit could be related to the fact that pavements are a relatively new feature in Japan: until 1966 there were hardly any at all, as they were not part of traditional Japanese urbanism, and only after 1966 did they develop massively, being in many cases conceived as spaces to be shared by cyclists and pedestrians (Replogle 1992). Japanese investments in bicycle infrastructure have been focused since 1970 on intermodality systems with public transport, mainly rail. Japan is one of the world leaders in the design and provision of bicycle parking facilities at public transport stations, with more than 800,000 bicycle parking spaces in the Tokyo area alone (Pucher & Buehler 2012b) -many of them in automatic underground lockers (Technigeek 2009)- and more than 3 million nationwide, where between 15% and 45% of arrivals at train and metro stations are by bicycle (Replogle 1992). The generalised bicycle traffic on the pavements, however, generates conflicts with pedestrians. So, since 2012 a program has been developed to create safe 42 These restrictions partially explain the growing sales of e-bikes, which are not affected by such restrictions.

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environments for bicycle users off of the pavements, including separated cycle paths (Koike 2014). India and Southeast Asia: India is, with China, the other great Asian giant. As in China, in India bicycles have been and still are a very popular means of transport. However, unlike in China, bicycles have been almost ignored by urban planners (Replogle 1992) and continue to be ignored (Tiwari & Jian 2008). As a consequence, bicycle use has declined continuously with time. Nevertheless, bicycle modal share is still relatively high in India: bicycle use in medium and large Indian cities varies from 715% in large cities to 13-21% in medium and small cities (Tiwari & Jian 2008). However, due to the lack of cycling infrastructure, urban cyclists are continuously threatened by motorised traffic, which is one of the reasons for the smaller bicycle modal share in larger cities (ibid....). Bicycles are important in India for short and medium trips (3-10 km) and as a feeder mode for public transport (ibid....). A salient feature of cycling in South and Southeast Asia is the importance of rickshaws, which play an important role in urban mobility and, in the cities of some countries like Bangladesh, reach percentages of around 50% or more of total urban trips (Hoke et al. 2008). In general, cycling in South and Southeast Asia is in decline but still plays an important role in urban mobility, despite the absence of public promotion policies (Tiwari 2008). The exceptions are high-income countries like Singapore and Taiwan, where bicycle modal shares are quite low, around 1% (ibid....). Taiwan is a curious case of a country with a big bicycle industry but a small use of the bicycle as an urban mode; bicycle promotion policy in Taiwan seems to be concentrated on the bicycle as a leisure activity (ibid....). Anglo-Saxon countries: Bicycle promotion policies in the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and, to a lesser extent, in the UK, have been heavily influenced by the theory of ‘vehicular cycling’, a school of thought that actively opposes the implementation of bicycle paths separated from motorised traffic (Forester 2001). As a result, until the 2000s, there were very few cities in the aforementioned countries that had developed bicycle path networks (Furth 2012) 43. Intermodality with public transport had been focused, especially in the United States and Canada, on the implementation of 'bike on board' solutions, by installing racks on buses and 43

There are, however, exceptions, such as the cities of Portland (Oregon), Davis (California) and Boulder (Colorado) in the US, with percentages of bicycle modal share around 10-15%, or Cambridge in the UK, with a modal share of close to 15%.

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other similar measures 44. Cycle traffic safety policies also followed guidelines largely opposed to those followed in Western Europe, emphasizing individual safety measures, such as making the use of bicycle helmets compulsory 45. In general, it can be said that individual solutions were systematically prioritised over collective ones, both in promotion policies and in road safety. Starting in the 2000s, however, some cities, such as Portland, Chicago, New York, Montreal, Vancouver, Melbourne, etc. have started developing bicycle promotion policies similar to those developed in Western Europe, building bicycle paths and promoting links with public transport based on the implementation of bicycle parking facilities at stations (Pucher et al. 2011). After these policy changes, there have been significant increases in the use of bicycles as an urban transport mode in some large cities, although it is still far from the levels that are common in the Netherlands, Denmark or Germany (ibid....). Latin America: Utilitarian cycling has traditionally had little development in Latin America, possibly due to the fascination with the nearby North American model of urban mobility, based on the private car. It is worth mentioning, however, the interesting bicycle promotion initiatives that have their origins in Latin America, such as the ‘ciclovías’, which originated in the city of Bogotá and have spread all over the world. The Ciclovías are defined as(Ciclovías Recreativas de las Américas n.d.) ‘...streets that, one or more days a week (mainly Sundays and holidays), are closed to motorised vehicles for several hours in order to generate a safe, car-free circuit for thousands of walkers, cyclists and skaters ... [with the aim of] ... recovering the life of the city, generating spaces for recreation and, where it is possible and enjoyable, to play and engage in physical activity, as well as to carry out cultural and educational activities that encourage coexistence and promote healthy and sustainable lifestyles’

44

In the US, 72% of buses are equipped with outdoor racks for bicycles, while in Canada it is 80%. Large cities such as Vancouver, Portland, Chicago, San Francisco, Minneapolis and Washington have equipped 100% of their urban buses with these racks (Pucher & Buehler 2012b). 45 Cycle helmets have been mandatory in Australia and New Zealand since the early 1990s, as well as in some provinces in Canada. In the United States, some states have regulations that require children to wear them, while in others some specific helmet regulations are applied at the local level. In the UK, compulsory use of helmets was recently rejected after an intense debate in Parliament.

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They have had an enormous impact on the promotion of urban cycling, and have made an undeniable contribution to the improvement of public health and livability in the cities where they have been implemented. The most successful bicycle promotion experience in Latin America has also taken place in Bogotá (Montezuma 2005), according to the European model based on the creation of bicycle paths separated from motorised traffic. This model is now progressively extending to other cities, such as Mexico City and Buenos Aires. Africa: Africa is a continent where the bicycle still plays an important role in the daily mobility of the population in rural areas, including the transport of small and medium loads (Riverson & Carapetis 1991). However, in large cities, despite the presence of travel distances appropriate for cycling, and the lack of public transport infrastructures, the dominant mode of non-motorised transport is always walking, with modal shares of around 70% in some cities (Mitullah et al. 2017). Cycling is almost a residual mode of transport, with modal shares around 1% or less (ibid...). Growing motorisation threatens to marginalise the bicycle, which has been traditionally ignored in mobility surveys and urban planning (Riverson & Carapetis 1991). However, more recently, new initiatives have been boosting urban cycling mobility in Africa, through the creation of information networks (PABIN n.d.) and the development of specific urban planning aimed at promoting bicycle mobility and intermodality with public transport, as a part of the more general objective of promoting active modes (Mitullah et al. 2017). In summary, it can be said that, although there is a growing worldwide consensus about the advantages of promoting the use of bicycles as a mode of transport, mainly in cities, the realisation of policies varies widely from one part of the planet to another and from one city to another within its different geographic and/or cultural zones. There is no clear consensus on how to carry out these policies. There is not even consensus about the objectives and relative importance of such policies, beyond the fact that replacing private motorised modes by non-motorised or 'active' modes, including bicycling, would be desirable. It is therefore necessary to answer the question about the specific role that the bicycle could play in the framework of a policy aimed at promoting sustainability. The next part of this chapter will be devoted to this subject.

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Figure 3.2: Although official mobility policies often ignore it, cycling plays a very important role in the mobility of Africans. In the illustration, a reproduction of an advertisement for a bicycle brand in a Ugandan newspaper.

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Part II.- The potential of the bicycle in urban mobility In the previous section we saw how, after the 1970s, bicycle promotion policies began to be applied in some developed countries, where the limits of the motorisation-privatisation of mobility began to become evident. This tendency contrasts paradoxically with the absence of such policies in less developed countries, still immersed in a process of increasing motorisation. A first reflection in this context starts from the consideration of the impact of the automobile on the urban structure of cities. After the Industrial Revolution, cities became bigger, losing their human scale. The widespread use of the automobile as an urban mode of transport increased distances and made cities even more inaccessible to the citizen who moved around on foot. In this context, the bicycle, which is also the daughter of the Industrial Revolution, offers the possibility of recovering the human scale of cities, at least of medium-sized cities of around one million inhabitants. This is thanks to the competitiveness of the bicycle as compared to motorised transport for trips of fewer than 5 km and even for distances of around 10 km. A 'classic' illustration of this result is shown in Figure 3.3, reproduced from the well-known report of Dekoster & Schollaert (1999), and similar results can be deduced from Tranter (2012) and references therein. These distances are inaccessible on foot for most people, at least in the context of their everyday mobility. However, they are perfectly accessible by bicycle. A good example of this is the city of Seville, analysed in the last chapter of this book, with 700,000 inhabitants, whose urban area can be inscribed for the most part within a circle with a 7-km radius, as can be seen in Figure g 3.4.

Figure 3.3: Comparison between travel times (in minutes) for door-to-door trips in European cities. Source: Dekoster & Schollaert (1999).

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Figure 3.4: Almost the entire city of Seville fits inside a circle with a 7 km radius.

Moreover, the bicycle offers its rider the possibility of relating with the environment and the people who inhabit the city much more like a pedestrian than a motorist. The latter travels through the city inside an enclosed space, through specific paths and following rigid traffic regulations, necessary for reasons of safety, but which also severely limit his relationship with the environment. The cyclist, however, can smell and listen to the city, stop for an unexpected encounter, get off the bicycle and, pushing it, become a pedestrian to buy a newspaper, a piece of fruit, a loaf of bread or, simply, have a casual conversation with an acquaintance. This relational function of the bicycle mode (and, in general, of all non-motorised modes) is one of its great advantages over motorised modes, which are generally restricted to their function of mere transportation. In addition to being a form of transport, urban cycling is a 'social activity' (CROW 2007, p. 29).

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In this way the bicycle returns the human scale to the post-industrial city: '… the bicycle, as an extension of the legs or as an orthopaedic limb to allow for faster walking, allows the restless citizen to dominate the city, recognise it as his own, enjoy its nuances and interact with its inhabitants, wherever he might go. Man (on a bike) is once again the measure of his city.' (MoralesAlcalá 1993. Translated by the author from the original Spanish text.)

And, at the same time, it offers solutions to many of the problems discussed in the previous chapter: • • • • • • • •

Oil dependence Global pollution Local pollution Traffic congestion Excessive occupation of public space High traffic accident rates Worsening of public health Social inequity

Table 3.1 reproduces a well-known comparison between the contribution of cycling and other urban transport modes on some of the aforementioned problems 46. Regarding the effects on health, the advantages of walking and cycling were described in chapter two, Part III. Table 3.1: Comparison between the ecological effects per traveller of different modes of transport for an identical trip. The values of the first column are taken arbitrarily equal to 100. Source: Dekoster & Schollaert (1999). Car (without catalyst)

Car (with catalyst)

Urban Bicycle bus

Space consumption

100

100

10

8

Primary energy consumption

100

100

30

0

GHG emissions

100

100

29

0

Local pollution

100

15

9

0

46 Obviously, these are estimates on a large number of cases that can vary greatly from one scenario to another. With regard to energy consumption and the production of greenhouse gases by motorised public transport, see the discussion in Chapter One, Part II.

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The usefulness of the bicycle as an urban transport mode is not limited to its use in medium-sized and small cities, involving trips of around 5 km, where the bicycle becomes the most efficient mode (see Figure 3.3). It also extends to large urban areas, whose size exceeds the radius of action of an average cyclist. In such cases, the key is the combination of the bicycle and public transport. In fact, in the sparsely populated suburbs of many cities, the combination of cycling and public transport appears as one of the few, if not the only, opportunities to provide these areas with effective public transport. In these areas, conventional public transport, even when travelling on a reserved platform, faces two major drawbacks that compromise its efficiency: 1) The low occupancy rates of vehicles, which cancel the ecological advantages of public transport (such as reduced emissions per traveller) and make it financially unsustainable. 2) The large number of transfers needed to reach a destination (or otherwise, the proliferation of lines), which make it unattractive and uncompetitive with the private car. Both inconveniences are a consequence of low population density, which necessitates increasing the number of stations and stops necessary to cover a given territory, multiplying the number of vehicles and operating with low occupancy rates. Encouraging bicycle access and egress to the public transport system allows for increasing the radius of the catchment areas of the stations from 300 - 500 meters for urban transport or 500 - 1,000 meters for suburban trains (O'Sullivan & Morrall 1996), up to a radius of around 3,000 meters, easily achievable for almost any cyclist (CROW 2007, pp. 335-342). This combination of the bicycle and public transport, which is commonplace in countries with a long tradition of urban cycling (Martens 2004), allows increasing the catchment distances of public transport stations by a factor of between 3 and 10 which, in practice, means increasing the catchment areas by a factor of between 9 and 100, depending on the type of public transport. This results in less need for stations, lines and transshipments, with a very positive impact on the efficiency and profitability of collective public transport (Hegger, R. 2007, Pucher & Buehler 2012b). In fact, it can be said that these types of solutions are necessary in order to provide effective public transport in low population density suburban areas, within the framework of a sustainable mobility model

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Figure 3.5: Illustration of the amplifying effect on the catchment area of a public transport station when used in combination with the bicycle. A bus station with a 300-meter pedestrian pick-up radius has been taken as an example.

This brief review of the potential of the bicycle as an urban transport mode would be incomplete without mentioning the recent success of electric pedal-assisted cycles (EPACs), which allow a rider to overcome some of the main difficulties of urban cycling, such as the hilly terrain or the age of the cyclist, while maintaining the positive effects of cycling on health (Gojanovic et al 2011). Figure 3.6 shows the evolution of sales of EPACs in Europe (EU-28). These sales increased by a factor of 13 between 2006 and 2015, from less than 100,000 units/year to more than 1,300,000 units in 2015, while total bicycle sales remained almost unchanged at around 20 millions units per year, with the percentage of EPAC sales as compared to total bicycle sales reaching 6.5% in 2015, increasing at a rate of one percent per year (CONEBI 2016). This enormous success is in sharp contrast to the stagnation of the sales of electric cars, which in 2014 were of 38,000 units in the EU-28 (EEA 2016, p. 48). The reasons for this stagnation of the electric car as an alternative of transport in Europe were analysed in part V of Chapter Two. The reasons for the success of EPACs have been analysed by the author (Marqués 2016b) and are closely related to the fact that EPACs and other personal mobility devices adapt much better than conventional cars to the specific characteristics of electricity as a source of power.

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Figure 3.6: Evolution of EPAC sales and percentage of EPAC sales compared to total bicycle sales in the EU-28. Source: CONEBI (2016).

Most EPACs are pedelecs, that is cycles assisted by an electric motor of power less or equal to 250 watts and whose speed is limited to 25 km/h. They are considered bicycles by European Law 47. They can help to extend the potential of the bicycle as an everyday mode of transport in hilly cities and for the elderly and/or other people with reduced physical capabilities (Jones et al 2016). In summary, we can say that the bicycle has (or should have) a central role in any plan of sustainable urban mobility. This role is essential for trips such as those: •

Between 1-2 and 5-10 km, by using the bicycle as the main mode.

• For displacements longer than 5-10 km in combination with public

transport, through a sustainable intermodal chain 48, especially in suburban areas with low population density.

47 EPACs with higher power and/or speed are commonly called “fast pedelects” and are considered as mopeds in many European countries. 48 A 'sustainable intermodal chain' can be defined as a trip made entirely by sustainable modes, including public transport. i.e. walking and/or cycling, and public transport.

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Taking into account that around 50% of car trips in Europe are over distances of fewer than 5 km (ECMT 2004), and that the present modal shares for cars and bicycles in Europe is around 50% and 5% respectively (ibid...), it can be deduced that the potential for bicycle-only trips in Europe is around 30% 49. And, in fact, this percentage is close to reality in the Netherlands (Pucher & Buehler 2012c), and a reality in many specific cities of the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany (ibid....). Regarding combined trips by bicycle and public transport, percentages between 40% and 20% of rail passengers reach their stations by bicycles in countries like the Netherlands and Denmark, and in cities like Tokyo (Pucher & Buehler 2012b). Of course, there are no reasons why these percentages could not be reached in other regions of the globe. The bicycle should therefore occupy a central place in any policy of sustainable mobility, acting as the mode covering the trip segment between purely pedestrian journeys (less than 1 or 2 km generally) and journeys that can be made by public transport (several km), and also acting as a 'glue' between trip origins and destinations and public transport stations in areas of low population density, thus enabling the realisation of virtually any urban trip through an intermodal sustainable chain. On the way towards this goal, it is necessary to face a key problem: How to fit the bicycle into the urban fabric of modern cities? In the next part of this chapter, we will try to give some answers to this question.

Part III.- The place of the bicycle on public roads. Mixed or separate? Does the bicycle need of an exclusive place on public roads or should bicycle traffic mix with motorised traffic? There is no universal consensus on this, the topic being a matter of controversy between the different urban cycling schools. On the one hand, most cities that have developed successful bicycle promotion experiences have done so through the implementation of bicycle path networks (Pucher & Buehler 2012a). On the other hand, even in countries where bicycle paths are more established, such as the Netherlands or Denmark, these are not always the recommended solution for the integration of bicycles in urban mobility (CROW 2007, CED 2012). Therefore, it makes sense to ask: What is the place of the bicycle on public 49 A 25% coming from the substitution of a 50% of present car trips plus the present 5% of bicycle trips.

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roads? And, if there should be a specific place, i.e., the cycle paths, when does it make sense to implement them and when is it possible to integrate bicycle traffic with motorised traffic and/or pedestrians? Regarding the mixing of bicycle and pedestrian traffic, we saw in chapter one that the tendency of cyclists to ride on pavements and other pedestrian spaces is as old as the very existence of the bicycle. In the first years of the bicycle’s history, pavements offered a smoother and more homogeneous surface than carriageway, which were often muddy, full of puddles and occupied by horses and carriages. That is why many former 'hobby-horses' ended up being ridden on the pavements of London, provoking protests and giving rise to regulations that in the end prohibited such behaviour. Later on, insomuch as cycling on the carriageway was increasingly perceived as a dangerous practice (Horton 2007), it was the fear of motorised traffic that increased this tendency to ride on the pavements and pedestrian spaces of many cyclists, especially if they are new and inexperienced. As we have seen, in Japan, cycling on the pavements is socially acceptable and has been one of the bases for the development and maintenance of high levels of bicycle mobility in that country. In the rest of the world, however, the generalisation of this practice is seen as socially unacceptable except in some very specific spaces and conditions, which has created tensions and protests that in no way benefit the promotion of the bicycle, something that is now beginning to happen in Japan as well (Koike 2014). At the opposite extreme is the so-called 'vehicular cycling theory', which until recently dominated the scene in the United States. According to this theory, the bicycle should be treated as a 'vehicle' and, as such, its place is on the carriageway next to other vehicles. Therefore, for this school of cycling, there is no need to create separate bicycle paths. In fact, any attempt to separate bicycles from other vehicles with specific infrastructure is eyed with suspicion and is thought to discriminate against cyclists and to favour motorised vehicles. For instance, in a 1937 pamphlet published by the Cyclists’ Touring Club (CTC) of Great Britain, the most important British cycling association, we read the following: “It is impossible to escape the conclusion that most people and organisations who advocate cycle paths are not actuated by motives of benevolence or sympathy, although they may declare that their sole concern is the welfare of the cyclist ... A great deal of the cycle-path propaganda is based on a desire to remove cyclists from the roads. That is why the request for cycle paths is so often accompanied by a suggestion that their use should be

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enforced by law. Therein lies a serious threat to cycling.” (Cyclists’ Touring Club 1937, 11–12. Cited by Horton 2007, p. 143).

The main exponent and defender of the theory of vehicular cycling is John Forester, who in the seventies designed an education programme called Effective Cycling, which was implemented by the League of American Bicyclists (USA) until Forester withdrew his permission for that organisation to use this name. In a classic paper (Forester 2001), Forester argues that statistical evidence cannot substitute rational causality analysis and, through the analysis of a number of practical examples, tries to show that cycling in traffic is less dangerous than cycling on bikeways, provided some basic skills are shared by bicyclists (Ibid....). More recently, D. Horton, who cannot be considered to be a supporter of vehicular cycling theories, has noted that bicycle lanes may contribute to the creation of an image of urban cycling as an abnormal and dangerous practice, thus contributing, in a subliminal way, to an increase in the fear of cycling on 'normal' roads amongst the population (Horton 2007, pp 142-145). For these and other reasons, the supporters of vehicular cycling theories oppose the implementation of separated bicycle paths. And, needless to say, they also reject cycling on pavements and pedestrian areas. There is, however, wide statistical evidence that separated bicycle paths increase cycling safety. This evidence is apparent at a national scale, were most statistics show that cycling is much safer in countries with welldeveloped bicycle infrastructure (Pucher & Buehler 2008). For instance, bicycle fatality rates in the Netherlands are 5 times lower than in the United States (ibid....), and half those of the UK (Wardlaw 2014). Literature reviews of local-scale analyses (Reynolds et al 2009, Thomas and DeRobertis 2013, Buehler & Dill 2016) also show mainly positive results, with some papers reaching negative conclusions. However, most of the analyses reporting negative conclusions were published before 2009, some of them as early as in the last decade of the twentieth century (Reynolds et al 2009). After 2009, however, most analyses report a positive influence of bicycle paths on cycling safety (Thomas and DeRobertis 2013, Buehler & Dill 2016), a fact that may reveal the improvements that have been made in the design of such infrastructure, mainly at intersections 50.

50 In fact, many papers published before 2009 reported a positive influence of bicycle paths between intersections but not at intersections, and recommended ending them before intersections (see Reynolds et al 2009 and references therein). This recommendation, however, disappeared from the scientific literature after 2000.

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With regard to the alleged discrimination against cyclists associated with the creation of specific bicycle infrastructure, it should not be forgotten that the creation of specific bicycle paths, when accompanied by a substantial increase in the use of bicycles, also brings about an increase in cycling in secondary streets without specific infrastructure (which are still the majority), so it is not clear that they contribute to eliminating 'annoying' cyclists from carriageways, at least not from all of them. On the other hand, if a given bicycle path has been built over space previously occupied by motorised traffic for circulation or parking, it does not seem that this would be objectionable from the point of view of the possible discrimination against cyclists in favour of motor vehicles, but rather the opposite. Finally, while it is true that building bicycle paths in some ways may justify the arguments of those who say that cycling is 'dangerous' (if it were not there would be no need to build bicycle paths), it is very possible that, as far as they contribute to increasing the use of bicycles among the population, they also contribute to making urban cycling a normal and socially accepted activity, as it has happened in the Netherlands, Denmark and many other countries. In fact, there is evidence that the theory of vehicular cycling contributed decisively to curbing the expansion of bicycle ridership in the United States and other Anglo-Saxon countries compared to other countries in Western Europe (Fürt 2012), although it has also made notable contributions to bicycle promotion policies: By denying any role to bicycle paths contributed to developing road safety practices and experiences for cyclists who have helped to define guidelines for cycling in cities, very useful for many urban cyclists. It also helped to define clear positions, today unanimously defended by all cyclists’ associations, on issues such as the non-obligation of cyclists to ride on paths specifically reserved for them 51, or the nonoccupation of spaces previously dedicated to pedestrian traffic for making bicycle paths.

51 This non-obligation is often misunderstood by city councils, who fear that their investments in bicycle paths will be useless if cyclists do not use them. On the contrary, if they are useful and safe, they will certainly be used by cyclists without any need to establish compulsory regulations, and if they are not safe, it would be better not to use them.

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Table 3.2: Comparison between pedestrians, bicycles and cars according to their main characteristics. Mode

Vehicle Engine

Power

Mass

Speed

Pedestrian

No

No

~ 100 w

~ 50-100 kg

~ 4-5 km/h

Bicycle

Yes

No

~ 100-200 w ~ 50-100 kg (*) ~ 15-20 km/h

Car Yes Yes ~ 50 kw (*) Including the weight of the cyclist. (**) Limit for speed in cities.

~ 1,000 kg

~ 50 km/h (**)

The bicycle, although it is undoubtedly a machine equipped with wheels, and therefore is legally a vehicle, cannot be simplistically identified with a motor vehicle or a with a car, the 'vehicle par excellence' in our mobility culture 52. Table 3.2 shows a comparative scheme between pedestrians, bicycles and cars. It is apparent that bicycles, simply do to the fact that they are legally vehicles, have traffic needs and characteristics that are very different from those of pedestrians. However, any internal combustion engine develops powers on the order of 50 kilowatts or more, that is to say 500 times more than a pedestrian or a cyclist. Similar comparisons can be made using mass, speed or kinetic energy. In all these comparisons, it becomes apparent that a cyclist riding on an evolved 'laufmaschine' is closer to a 'pedestrian on wheels' than to a motorist. Consequently, to expect a bicycle to share, in a minimally comfortable way, the same carriageway and the same traffic rules as motor vehicles, as vehicular cycling theory claims, is nothing more than a pious desire in the best of cases 53. There are, of course, many successful experiences of shared traffic not only between motor vehicles and bicycles, but also between bicycles and pedestrians, at least since the 1970s when the 'woonerfs' 54 began to become 52

This is often seen in many planning documents, where the words ‘private vehicle’ are often used as a synonym for ‘car’, although the bicycle is also a ‘vehicle’, usually as ‘private’ as most cars. This synecdoche that confuses car with ‘vehicle’ is also common in legal terminology, which leads to a great deal of confusion and to rules that are absurd when applied to the bicycle. 53 In the worst of cases, the blind application of these theories would lead to proposals that would go far beyond what their supporters would ever defend. They can, however, be considered the logical consequence of such theories, such as, for instance, the obligatory registration of bicycles or compulsory civil liability insurance, or even a specific driving license. In fact, all these proposals have been put on the table more than once throughout the history of urban cycling 54 In English ‘home zones’ (UK) or “shared streets” (USA).

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very popular, first in the Netherlands and then throughout the world, as did many other modalities of traffic calming, to which we will return later. But all these experiences are based on special urban designs and campaigns, including specific traffic regulations aimed at limiting the flow and speed of motorised traffic (see, for instance, Appleyard 1981. pp. 249-251). Without such special rules and designs, coexistence would not make sense because of the very different power and speed that the different modes generate, as well as differences in mass and space occupancy. This is quite obvious when talking about cars and pedestrians, and it should be equally as obvious when discussing about cars and bicycles, since the differences in speed, power, mass and space occupancy are similar (see Tables 3.1 and 3.2). In summary, we can conclude that, if the different transport modes (pedestrians, bicycles and motor vehicles) are to fully develop their potential, separation between them is always desirable because of their very different characteristics, summarized in Tables 3.1 and 3.2. This does not mean that the coexistence between bicycles and motor vehicles or between bicycles and pedestrians is not possible, but it will always require some type of additional regulation which eliminates or at least attenuates the differences in speed 55 between such disparate modes. In the next chapter, we will return on to this topic.

Part IV.- Urban cycling and road safety. The need for a comprehensive approach As we have seen, the fear of suffering an accident is one of the most common reasons that discourage the use of bicycles for everyday transport (Horton 2007). However, the cycling risk varies enormously from one country to another, and, as a general rule, the greater the use of the bicycle for daily transport, the lower the risks involved with cycling (ECMT 2004, ECF 2010, Buehler & Pucher 2017). As an example of this, the cyclist fatality rate (per km cycled) in the Netherlands was, in 2007, three times smaller than in the UK and 6 times smaller than in the United States, and the injury rate was 4 and 27 (sic) times smaller respectively (Pucher 2008). This inverse relationship between risk and the use of the bicycle has been called 'safety in numbers', and has been postulated as a theory of general application to active mobility: the more pedestrians and/or cyclists on the 55 The differences of power, mass or space occupancy are inherent to the different modes and cannot be modified.

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road, the fewer pedestrian and/or bicycle traffic accident rate (Jacobsen 2003, Elvik 2009). A consequence of this theory is that: 'The high injury rate for pedestrians and cyclists in the current transport system does not necessarily imply that encouraging walking or cycling rather than driving will lead to more accidents.' (Elvik 2009).

And that: 'Policies that increase the numbers of people walking and bicycling appear to be an effective route to improving the safety of people walking and bicycling.' (Jacobsen 2003).

Regarding the reasons why this theory works in relation to the bicycle, the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) mentions the following: -

'Drivers grow more aware of cyclists and become better at anticipating their behaviour. Drivers are more likely to be cyclists themselves, which means that they are more likely to understand how their driving may affect other road users. More people cycling leads to greater political will to improve conditions for cyclists. Higher cycle use often goes together with lower car use, decreasing the risk of conflict with motor vehicles, with consequent safety benefits for all road users.' (ECF 2010).

On the other hand, although cycling can be 'risky', it is certainly not 'dangerous'. As A. Sanz (1996) points out: '... danger is defined as that circumstance from which harm can be derived and dangerous is that activity which can cause harm. However, the risk is defined as the possibility of harm happening ... This distinction between danger and risk is relevant for two reasons. Firstly, because it clarifies that the bicycle is not a dangerous means of transport, as it is not capable of producing serious damage in general, although it can be a risky means of transport. And secondly, because it shows how the reduction of danger is an advantage offered by the bike both for the individual and, above all, for the community ... ' (Sanz et al. 1996 p. 20; translated by the author).

This distinction between 'danger' and 'risk' associated to each transport mode can be quantified by counting the 'collateral victims' associated to the different modes. Figure 3.7 shows the number of fatalities in traffic accidents associated with each mode of transport in the UK during 2007,

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differentiating between users and non-users (others) of such modes of transport. The figures in the Graphic show that 40% of the victims of traffic accidents involving cars are collateral victims, that is, non users of the vehicle. This percentage is even higher for buses and lorries. On the contrary, the percentage of collateral victims almost vanishes for bicycles and pedestrians. These figures illustrate the previous text about the 'risk' and the 'danger' associated with the bicycle, and show how a massive modal shift from motorised to non-motorised or 'active' modes would result in a meaningful increase in road safety.

Figure 3.7: Fatalities in traffic accidents in the UK. Source Department of Transport. Cited in (CTC 2012).

A similar conclusion is reached when traffic accidents suffered by pedestrians and cyclists are analysed. As an example, in Spain, in 2010, 97% of all pedestrian crashes in urban areas were caused by motor vehicles, of which 73% were cars (DGT 2011). With regard to bicycle accidents, the vast majority of accidents involving conflicts with other transport modes are also collisions with motor vehicles, as can be seen in Table 3.3, which shows data from the UK and Spain.

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As for the location of bicycle accidents, this also varies greatly from one country to another. In the Netherlands, for example, most bicycle accidents in urban areas occur at intersections (CROW 2007, p. 37), a fact that has been used profusely to argue the uselessness of bicycle lanes. Such an argument collapses, however, when considering the spatial distribution of bicycle accidents in countries with scarce bicycle infrastructure, as is the case in Spain. In this country, during the period 2000-2011, bicycle accidents in urban areas were distributed by 54% - 46% between intersections and road sections (Gutiérrez-Roldán et al. 2012). Therefore, the relatively higher danger at intersections in countries with extensive networks of cycle paths only shows that they fulfill their function of reducing cyclists' accidents in the road sections between intersections, confining them to the zones of friction with motor vehicles, i.e. to the intersections, which makes the proper design of intersections a key factor in the good design of bicycle path networks Table 3.3: Percentage distribution of injuries to cyclists in Spain (urban roads) and in the United Kingdom (all roads) for the indicated years and according to the type of injury. Sources: DGT (2011) and ECF (2012). UK 2005-2007 (all roads)

Spain 2010 (urban roads)

Kind of Injury

Fatal Major Minor Fatal Major Minor

Collision with a motor vehicle

82%

83%

87%

Collision with other bicycle

0%

0.2%

0.4%

Collision with a pedestrian

0.7% 0.7%

No collision

17%

16%

46%

76%

77%

0.6%

0%

1.4%

2.6%

12%

54%

23%

21%

On the other hand, and as far as public health is concerned, the beneficial effects of active mobility (walking and cycling), when practised regularly, include reductions in the risk of developing obesity, coronary artery disease, diabetes, and hypertension (ECMT 2004, WHO 2005, WHO 2007). In particular, the beneficial effects on one’s health of regular physical exercise, such as pedalling 30 minutes a day, have been evaluated as: '-

50% reduction in the risk of developing coronary and heart diseases (i.e. a similar effect to not smoking). 50% reduction in the risk of developing adult diabetes. 50% reduction in the risk of becoming obese. 30% reduction in the risk of developing hypertension.

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10/8 mm Hg decline in blood pressure in hypertensive subjects (i.e. a similar effect to that obtained from antihypertensive drugs).' (Source: WHO, cited at ECMT 2004, p. 21).

These beneficial effects are absent from the sedentary lifestyle that usually accompanies the exclusive use of motorised modes of transport (whether private or public). In this way, high rates of cycling and pedestrian urban mobility result in a substantial improvement in public health. The World Health Organization has developed a methodology and a computer tool (HEAT) for the systematic evaluation of these benefits. The use of this tool allows one to evaluate the impact on public health of the policies of promotion of cycling and pedestrian mobility, expressing the results in terms of 'deaths avoided per year'. The results obtained through this methodology reveal a substantial impact of these policies. Thus, for instance, the impact on public health of the implementation of Barcelona's public bicycle system, Bicing, has been estimated at 12.46 deaths avoided per year (Rojas-Rueda et al 2011). On the other hand, the impact on public health of the increase in the use of bicycles in Seville after the introduction of the cycle path network (see below, Chapter 5) has been estimated at 24 deaths avoided per year (Marqués et al. 2015). It is illustrative to compare these figures with the numbers of cyclists killed annually in traffic accidents on urban roads in Spain. According to the Statistical Accident Yearbooks of the Spanish Directorate of Traffic (DGT 2017), these figures oscillated, in the decade 2007-2016, between a minimum of 10 (2015) and a maximum of 27 (2016). Although these figures are not directly comparable with the previous ones, the fact that they are all of the same order of magnitude shows the importance of developing a more comprehensive approach to the issue of road safety for cyclists. This approach must take into account, not only the number of cyclists who are victims of traffic accidents and the severity of their injuries, but also factors such as: • •

•

The effect of 'safety in numbers', which means that the greater the use of the bicycle, the greater the safety of cyclists. The minimal danger of the bicycle, compared to the automobile and other motorised vehicles, for the rest of the actors of the public road, which implies that promoting the modal change from these vehicles towards the bicycle improves road safety globally considered. The beneficial effects of the use of the bicycle for health, which could exceed the possible risks derived from cycling accidents (de Hartog et al. 2010).

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Any assessment of the road safety of cyclists based on an approach focused exclusively on the individual accidents of cyclists and not taking into account these factors, will lead to partial conclusions, not taking into account the importance that a widespread use of the bicycle has for the reduction of both the overall accident rate and public health in general. A good example of this are the campaigns to promote the mandatory use of bicycle helmets which have been developed in recent years in some countries. These campaigns originated in the early 1990s, after the publication of some studies that reported significant rates of reduction of cranioencephalic injuries suffered by cyclists as a result of helmet use (Thompson et al. 1989, Atewell et al. 2001), although these conclusions have recently been revised downward (Elvik 2011). As a result of these studies, some countries, such as Australia, New Zealand and some provinces of Canada, decided to make the use of helmets mandatory for all cyclists. However, the fact that the voluntary use of cycle helmets could reduce the risk of suffering cranioencephalic injuries on an individual scale would not imply, immediately, that the imposition of their mandatory use would result in a reduction in the number of such injuries among cyclists, or an improvement of the global rate of accidents or of public health in general. In fact, if as a consequence of such regulations there is a decrease of the use of the bicycle, it is possible that this will result in an increase in the cyclist accident rate (due to the ‘safety in numbers’ effect), in a higher overall accident rate (because of a modal shift towards more dangerous vehicles than the bicycle) and in a degradation of public health (as a result of an increase in sedentary lifestyles). In that way, as D.L. Robinson (2006, 2007) has pointed out, the debate about the compulsory use of bicycle helmets has to focus from the beginning on the question of whether or not their implantation discourages the use of the bicycle and hence reduces the number of cyclists, something for which there is wide scientific evidence (ibid....), and whether the negative effects of such a reduction exceed the advantages of a higher individual use of helmets. The debate has recently been strengthened in connection with bike sharing systems, which have proved to be extremely sensitive to this kind of rules, to the point that their failure in some Australian cities can be attributed to just such compulsory helmet regulations (Fishman et al. 2012). For these reasons, the official position of the European Federation of Cyclists (ECF), the most prestigious association of urban cyclists in the

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world, is contrary to this type of regulations (ECF 2010) and the safest countries for cycling have rejected these types of regulations due to their discouraging effects, focusing their road safety policies on the planning and development of separated bicycle paths, specifically designed to simultaneously promote the use of the bicycle and the safety of cyclists. In the Netherlands, for example, the world leader in cycling safety, fewer than 1% of adult cyclists wear a helmet, and even among children, only between 3% and 5% use it (Pucher 2008). As J. Pucher points out (ibid....):

'The Dutch cycling experts and planners interviewed for this article adamantly oppose laws to require the use of helmets, claiming that helmets discourage cycling by making it less convenient, less comfortable and less fashionable. They also mention the possibility that helmets would make cycling more dangerous by giving cyclists a false sense of safety and thus encouraging riskier riding behaviour. At the same time, helmets might reduce the consideration motorists give cyclists, since they might seem less vulnerable if wearing helmets.'

A recent analysis (de Jong 2012) develops a mathematical model that considers both the effectiveness of the helmet when it comes to reducing head injuries and the negative effect of compulsory bicycle helmet regulations on overall bicycle use (which have a negative effect on public health), reaching the following conclusion: 'In jurisdictions where cycling is safe, a helmet law is likely to have a large unintended negative health impact. In jurisdictions where cycling is relatively unsafe, helmets will do little to make it safer and a helmet law, under relatively extreme assumptions, may make a small positive contribution to net societal health.'

This conclusion is interesting, because it would explain why compulsory helmet regulations have not prospered in countries where the use of the bicycle is predominantly utilitarian, while they have developed important infrastructures to protect bicycle traffic and make cycling safer. It would also explain why compulsory helmet laws have been implemented mainly in countries where the use of bicycles is low, with little cycling infrastructure and a predominance of sport cycling over utilitarian cycling, which fits well into the ‘relatively unsafe’ conditions of the preceding citation. The problem posed by the citation, if accurate, is to what extent compulsory helmet laws, by discouraging the use of the bicycle as a daily mode of transport, contribute to perpetuate this situation, hindering the development of utilitarian cycling and relegating cycling to a minor role, a

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minority activity which is thought to be risky or even dangerous. The debate about the effects of compulsory bicycle helmet regulations is a good example of the need to broaden the approach to road safety for utilitarian cyclists (and also of pedestrians), which is too often focused on a restrictive and individualistic view of safety that ignores collective and environmental factors, such as safety in numbers or the potential danger of the different modes for the remaining modes present on the road, and disregards the important aspect of the contribution of the bicycle to public health in general. This broadening of the debate should bring to the forefront the beneficial effects for traffic safety of increasing the number of cyclists and pedestrians on public roads. These effects are beneficial both for cyclists and pedestrians themselves (safety in numbers) and for the traffic in general, in the form of calmer and less dangerous traffic. It should also be borne in mind that cycling, like walking, is a healthy activity in itself, whose expansion contributes to the improvement of public health. Therefore, promoting cycling and walking is a way to promote both public health and road safety in the city as a whole. Consequently, the measures taken to improve the safety of pedestrians and cyclists should be carefully designed to avoid triggering processes that could result in a decrease in walking or cycling, or even the perpetuation of situations in which these activities are perceived as dangerous and remain minority activities.

CHAPTER FOUR THE INTEGRATION OF THE BICYCLE IN URBAN MOBILITY

“The great way is very level and easy, but people love the by-ways.” Lao-tzu (Tao Te Ching).

Part I.- Cycle paths as spaces for active mobility We have already seen (Section 3.3) that bicycle paths are an essential element when adapting a city to bicycles. There are many design manuals that, in one way or another, guide planners. To cite two of them, the Dutch ‘Design Manual for Bicycle Traffic’ (CROW 2007) and the Danish ‘Collection of Cycling Concepts’ (CED 2012). Both agree on the obvious need to design cycle path networks instead of isolated cycle paths. It is, however, discouraging to observe how, too often, the design of cycle paths is carried out in an unconnected way and is influenced more by political expediency than by practicality. The result is usually a collection of unconnected stretches of bicycle paths of various designs, lacking a clear purpose and usefulness. It is not surprising that no appreciable increase in the use of bicycles can come about from such cycle paths, since no real increase in cyclists' safety will come about from them either: The perceived safety of a trip is given by its most dangerous part; therefore, a collection of unconnected cycle paths going from no place to nowhere does not imply any substantial increase of the safety perceived by the cyclists. Too often, these kinds of projects not only give rise to resounding failures, but are also counterproductive as far as they reinforce the fear of cycling among the general population. The need to design networks instead of isolated bicycle paths cannot be overemphasized.

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A network of bikeways, to be fully effective, must comply with a series of characteristics that we could summarize as follows 56: •

•

•

•

Safety: The main objective of a cycle path network is to offer safety to its users. For this purpose, it is important to keep in mind, especially in countries with little development of urban cycling, that cycle networks must be designed according to the needs of potential cyclists rather than the needs of current cyclists, because their main objective is not simply to facilitate the transit of those who already use the bicycle for everyday mobility, but to attract new users to the bicycle. Consequently, it would be very likely that, with some exceptions, a complete separation between cycle paths and motorised traffic should be the norm. If not, the network will offer interesting solutions for the few already existing urban cyclists, but it will not be attractive for common people, who will continue to perceive the daily use of the bicycle as an activity which is too risky 57 to practise personally. Connectivity: Connectivity means that the network should connect the main trip attractors (workplaces, schools, universities, shopping centres, public transport hubs, parks...) with the main residential areas, so that it can be useful for daily mobility. Cyclists are regular people, and their needs coincide with the needs of people in general. Continuity: The network should avoid interruptions and unnecessary obstacles that prevent its comfortable use. This characteristic should be considered both at the macro- and the micro-level. At the macrolevel, it means that interruptions in the layout are not acceptable, even when a geographical or urbanistic characteristic (a narrowing in the road, for example) seems to make them unavoidable. In such cases, it is necessary to look for suitable solutions and signal them conveniently. At the micro-level, it means that such things as discontinuities in the pavement, (kerbs or cobbled areas, for example), which make riding a bicycle uncomfortable, are unacceptable. Compatibility with pedestrian routes: Closely related to safety is compatibility with pedestrian routes. Too often, bicycle lanes are built on pedestrian spaces in such a way that pedestrian safety on

56 This is, of course, my personal view, as I used to explain in the aforementioned free choice subject at the University of Seville ‘The Bicycle and Sustainable Mobility´. 57 When is a cycle path safe enough? Foundation 8-80 proposes the following rule: when it is obviously safe for both an 8-year-old child and an octogenarian.

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pavements and/or other pedestrian areas worsens. Clearly, such designs should be avoided. As a rule of thumb, in order to avoid conflicts with pedestrians, cycle paths should be built at the level of the carriageway (Figure 4.1) or, if they are designed at the same level as the pavement, they should be clearly differentiated from the pedestrian area and not take space from the pavement, but from the carriageway (Figure 4.2).

Figure 4.1: Protected cycle path at the level of the carriageway in Seville (Spain). Photography by the author.

•

Directivity: The bicycle is a human-powered vehicle, so unnecessary detours must be avoided in the design of the bicycle network. This includes both the layout of the network and the design of the bike paths, and is one of the main differences between the design philosophies of a cyclist network and an automobile road network. In the latter case, for example, large deviations between the points of origin and destination (for example, ring roads) are perfectly acceptable and even desirable if this avoids congesting the city centre. On the contrary, in the case of cycling networks, these solutions are totally inappropriate. Thus, for example, the Dutch

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manual of bicycle traffic (CROW 2007) considers that "detour factors" higher than 1.5 are excessive and should be avoided. Also, in the case of bi-directional cycle paths, unjustified crossings of the road, that obliges cyclists to cross the road again and again without any reason, must be avoided.

Figure 4.2: Example of "before and after" of a cycle path at pavement level (Seville). Sources: Photographic Archive of the Municipality of Seville, and photography by the author.

•

•

Homogeneity: A good cycling network must be recognizable and interpretable at first sight; this implies, among other things, a homogeneous design of the cycle paths that it is comprised of. It is advisable, for example, that the colour of the chosen pavement be the same throughout the entire network. This also applies to the basic dimensions of cycle paths. Their signage and other design elements should also be homogeneous. In this way, users can recognize at all times where the network runs without unnecessary stops and interruptions. Contemporaneity: Finally, a little-studied but essential condition for the success of a cycle path network is that its different elements must be built simultaneously and in the shortest possible period of time. Since the usefulness of a network only manifests itself completely

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once the network is finished, it is essential that it be built in a short period of time. Otherwise, we will have a series of unconnected bicycle paths for a longer period of time than is admissible, which will lead to their being undervalued and underused. As the main purpose of bikeways or cycle paths is to separate bicycles from motorised traffic, they are usually classified as: •

•

Cycle-tracks or cycle paths fully separated from motorised traffic by some kind of physical element or by the location of the cycle track outside of the carriageway, for instance on the pavement or on an unpaved area. Bike- or cycle-lanes, which are nothing more than a lane on the carriageway dedicated to bicycle traffic and separated from motor vehicles by some horizontal signage, such as a continuous or discontinuous painted line.

Cycle tracks obviously offer a higher sensation of safety than bike lanes. Therefore, in principle, they are more likely to promote the use of bicycles in cities, especially if there is no previous tradition of urban cycling in the area. However, depending on the expected traffic density, it will not always be necessary to reach the level of protection of cycle tracks, and a simple line painted on the carriageway will be enough to indicate the area of the road reserved for cyclists. In addition to these two 'classic' types of cycle-paths, bicycle streets ('fietstraat' in The Netherlands) designed to give priority to cyclists over motorised traffic are often considered to be a kind of cycle path. We will return to them in the next part of this chapter, as they can also be thought of as a kind of traffic calming infrastructure. Finally, it cannot always be justified, nor is it always possible, to introduce cycle paths. In these cases, coexistence with motorised traffic is the option, usually in connection with traffic calming policies that will be analysed in the next part of this chapter. In any case, in accordance with the principles of continuity and homogeneity mentioned above, it will always be advisable to have a 'basic network' of cycle tracks neatly separated from motorised traffic, from which other local secondary cycle tracks, bike lanes or bicycle streets may eventually depart, until they reach pacified local streets without specific

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cycling routes. Although the rules to follow may vary from city to city depending on their morphology and other characteristics, it can be illustrative to introduce here some recommendations based on the Dutch manual for bicycle traffic (CROW 2007) for the implementation of separated cycle paths 58: • • • •

Cycle tracks: Recommended for the basic network of cycle paths and for all kinds of streets and roads with speed limits above 20 m.p.h. Cycle lanes: Recommended for streets with speed limits above 20 m.p.h and low cycle traffic and for streets with speed limits below 20 m.p.h. and high cycle traffic Bicycle streets (fietstraat): Recommended for streets with speed limits below 20 m.p.h. and high cycle traffic. Coexistence: Recommended for streets with speed limits below 20 m.p.h. and low bicycle and car traffic.

Regarding the location of cycle paths on streets, it is always desirable to place them between the parking lane (if there is one) and the pedestrian zone, respecting the principle that traffics must be ordered from faster to slower beginning from the centre of the road. This prevents cars from entering the cycle paths when leaving or entering their parking space, or that cycle lanes are used to park illegally, which is a generalised problem for cycle lanes, even if there is not a parking lane on the street. Another aspect to consider is the integration of cycle paths in pedestrian streets. Once again, the coexistence and/or the level of separation will depend on the intensity of pedestrian and bicycle traffics, measured in pedestrians (or cyclists) per hour and per linear metres of section. It would be illustrative, in the case of cycle paths on streets without motorised traffic, to report here some recommendations (CROW 2007): • • •

Fewer than 100 pedestrians per hour and metre of section: Coexistence without separation. Between 100 and 160 pedestrians per hour and metre of section: Light separation (for instance: no height difference between the pedestrian and cyclist areas). Between 160 and 200 pedestrians per hour and metre of section: Strong and clear separation.

58 In some cases these recommendations are redundant, which means that there are several options to choose from.

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•

More than 200 pedestrians per hour and metre of section: No combination possible. Cyclists must walk their bicycles (one of the advantages of the bicycle as a vehicle is that it can easily be walked).

Another question to consider when designing a network of cycle paths is whether these will be mono- or bi-directional. Cycle lanes usually are mono-directional for obvious reasons, while cycle tracks are often bidirectional, but of course they can also be designed as mono-directional. Bidirectional cycle tracks are usually placed at one side of the street only, although they could be placed at both sides simultaneously if bicycle traffic is high. Circulation in mono-directional cycle lanes usually follows the general rules of road traffic, which usually requires a design of intersections and interactions with other users of the public road similar to that of motorised traffic. On the other hand, bi-directional cycle tracks usually require a much higher level of physical separation of motorised traffic, which involves a relationship model with other users of the public road closest to that of pedestrians; for example, it is very common for intersections to be designed in parallel to pedestrian crossings, with the same timing for traffic lights. When deciding between one type of cycle path or another, especially in cities with little tradition of urban cycling, it is necessary to consider some problems related to the implementation of mono-directional cycle lanes. Besides the aforementioned conflicts with car drivers who park their cars in these lanes, other conflicts may appear in conditions of low bicycle traffic. In such conditions, the municipal authorities will tend to design bike lanes of small cross section, in order to economise on space consumption in the streets. But then, the cycle lane design tends to impede parallel traffic and overtaking between cyclists. Impeding overtaking inside the cycle lane may cause faster cyclists to invade the zone of the carriageway reserved for motorists, who might not be expecting such a manoeuvre from the cyclist, thus creating unsafe situations. To avoid such situations, a minimum width of 1.5 metres is necessary for the bike lane (CROW 2007). In the case of mono-directional cycle tracks separated from motorised traffic, cyclists tend to use these cycle paths as bi-directional, in accord with their immediate transport needs, which can create traffic conflicts between the cyclists themselves. This is a major drawback of this kind of design. Moreover, in order to allow for overtaking, a minimum width of 1.5 metres is necessary for mono-directional cycle tracks (as in cycle lanes). In twodirectional cycle tracks separated from motorised traffic, however, the

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minimum necessary cross section to allow for overtaking is 2.5 metres (CROW 2007). Therefore, there is a significant space saving when a twodirectional cycle track is used instead of two mono-directional cycle tracks.

Figure 4.3: Traffic signal asking cyclists to walk their bicycles in a cycle path on a pedestrian area of a park in Vancouver. Photography by the author.

Bi-directional cycle paths also have their drawbacks. It is apparent, for example, that the connection of this type of cycle paths with cross streets is more complicated than in the case of mono-directional cycle paths. For this reason, an effective design of intersections which avoids unnecessary delays for cyclists is more complex in the case of bi-directional cycle paths than in the case of mono-directional ones. A specific case of interaction with motorised traffic is the interaction between cyclists and public transport. Some cities, such as Paris, for example, have experimented with lanes which are shared by buses and bicycles. In this case, it is necessary to provide these bus-bike lanes with a minimum width that allows for overtaking between buses and bikes (at least 4.5 metres). In any case, this solution is not advisable for dense bus and/or bicycle traffic (Sanz et al. 1996a), which, in practice, makes it almost never advisable, as the bus lanes are usually implemented in sections with heavy

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bus traffic. Another typical problem of the interaction between cyclists and public transport is the bypassing of bus stops by cycle paths. The typical solution is 'cycling around' (Bicycle Dutch 2013) the bus stop (see Fig. 4.4). Finally, what kind of vehicles, if any, should be allowed to circulate on cycle paths in addition to bicycles? The answer to this question is closely related to the discussion about the role of the cycle paths in Part III of Chapter Three. If cycle paths are considered to be little more than lanes for slow traffic (placed on streets so that cyclists will not disturb the much faster motor vehicles), then any kind of slow vehicles should be permitted to ride on the cycle paths. On the contrary, if the cycle paths are considered to be active mobility spaces, which contribute to improve public health by fostering active mobility, as is analysed in part III of chapter three, then only human-powered vehicles should circulate on the cycle paths. This, of course, is a political decision which often results in a compromise. In any case, motor vehicles capable to develop power and speed much higher tan an average cyclist (see Table 3.2) must be avoided for obvious reasons.

Figure 4.4: Cyclists 'cycling around' a bus stop on a cycle track in Seville (Spain). The small fences next to the marquee prevent pedestrians from crossing the cycle path without being seen by cyclists. Photography by the author.

The Netherlands offers a good example of how political attitudes regarding the role of cycle paths changed with time from one position to another. In the seventies, when the first 'modern' cycle paths were

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implemented, the conception of cycle paths as lanes for slow vehicles prevailed, and mopeds were allowed on cycle paths. Since 1999, however, mopeds have been restricted on cycle tracks in most urban areas after the growing pressure of municipal authorities. This change created a more pleasant environment for cyclists in cities, and safer traffic conditions for mopeds. Recognizing cycling routes as spaces for active mobility and which, therefore, should be areas where motor vehicles (including mopeds and light mopeds) are forbidden, contributes to making urban cycling a pleasant activity and, consequently, attracts more people to ride bicycles. Indirectly, it also contributes to the improvement of public health, as we have saw in part IV of chapter three. Pedal assisted cycles (EPACs), which we described in part II of chapter three (see Figure 3.6 and the associated text), constitute an intermediate category between mopeds and bicycles whose impact on urban and interurban mobility is growing and can be expected to continue growing. As we have shown, these vehicles extend bicycles’ radius of action, especially in hilly terrains, and make urban cycling accessible to all kinds of people, including the elderly, affording them with the beneficial physical exercise and health benefits of cycling. The European Cyclists Federation (ECF), the most important utilitarian cyclists association, has recently issued a position paper on EPAC traffic regulations (ECF n.d.). This paper proposes permitting EPACs below 250 W (pedelecs) on all kinds of cycle paths, and EPACs above 250 W (speed pedelecs) on inter-urban cycling routes only, provided they have a specific design to guarantee the circulation of such speed pedelecs without affecting the safety of cyclists, such as in the case of the so-called ‘bicycle super highways’ (see Figure 4.5). Light electric mopeds and scooters are different from pedelecs in that they are propelled by a small electric engine. Thus, they have a a throttle instead of pedals. In some countries, e.g. China, they are called e-bikes and treated like bicycles, so that the same traffic regulations apply to both of them, including riding on cycle paths. Since these vehicles are very convenient for everyday transportation, they have become very popular and, in some Chinese cities, they now outnumber bicycles. They also cause traffic problems, so that some cities are considering banning them, which has caused a big controversy in the media (Shephard 2016). But simply banning these vehicles would probably have bad social consequences, and would also have undesirable consequences for the environment, given the high energy efficiency of such vehicles. The best solution, not just for Chinese

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Figure 4.5: A detail of the bicycle super highway between Nimejen and Arnhem (The Netherlands), designed to be shared by bicyclists and all kinds of pedelecs, including speed pedelecs. Photograph by the author.

cities but for many other cities around the world, would probably be to better regulate these vehicles, allowing low power scooters to be ridden on cycle paths, while at the same time adopting effective traffic calming policies (see part II of this chapter) favouring the presence of e-mopeds and high power e-scooters on the ordinary carriageway, together with other motor vehicles. This policy would keep cycle paths as active mobility spaces, while keeping e-mopeds and scooters as an important mode for city transportation, favouring the substitution of cars instead of the substitution of bicycles. Finally, it must be mentioned that an important part – and probably the most difficult one – of the design of a network of cycle paths is the design of the intersections. A detailed analysis of such designs is beyond the scope of this book. The interested reader can consult the handbooks cited at the beginning of this chapter. As a rule of thumb, however, it can be said that these designs are usually closer to those of intersections for pedestrians on bi-directional cycle paths, and closer to the design for motor vehicles on mono-directional cycle paths.

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Part II.- Traffic calming and Bicycles Although bikeways are necessary and important to the point that, in the popular imagination, bicycle promotion policies are often confused with the mere creation of cycle lanes, these are not enough to adapt a city to the use of the bicycle. The creation of a network of cycle paths must be accompanied by other measures to pacify traffic, that is by 'traffic calming'. According to A. Sanz in his monograph 'Calmar el Tráfico' (Sanz 1996b), the reason for the pacification or calming of motorised traffic is 'to reduce its volume and speed until civilizing it and making it compatible with the rest of the social functions and activities taking place in the street'. From the point of view of this work, which describes the role (current and potential) of the bicycle in urban mobility, the first thing to be said is that this does not mean that traffic calming should be considered to be an alternative to the construction of cycle paths, as has sometimes been said, but quite the contrary. To explain this with an example: the best way to calm the traffic on a six-lane avenue is not just to limit the speed in these lanes to 20 mph. A better way would be to eliminate some traffic lanes and dedicate the recovered space to the expansion of pavements and to the construction of cycle paths. In this case, the creation of cycle paths is just one more tool for calming the traffic. Thus, the remaining tools for traffic calming and making cycle paths must go hand in hand within the framework of a general strategy of traffic calming and active mobility promotion. Keeping this in mind, we will now describe some traffic calming tools which are related to the bicycle but different from the construction of cycle paths. Of course, bicycles are also favoured by other traffic less specific calming policies that will not be dealt with specifically, such as limiting speed to 20 mph or less, sinuous road designs or home streets. 'Bike-boxes' are a way of giving preference to cyclists at traffic lights and in similar situations. They can be situated either at the end of a cycle lane (see Figure 4.6) or elsewhere. By creating an area ahead of motorised traffic, where cyclists can wait for the green light, drivers can see them and cyclists can start riding in an advanced position. In this way, slower cyclists are protected from being overwhelmed by the much faster motorised traffic.

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Figure 4.6: Bike box at the end of a cycle lane in Utrecht (The Netherlands). Photography by V. Hernández-Herrador.

Cycle-streets or bike-streets and bicycle boulevards are urban roads where cyclists are given preference, and speed limits for motorised traffic are reduced so as to guarantee this priority. One way cyclists are given priority on these streets is by allowing them to ride in the centre of the lane (see figure 4.8). In this way, drivers are prevented from harassing cyclists by requiring them to move over in order to overtake them. The Dutch signal for cycle streets (see Figure 4.7) perfectly illustrates this situation, and incorporates the sentence "auto te gast", which literally means "the car is the guest", a very graphic way of expressing it. An important aspect of traffic calming in city centres and in residential districts is the suitable handling of traffic flow. For example, in a historic centre or in a residential neighbourhood it is essential that through traffic be avoided, so that the streets in such areas cannot be used by drivers as shortcuts when the main avenues are congested. Typically, this requires that traffic flow be controlled in such a way that it is impossible to drive across the neighbourhood. This can be achieved by changing the direction of the traffic flow along the streets and, if necessary, introducing cul de sacs that physically impede through traffic.

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Figure 4.7: The Dutch signal for bike streets (fietstraats). Photograph by the author.

Figure 4.8: Some of the bicycle-friendly traffic calming designs described above can be seen in this quiet street of Vitoria (Spain). Bike street design with a speed limit of 20 of mph (30 km/h) and priority for cyclists, and a cul de sac designed to be permeable for cyclists. The enlarged pavement next to the broken cul de sac has been used to implement bicycle parking. Photograph by V. Hernández-Herrador.

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Impervious cul de sacs, however, make no sense for bicycle traffic, as much for reasons of security (cyclists will tend to cycle against traffic flow when it suits them) as for promotion of bicycle traffic, by offering to the cyclists the possibility of riding through areas with calmer traffic better than on big avenues. Therefore, the above traffic calming measures should be implemented without affecting cyclists, by including complementary counter measures, such as allowing cycling against the flow of traffic where possible, or designing cul de sacs permeable for cyclists, just as they are for pedestrians. Contraflow cycling on one-way streets is already a common practice in many European cities and countries, such as France, where it is generally permitted, unless otherwise indicated. As for making cul de sacs permeable for cyclists, it is usually enough to narrowing the carriageway and, eventually, to place bollards in such a way as to make them impervious to motorized traffic but permeable for cyclists.

Figure 4.9: Signal allowing bicycles to ride through a pedestrian zone in Karlsruhe (Germany). Photograph by the author.

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Finally, an obvious aspect of traffic calming policies is the coexistence of pedestrian zones and cyclist traffic. We have already mentioned, in Part III of Chapter Three, the coexistence of pedestrians and all different kinds of vehicles on home streets (woonerfs). A particular case of coexistence between vehicles and pedestrians are zones of coexistence between pedestrians and cyclists, which are possible under conditions of low pedestrian traffic (see above, Part I of this Chapter). These zones can be considered as an extreme case of woonerfs or home streets, where coexistence is restricted to non-motorised vehicles and pedestrians. Usually, these zones have specific regulations; cyclists are required to moderate their speed (typically to 10 km/h) and to give priority to pedestrians. Bicycle traffic is sometimes restricted to certain times of the day or week in order to avoid conflicts with pedestrians at peak hours, when cyclists are asked to walk their bicycles (see Fig. 4.3). Asking cyclists to dismount rather than posting that bicycles are prohibited, tends to create friendlier communication between cyclists and traffic agents and, in my personal experience, improves compliance with the norm.

Part III.- Virtue is in the small things: parking, anti-dooring, stairways and other details Every trip between points A and B, when a vehicle is used, requires some type of infrastructure in which to park he vehicle. The bicycle is no exception, and as the use of the bicycle as a transport mode grows, the need to provide appropriate bicycle parking infrastructure at main travel generation and attraction points also grows. Obviously, this includes parking on public roads, but also at home, in neighbourhoods, workplaces, study centres, shopping centres, public transport stations, etc. Since the bicycle, unlike a motorcycle or a car, needs a mooring point to park, bicycle parking infrastructure includes both the space needed to park and bicycle racks. A first alternative on public roads is the street furniture itself: street lamps, traffic signs, etc. In most cities we can see a nonnegligible number of bicycles locked to these elements of public roads. In some countries, a restrictive interpretation of the law sometimes prohibits this practice. At present, however, the trend is just the opposite, and there are even companies that manufacture and sell specific designs to adapt urban furniture to bicycle parking (see Fig. 4.10).

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Figure 4.10: A bicycle attached to a signpost adapted for bicycle parking in a London street. Photograph by the author.

However, as the use of the bicycle increases, the urban furniture is insufficient and it is necessary to install bicycle racks on public roads and inside buildings. There is a huge variety of designs on the market. Of them, those that only allow for locking the front wheel are the cheapest, but they are also the ones that provide the least amount of security against theft, so they are not very useful on public roads, except in guarded areas and for very specific uses. As a rule of thumb, a good bicycle rack should allow a cyclist to fasten both the frame and the two wheels of a standard bicycle with a chain and padlock. Of these, the racks in inverted 'U' or in 'C' turned 90º are the simplest and also the most comfortable to use if sufficient space is available.

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Figure 4.11: Bicycle racks with alternating elevation of the front wheels on a street in Amsterdam. Photograph by the author.

Since the handlebars (which occupy about 70 cm on a standard bicycle) are the main impediment to the compact parking of bicycles, an alternative which saves space is to alternately raise the front wheels of bicycles. This design is very popular in the Netherlands, where these types of racks can be commonly seen on public roads. Finally, if the available space does not allow any of the above solutions, an additional space saving is possible using vertical tie-down designs, such as the one shown in Fig. 4.12, or two-tiered tiebacks, as shown in Figure 4.13. The latter use hydraulic or counterweight devices to facilitate lifting bicycles to the higher level.

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Figure 4.12: These vertical bicycle racks allow for parking a bicycle in a narrow space in a building in London. Photograph by the author.

The minimum surface requirements, including the manoeuvering aisle, per bicycle parked for each one of the designs described above, are shown in Table 4.1 59. In the last column of the table and for the sake of comparison, the necessary surface area required to park a car is shown. It is interesting to observe how, in the most compact cases, the relation is from 1 to 37 approximately.

59

For the elaboration of the Table the following basic dimensions have been considered: Length of the bicycles 1.90 m; saddle height 1.00 m; handlebar width 0.70 m. Width of the manoeuvering aisle 1.75 m (in the case of two-level parking, a bigger width of 2.00 m has been assumed). In the case of an inverted "U", a separation between bicycles of 0.70 m has been considered. In the remaining cases, a separation of 0.35 m has been considered. For car parking it has been assumed that each two rows of cars share the same manoeuvering aisle.

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Figure 4.13: Two-level bicycle parking facility in Nantes (France). Photograph by the author. Table 4.1: Surface per vehicle in several designs for bicycle and car parking lots. Source: Prepared by the author.

Inverted “U”

Raised front wheel (Fig 4.11)

Vertical storage (Fig. 4.12

Two levels (Fig. 4.13)

Car parking

Vehicle

1.33 m²

0.67 m²

0.35 m²

0.33 m²

12.5 m²

Aisle

0.61 m²

0.31 m²

0.31 m²

0.18 m²

6.25 m²

Total

1.94 m²

0.98 m²

0.66 m²

0.51 m²

18.75 m²

As noted earlier, an effective bicycle promotion policy must include the provision of safe bicycle parking not only on public roads, but also in neighbourhood communities, companies, schools, institutes, universities, shopping centres, etc. The chosen design will depend, of course, on the available space and the number of parking places needed. This is a question that will depend for each specific city on the level of bicycle use and on the

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objectives that the city has set in terms of bicycle promotion. It will be useful, in any case, to give some indicative figures for each kind of building. As an example, the following are the main norms for the city of Copenhagen in the 2009 Municipal Plan (CED 2012): • • • • • •

At least 50% of bicycle parking spaces should be covered, placed in a specially designated shed or be an integral part of the structure / building. Dwellings: 2.5 bicycle parking spaces per 100 m² residential area, or 2.5 bicycle parking spaces per dwelling (with special norms for youth and elderly residences). Workplaces: 0.5 bicycle parking space per office employee, the equivalent of 1.5 spaces per 100 m2. Educational institutions: 0.5 bicycle parking spaces per student and staff member. Retail, etc.: 3 bicycle parking spaces per 100 m² shopping area and 0.5 spaces per staff member. Norms for bicycle parking facilities at other functions must be included in all local plans on the basis of a concrete assessment.

Besides bicycle parking, there are a great many small facilities that make the city comfortable and pleasant for bicycle users, and have a remarkable influence on urban cycling promotion. These include things such as specific traffic lights for cyclists at intersections, crossing buttons accessible to cyclists, rubbish bins along bicycle paths or footrests at intersections, etc (see, for instance CED 2012). One amenity of great simplicity and usefulness is the bicycle stairway, which facilitates walking a bicycle up or downstairs (see Figure 4.15). This type of infrastructure is important for making public transport stations parking facilities and many other services accessible to cyclists. Therefore, making a bicycle-friendly city is not just a matter of making good bicycle paths and good traffic calming infrastructure, it is also important to provide the city with adequate services for the daily use of the bicycle, among which possibly the most important, but certainly not the only one, are safe and properly designed bicycle parking facilities. As indicated in the title of this section, 'virtue is [often] in the small things' and the lack of a small piece of infrastructure, for example, the absence of a simple bicycle stairway, may prevent many people (the elderly, children and people of low physical strength) from using the bicycle on a daily basis.

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Figure 4.14: Bicycle parking facility in a block of flats in Berlin. Photograph by the author.

Figure 4.15: Bicycle stairway at the entry of a bicycle parking facility at a university building in Utrecht (the Netherlands). Photograph by M. Calvo-Salazar.

Another example of these small details is the protection against 'dooring' on bicycle paths next to parking lanes. It is important that the design of these cycle paths avoid collisions when drivers open the doors of their parked vehicles, unexpectedly interrupting the passage of cyclists and causing accidents, what in cyclist slang is called 'dooring'. To avoid dooring, bicycle

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paths must incorporate a safety zone, from 50 cm to 1 m, between the edge of the cycle path and the parking lane. An example of this design is shown in Figure 4.16.

Figure 4.16: Cycle path with an anti-dooring design in Seville (Spain). The antidooring space is also useful for placing lampposts, traffic lights and other urban furniture. Photograph by the author.

Part IV.- Bicycle and public transit We saw in Chapter Three, and more specifically in Part II of that chapter, that the combination of bicycle and public transit is an essential part of any policy of sustainable urban mobility. Therefore, measures to promote bicycle and public transport intermodality (hereinafter bicycle-PT intermodality) are included in most of the cyclist infrastructure handbooks, such as those mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. We saw in Part II of Chapter Three how the bicycle allows planners to extend the catchment areas of public transit stops and stations from the 300-500 meters that are usually considered in urban and transport planning, up to approximately 3 km, producing a higher coverage of the territory by collective transport. As a practical example, Figure 4.17 shows, in a graphic way, the hypothetical effect of this expansion of the catchment areas of the metropolitan public transit stops and stations in the metropolitan region of Seville (Spain). As can be seen, it goes from a spider-like structure of the catchment areas to a

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globular structure, almost covering the entire area. Intermodality bicycle-PT is quite flexible and can be done in two different ways: A) Carrying bicycles in public transit vehicles (bike on board) B) Using the appropriate infrastructure at the stations (bike & ride and/or ride & bike) by: 1. Parking bicycles at the stations or 2. Sharing bicycles at the stations.

Figure 4.17: Illustration of the expansion of the catchment areas of the metropolitan collective transport stops and stations in the Metropolitan Region of Seville when cycling accessibility is considered. The small circles indicate pedestrian catchment areas. Light grey areas cover catchment areas for cyclists, and dark grey areas indicate populated zones. Source: Marqués et al. (n.d.).

Bike on board systems are very convenient for users. However, their large-scale application has drawbacks related to the capacity of the vehicles and to time loss at stops during the loading and unloading of the bicycles. Regarding space limitations, they depend on the kind of public transit. Typically (Krizek & Stonebraker 2010): D D

Ferries. No practical limit of capacity. Commuter rail: 20-40 bicycles per train.

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D D

Underground / light rail: 2-4 bicycles per car. Buses: 2-3 bicycles per bus (usually in external racks, which may create problems for driving in narrow streets and/or excessive time loss at bus stops).

There are, however, very successful experiences of bicycle-PT intermodality using these systems. For example, the commuter railways of Copenhagen (S-togs) transported in 2012 a total of 7.5 million bicycles (about 24,000 a day, 8% of total journeys) on trains adapted for passenger transport with capacity for 46 bicycles per train (Marqués et al. n.d.). A key aspect for bike on board systems is that users need to travel as closely as possible to their bicycles, so that they do not need to lock them up and do not waste time during stops loading and unloading their bicycles (see Figure 4.17).

Figure 4.17: Interior of a Danish commuter railways S-tog carriage, adapted for transporting passengers with their bicycles. The closeness between the user and his bicycle and the very simple system for attaching it can be observed. Photograph by V. Hernández-Herrador.

Notwithstanding, the systems based on the offer of secure bicycle parking facilities at stations are those that offer the highest possibilities for massive bicycle-PT intermodality, and are therefore the most popular in countries where this type of intermodality is well developed. Thus, the

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aforementioned S-togs offer, together with the service of transporting bicycles on trains, parking services for bicycles in all of their stations, both indoors and outdoors, which in total are used for around 20,000 daily trips (ibid...), a number similar to the total number of bike on board trips. In the Netherlands, these systems are so widespread and so efficient that in 2013 they accounted for 42% of accesses and 14% of egresses of the NS railways (ibid...), the most popular intercity public transport mode in the Netherlands. This has led to the development of mass bicycle parking structures at public transit stations, some of which have become icons of the cities that house them, such as the ziggurat style bicycle parking facility at the Central Station in Amsterdam (Figure 4.20). Massive structures for the safe parking of thousands of bicycles in collective transport stations have also been implemented in other European countries, such as Germany, Switzerland and Sweden, as well as in Japan and other Asian countries (Pucher & Buehler 2012b).

Figure 4.19: The 'ziggurat' for bicycle parking at the Central Station (Amsterdam), which is now an iconic building in the city. Photograph by V. Hernández-Herrador.

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Figure 4.20: An OV-Fiets rental point in Nijmegen (the Netherlands). Very often these rental points incorporate repairs and a small shop. Photograph by the author.

Private bicycle rentals at train and bus stations, almost always oriented to tourism, are common in most cities with a certain level of urban cycling development. In 2007, on the initiative of the Dutch Bicycle Users Association, Fietsersbond, the Dutch railway station company, NS-Stations, launched the first public bike sharing system at PT stations, the OV-Fiets, aimed first at the users of public railways and later extended to public buses. Unlike the bikesharing systems that we will see in the next section, the OV-Fiets are designed to be taken and returned at the same point (the public transit station), which reduces operating costs. In 2012, a total of 1,200,000 bikes were loaned out throughout the Netherlands (1% of total train travel) and the system continues to grow today. Since then, similar systems have been implemented in other cities (Marqués et al. n.d.). Regarding the provision of bicycle parking facilities in public transit stations, mainly when there is not a long tradition of bicycle-PT intermodality, here are some basic rules that can be helpful (Marqués et al. n.d.):

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• •

•

•

•

•

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Bike on board systems are usually in high demand and are readily accepted by cyclists, but there may be space problems in vehicles, especially at peak hours, as well as delays as bicycles are loaded and unloaded, which must be analysed and solved in advance. It is convenient to start by installing some interior parking spaces close to the platforms in railway stations, preferably close to busy areas and monitored by station staff or by cameras. Experience shows that, in a first phase, open-access and unattended parking facilities outside stations, may not be very popular, due to the lack of confidence they inspire in users. However, later, this infrastructure must always accompany the interior and/or restricted access parking facilities since, as the latter become more popular, the former will also begin to be used. Depending on the success obtained, the facilities can be expanded, if possible using a suitable methodology for calculating demand. The infrastructure must always be dimensioned at least 20% above the expected demand to prevent it from collapsing in a short period of time (CROW 2007). Sometimes it is not possible to install indoor bicycle racks (for example at bus stops), or the monitoring mechanisms are not reliable, or the interior space is manifestly insufficient for the expected demand. In these cases, it is necessary to generate parking infrastructure (if possible, with access restricted by an electronic card or other locking mechanism) outside the stations, such as individual lockers or bicycle hangars. Many specific bikesharing systems based on PT stations (such as OV.-Fiets) have been very successful throughout the world, provided the stations are adequately accessible by bicycle and they are appropriately dimensioned according to demand. Also, regular bikesharing stations must be placed near the PT stations. The next step would be the simultaneous installation of all of the above services. This is the design of a 'bike station' that incorporates services such as repair facilities, shops, information about bicycle routes for tourists etc. The installation of such a bike station is likely to have a highly positive impact on the local economy and a great drag effect on the development of bicycle-PT intermodality.

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Figure 4.21: Bicycle hangar next to the railway station in Nantes (France). The interior is shown in Figure 4.13. Photograph by the author.

Part V.- Bikesharing As was mentioned at the end of Part III of Chapter One, after the initial attempts of the 'White Bicycles' of Amsterdam in 1965 and the 'Bicyclen' of Copenhagen in 1995, the idea of sharing bicycles that can be taken and returned throughout an entire city reached a remarkable level of development after the implantation of the first automatic public bicycle system in Rennes (France) in 1998, and soon became a worldwide phenomenon 60. According to 'The Bike-sharing blog', at the end of 2016 there were 2,249,600 public bikes in 1,188 cities around the world (The Bike-sharing Blog 2017). The leading country in the installation of bikesharing systems worldwide is China, with more than 1,900,000 public bicycles in 2016, quite often in combination with conventional public transport. (The Bike-sharing Blog 2017).

60

For a history of public bikesharing systems, see De Maio (2009).

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Figure 4.22: Bikesharing systems are presently common in the landscape of many cities. In the photo, a station of the Paris bikesharing system, Velib, next to the Eiffel Tower. Photograph by the author.

Public bikes can be considered to be a kind of public transport for individual use (Midgley 2011). Most of these systems use bicycles with an anti-vandal design locked to special racks at automated dock stations which control the release and locking up of the bicycles when they are returned by computer control. The costs of this type of systems range between €1,000 and €3,000 per bicycle and year (ITDP 2013). Therefore, the essential element that guarantees the economic viability of a bike sharing system is the number of daily trips per bicycle. For a daily average use of around 6 journeys per bicycle, the cost per trip ranges from €0.5 to €1.5 per trip, which is quite a competitive figure compared to other public transport systems. Moreover, the experience of many systems shows that an average of more than 6 daily uses often results in the saturation of the system, which cannot self-regulate and works poorly (ibid....). Therefore, as a rule of thumb, an average of 6 daily uses per bike can be considered the optimum for most systems.

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To reach these usage levels, the system must be capable, like any other public transport system, of satisfying the transport needs of the population of the territory in which it is implanted, for which it must meet a series of minimum requirements related to the number of bicycles and stations, as well as to the catchment area of the stations. According to the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP 2013), these requirements can be summarized as follows (ibid....): • • • •

A minimum coverage area of the system of around 10 km² An average distance between stations of between 250 and 300 metres, similar to that of any urban public transport system. A minimum ratio of docks to bike, around 2-2.5 docks per bike A sufficient number of bicycles. The ITDP quantifies this as between 10 and 30 bicycles per 1,000 inhabitants 61.

And, of course, it would be convenient to also have a network of cycle paths or other road infrastructure facilitating the use of public bicycles by the population. Spain offers a fairly illustrative example of the consequences of careless planning of bikesharing systems. In 2011, Spain was the third country in number of public bicycles in the world, with more than 25,000 distributed in 133 cities (Anaya & Castro 2012), as a result of strong support for this type of initiatives from the central government. But, along with clear successes such as those of Barcelona, Seville and Valencia, the Spanish case has also had many ‘bubbles’. In 2011, 65% of public bicycle systems installed in Spain had fewer than 100 bicycles (ibid....), with which they could hardly satisfy the conditions for success established above. As a result, 53% of these systems made fewer than 0.25 loans per bicycle per day (ibid....), which made them a sumptuary investment rather than real mobility infrastructure. Three years later, at the end of 2014, half of the public bikesharing systems registered in 2011 had disappeared, leaving only 65 (Castro 2014). The Spanish experience shows the need to properly plan the installation of bikesharing systems, which require significant investments whose effectiveness and relevance is not always evident. The financing of the majority of bikesharing systems does not rely on a per-trip charge, but rather on an association fee, which usually gives the 61 There are, however, successful bikesharing systems with a smaller ratio., e.g. Seville.

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rider the right to use the system for free during a certain period of time, usually the first hour or half an hour, combined with some other public subsidy mechanism, or in exchange for advertising space on the bicycles themselves or on other supports. This last system has been highly successful. Integrating the offers of large static advertising has allowed these systems to be installed at ‘zero cost’ to town councils 62. Another modality which is becoming widespread is the joint operation of bikesharing systems with conventional public transit. Thus, for example, users of the largest public bicycle system in the world, in the Chinese city of Huangzhou, with 78,000 bicycles in 2,965 stations, can use their public transport card to rent bicycles at a reduced fee (Elizabeth Press 2011a). This is, in fact, the current trend: to integrate these systems with collective public transport so that commuters can use both of them with the same card. Both systems benefit from this, as public bicycles carry users to high-capacity public transport. An extreme example of this trend is the bikesharing system of Guangzhou (China), operated by the same company that manages the city's Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system. It was designed with the express purpose of serving as a feeder for this high capacity public transport (Elizabeth Press 2011a). More recently, dockless bikesharing systems along the lines of the 'call a bike' model mentioned in Part III of Chapter One have flourished in many cities around the world. They are systems in which it is not necessary to return the bicycles to a dock when they are not in use, as they can be easily rented and then left anywhere in the city with the help of a mobile application (see Figure 4.23). The advantages of dockless bikesharing are apparent, as they do not require investments in creating docks for the bikes. However, in spite of their undeniable advantages, dockless bikesharing schemes, which often operate unlicensed and are privately funded, have sometimes led to piles of bikes being abandoned in cities and along bikeways, causing unwanted road obstruction, as well as space occupancy and waste in cities (Hu & Yi 2018). Consequently, several large Chinese cities (also the leading country in this kind of systems) have recently decided to suspend the expansion of these types of bicycle programmes until these drawbacks are solved (ibid....). Also, The International Association of Public Transport (UITP) and the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) have 62 Obviously, said zero cost is fictitious, since the city councils do not receive the advertising revenue that they would normally be paid for spaces that they rent out in exchange for the system, but it is very attractive politically, as these costs are not reflected in the municipal budgets. On the other hand, the proliferation of such offers has allowed concessionaires to develop a steadily evolving technology, including the supply of electric bicycles, in recent years.

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recently issued a 'position paper' criticising these systems for these and other reasons (UITP-ECF 2017), and asking for a more effective control of such systems from city transport authorities.

Figure 4.23: Bicycles from different dockless bikesharing systems parked on a street in Berlin. Photograph by Juanma Mellado.

Finally, it must be borne in mind that in no case can the bicycle mobility of a city be based solely on a bikesharing system, however effective it may be. To understand why, one need only consider the magnitude (and the cost) that a system of this type would have to reach in order to handle the hundreds of thousands of bicycle trips that are made daily in cities such as Amsterdam and Copenhagen, not to mention the problems of saturation of the system during peak hours: Any public bicycle system must be based on a certain level of self-regulation, so that the redistribution of bicycles between the stations occurs spontaneously as a consequence of the use of the system (otherwise we would be replacing people transport with bicycle transport). It is evident that this is incompatible with the massive coming and going of people at certain hours to and from trip attractors (workcentres, schools, spectacles, etc.).

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Bikesharing systems are only one part of a city's bicycle mobility. They are very useful for occasional journeys or in combination with public transit. They are also very useful as a means of promoting the bicycle, as they lend it prestige and, at the same time, stimulate its use among the still-non-user population. However, in the end, the objective cannot be other than that of converting everyday bikesharing users into users of their own bicycles. The poor penetration of bikesharing systems in leading cycling countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark may be indicative of this.

Part VI.- Beyond infrastructure: Planning, promotion, cycle-logistics, participation, gender … Throughout the previous parts of this chapter, we have described the main infrastructural elements that allow cities to adapt to the use of bicycles. The final goal of this process is to reach a city model that allows the development of all of the potentialities of the bicycle as a mode of transport and its full integration into urban mobility. This integration, once it has been achieved, should allow citizens to carry out any kind of urban or metropolitan trip through an adequate combination of sustainable modes: on foot, by bicycle and by public transport, i.e. what we have called elsewhere an 'intermodal sustainable chain'. In this way, it would be possible to move towards a mobility model where most short-range trips are made on foot, mid-range journeys (up to 5-10 km) by bicycle and longer-range trips by collective public transport (possibly in combination with bicycle trips), leaving private motorised modes as an auxiliary mode of transport for those special trips that, for some reason, cannot be made through any of the sustainable intermodal chains described (transport of people with reduced mobility, transport of heavy goods, trips at untimely hours, entrances and departures from the city for long-distance journeys, etc.), as can be deduced from the application of the Aalborg Charter, otherwise known as the Charter of European Cities and Towns towards Sustainability (see Part I of Chapter Three). The development of this programme requires the elaboration of specific action plans, which include both investment in infrastructure and maintenance as well as legislative amendments and plans, as well as promotion and participation campaigns. In the case of investments in infrastructure, mainly bicycle paths and mass parking facilities in public places, an indicative figure of the total amount of such investments in cities that begin to develop their cycling infrastructure would be between €7.50

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and €17.50 per inhabitant and year, distributed as follows (FMTBUE 2012): • • • •

Cycle paths: €5.00 - €12.00/inhab./year Maintenance: €1.10/inhab./year Parking: €1.10 - €2.50/inhab./year Other (bikesharing, bike-stations...): €0.50 - €2.00/inhab./year

These are, in any case, investments which are well below the cost of similar infrastructures for the private car. Among legislative measures, it would be important to include the modification of some traffic regulations so that they incorporate specific rules regulating circulation on bicycle paths and all of the aforementioned measures of traffic calming, including bike-boxes, bicycle streets, contraflow bicycle traffic, etc., as well as specific signage that would promote the bicycle as a preferential vehicle. Likewise, a revision of urbanistic regulations would be necessary, in the sense of favouring the development of cycle paths and the implementation of bicycle parking facilities at trip origins and destinations, as well as the establishment of minimum endowments (see Part III of this Chapter). Regarding promotional measures, these include education and awareness campaigns, cyclists' marches, both recreational and protest oriented, meetings, etc. The panoply of possibilities is too wide to include a complete description here. We will only highlight the interesting phenomenon of 'recreational bikeways' that are becoming an authentic social phenomenon on the American continent and that are also beginning to spread throughout Europe. The recreational bikeways arose in Bogotá at the initiative of the citizens' association 'Procicla', which in 1974 gathered 5,000 residents of the city to protest against 'the proliferation of cars, environmental pollution and the lack of recreational activities in the city'. Two years later, the mayor took up the idea and made the decision to close a series of arteries in the city to motorised traffic on Sunday and holiday mornings and to promote recreational use there by runners, walkers, cyclists, rollerskaters and users of any other type of non-motorized transport. Currently, Bogotá's recreational bikeways extend through 121 km of the metropolitan area and are enjoyed by more than 1.5 million people every holiday of the year (IDRD n.d.) in a social phenomenon that goes beyond the promotion of the bicycle, as it encourages active mobility, health and civic coexistence. After the experience in Bogotá, recreational bikeways have become a worldwide phenomenon, with more than 30 cities from 10 different countries following

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their example and developing recreational bike paths inspired by the Bogotá model (Ciclovías Recreativas de la Américas n.d.). In order to encourage children and young people to walk and cycle to primary and secondary schools, apart from installing cycle paths and indoor bicycle parking facilities, ‘walk to school’ and ‘cycle to school’ campaigns have proven to be effective. They consist of groups of parents and teachers who participate, together with students and specialised monitors, which serve as a catalyst for children and young people travel to and from their study centres actively and autonomously.

Figure 4.24: Snapshot of a street in Bogotá during one of the recreational bikeways celebrations that take place in the city each Sunday. Photograph by the author.

Subsidies to neighborhood communities, businesses and shopping centers for the installation of indoor bicycle parking facilities are also effective, since they provide safe parking and, at the same time, lend prestige to the bicycle as a mode of transport. For far too long now, the bicycle has been seen as a 'poor man’s vehicle' or even an 'obstacle to progress', and it needs to gain social prestige again. Julio Cortázar defines these attitudes of rejection of the bicycle in his short history Vietato

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Introdurre Biciclette' (Cortázar 2000): 'In the banks and commercial houses of this world, no one cares if someone comes in with a cabbage under his arm, or with a toucan, or if he chirps like a tweety bird the songs that my mother taught me, or walks hand in hand with a chimpanzee wearing a striped vest. But should a person enter with a bicycle, an excessive commotion occurs, and the vehicle is tossed violently to the street, while its owner receives vehement reprimands from the employees of the house …' (translated by the author) 63.

A practice that is beginning to be generalised in the EU is the offer of tax incentives to employees who travel by bicycle. Other tax incentives offer companies a tax cut in exchange for promoting any of a variety of bike to work schemes. It must be borne in mind, in any case, that any of these plans is of doubtful utility if adequate infrastructure is not offered at the same time (bicycle access cycle paths and safe bicycle parking). The integration of bicycles in urban mobility should also involve substantial changes in the mobility of goods, which constitutes approximately 16% of urban mobility in the EU. According to a recent study (Reiter & Wrighton 2014), 25% of these trips, mostly those of the 'last mile' variety, could be directly replaced by trips on bicycles or tricycles (possibly electric) that would take advantage of the new urban infrastructure (pedestrianisation and cycle paths) to transport loads between 80 and 200 kg and, eventually, up to 400 kg. Last but not least, it is the development of channels of participation that allows citizens to become involved in the aforementioned policies. Throughout this text, we have seen how many of the initiatives linked to the promotion of the bicycle as a mode of daily transport, such as OV fiets in Holland and 'recreational bikeways' in Bogotá, have their origin in citizen initiatives. It is therefore essential to design mechanisms to channel these initiatives and integrate them into plans for the promotion of sustainable mobility in general and cycling in particular.

63 The persistence of this kind of attitude, even in countries with a supposedly high environmental awareness, makes one wonder about their motives. In a certain way, in motorised societies, the urban cyclist provides, with his mere existence, the clear proof that the private car is not a necessity but an addiction. Perhaps that is why it causes so much rejection.

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Another very important aspect to consider is the participation of women in urban cycling. As was mentioned in Chapter One, cycling played an important role in the liberation of women in the 19th century and during the golden age of the bicycle, which began with the invention of the ‘safety bike’, which was highly popular among women, unlike the elitist ‘highwheeler’ phenomenon, which had left them out. In fact, it can be observed how there is a very good correlation between the levels of utilitarian cycling in a city and the percentage of female users overall (Garrard et al. 2012). While in Amsterdam or Copenhagen the number of female cyclists exceeds 50%, in most cities, where cycling is less popular, this percentage is between 10% and 30% (ibid....). Something similar happens when different neighbourhoods and urban areas are analyzed within the same city: the neighbourhoods with the highest percentage of bicycle use are also the neighbourhoods with the highest percentage of female cyclists. The percentage of female cyclists seems to be, therefore, a good indicator of the development of utilitarian cycling in cities, which suggests there is a need to carry out policies aimed at promoting the use of bicycles among women. An essential aspect of these policies is to simply teach cycling to middle-aged women who, for cultural reasons, have not had access to the use of a bicycle during their childhood or adolescence. Women are especially sensitive to the safety conditions of bicycle paths (ibid...), which suggests that a good test of the quality of bicycle infrastructure is precisely to ask women their opinion. Another important aspect of the promotion of urban cycling among women is the adaptation of legislation and bicycle paths to their specific needs, especially with regard to issues such as the transport of small children and medium-sized goods, safe parking on public roads, the lighting of bicycle paths and safety against possible aggressions, etc.

CHAPTER FIVE SEVILLE: A SUCCESSFUL BUT IMPERFECT EXPERIENCE

Every step of real movement is more important than a dozen programmes. Karl Marx Critique of the Gotha programme.

Part I.- The bicycle 'boom' in Seville In the last few years, the city of Seville has become a world benchmark of bicycle promotion policies. Seville is not unique, however, for the quality and quantity of its bicycle infrastructure (although it has both), nor for the figures reached by the bicycle in the city’s modal split. In this regard, practically any Dutch city surpasses Seville, as do many Danish, German, Swedish and Swiss cities, to mention only European localities. What made Seville special was the short period of time in which there was a change from a city where the bicycle was scarcely used, to a city in which the bicycle is present as a mode of transport in the everyday life of its citizens. As a cyclist pointed out in 2014: ‘Twenty years ago, those of us who rode bicycles were just a few hippies, a handful of progressives, and the association that promoted cycling in Seville was called A Contramano (Against Traffic), which implied that it was countercultural, yet you can go to any city where cycling has been normalised, and there are executives on bicycles, and in Seville you can see professors dressed in jackets and ties cycling to class, can’t you?’ (Cited in Huerta & Hernández 2015. Translated by J. Lamgford).

In this way, Seville became an example for many cities that wonder how to start integrating the bicycle into their daily mobility. This was picked up at the time by the main indicators and rankings of bicycle-friendly cities. It is for this reason that it makes sense to include this case study in this book.

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The evolution of daily bicycle trips in Seville between 2006 and 2017 is shown in Figure 5.1, which also shows the quantitative growth of the cycle path network.

Figure 5.1: Number of daily bicycle trips in the city of Seville on a typical working day without rain. Solid line: total number of trips. Dashed line: trips on the city bikesharing system. The vertical bars show the length of the bicycle paths in km (right scale). Sources: SIBUS (2012, 2014, 2016) and Municipality of Seville (several reports).

This cycling boom is, as Figure 5.1 shows, contemporaneous with the creation of a network of cycle paths throughout the city, whose evolution between 2006 and 2011 is summarised in Figure 5.2. Subsequently, the network continued to grow, exceeding 180 km today. However, it can be said that the city's cycle network was completed with its main features in 2011, when the so-called ‘complementary network’ was finished and the 120 km of cycle paths shown in Figure 5.2 were reached. That the building of the cycle path network was the trigger for this unusual growth of urban cycling in the city is evidenced by the very manifestations of the people (users and technicians) who witnessed the process. A city council technician describes the process of ‘opening’ a cycle path:

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‘The day we opened, when we took down the fences, there was still painting to be done. The paths had been built, but they lacked paint, signposting… The workers took down the fences and bicycle quickly filled the lanes. When their supervisors rang, they reported: “We haven’t finished [the bike paths] yet, and people are already cycling on them!” So it was spectacular. People really wanted to get out and ride, and to be able to do so with a guarantee of safety.’ (Cited in Huerta & Hernández 2015. Translated by J. Langford).

Figure 5.2: Evolution of the cycle path network between 2004 and 2010. In 2007, work on the so-called ‘basic network’ was finished, while in 2010 the ‘complementary network’ was completed. Source: Municipality of Seville.

In this respect, it is meaningful that Seville's cycle paths network was never officially inaugurated (there is, for example, no official photo of a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the entrance of a cycle path), something that the

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quotation reproduced above helps explain. The testimony of a cyclist points in the same direction: ‘A few friends started getting hooked and riding places, but most people rarely did; it was difficult. Not until the situation changed a couple of years later, in 2007, more or less, did people really start using their bikes. I mean, most people definitely had qualms about riding in the street, as opposed to riding on the bike path, which they could feel was their own space’. (Cited in Huerta & Hernández 2015. Translated by J. Langford).

This shows how the determining factor for many users was the availability of separated bicycle paths, which the user refers to as a place that she perceives as her own: 'Your bike path, your space’. Table 5.1: Evolution of the modal split of vehicular trips in Seville between 1990 and 2011 (figures in brackets show the modal split for all trips). Data for 1990 correspond to the Metropolitan Area, the rest to the Municipality of Seville. Source (Marqués et al. 2014) Year

Walking

Bicycle

Public Transit

Car

Motorbike

1990

(46.7%)

1.1 (0.6)%

46.0 (24.5)%

46.7 (24.9)%

6.2 (3.3)%

2007

(36.5%)

5.0 (3.2)%

30.7 (19.5)%

57.2 (36.3)%

7.1 (4-5)%

2009

(37.1 %)

6.6 (4.1)%

32.5 (20,5)%

52.8 (33.2)%

8.1 (5.1)%

2011

(36.7%)

8.9 (5.6)%

34.8 (22.2)%

48.3 (30.5)%

8.0 (5.0)

The impact of the aforementioned urban cycling ‘boom’ on the city’s modal split was dramatic, as can be seen in Table 5.1. In the years prior to 2007, bicycle usage fell to levels practically impossible to measure, so the last data prior to 2007 correspond to the 1990 mobility survey. Data published after 2007 are collected in the last three rows of Table 5.1. In 2011, bicycle modal share was approximately 9% of vehicular trips and almost 6% of all trips (including trips on foot) which shows a strong impact of the cycle path network on urban mobility. Figure 5.1 and Table 5.1 show how utilitarian cycling rose dramatically in Seville between 2006 and 2011. This went from a marginal participation in urban mobility to significant percentages of the modal split, which are more or less maintained at present. Throughout this chapter, this process will be first described from a historical perspective, in order to analyse afterwards the circumstances that made it possible, as well as its future

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perspectives. Although the circumstances of each city are different, I feel that this analysis could be useful for other cities that are currently in a situation similar to that of Seville in 2006, as well as for the city of Seville, which, although it has reached remarkable goals, is still far behind the world’s leading cities in cycling mobility.

Part II.- The precedents. The onset of a strong pro-bike social movement in Seville Seville, like many other cities in Southern Europe, is a city with a compact urban design in its central area (the Municipality of Seville), but it is surrounded by an extensive Metropolitan Ring formed by a multitude of small and medium-sized municipalities. The population of the Municipality of Seville has remained practically constant from 1990 to the present, at around 700,000 inhabitants. It is to this area that we shall refer in our analysis, since in the Metropolitan Ring, which has experienced a rapid growth during the period, the aforementioned rapid growth of urban cycling has not occurred. This cycling 'boom' has been confined, until now, to the Municipality of Seville, mainly because the policies behind the growth of urban cycling have also been confined to the Municipality. The average population density of the urban areas of the Municipality of Seville is close to 5,000 inhabitants per square km. The annual per capita gross domestic product is €18,600 and the percentage of households without a car is 20%. The percentage of university population (professors, students and administrative and service staff) is close to 15% of the total, which makes the universities in Seville (The University of Seville and Pablo de Olavide University) important elements of urban mobility. The topography is flat (the city is located on the alluvial plain of the Guadalquivir River) and the climate is warm, with an average annual maximum temperature of 30ºC, and an average of 80 days a year with temperatures above 32ºC. As for rainfall, it is scarce, around 53 cm a year on average and practically nonexistent in summer. Thus, both the climate and the city’s topography favour the daily use of the bicycle, except in summer, when temperatures are too high. As in many other cities, the bicycle occupied an important place in urban mobility from the 1930s until the 1960s. It was the time of long queues of workers cycling to factories with their huge bike stands. At that time, there was even a bicycle and delivery tricycle factory in Seville, Gaitán, which in the mid-1950s evolved towards the manufacture of small three-wheeled cars

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(El Diario de Ttiana 2015), in what is a perfect reflection of the evolution of Sevillian society in those years. There are, however, no quantitative data on the use of bicycles in the city in those years. Later on, from the 1960s onwards, the bicycle began to disappear from urban mobility, so that by the beginning of the 1990s, its presence was already minimal. The first quantitative data on the use of bicycles in Seville are precisely from those years, when the bicycle had practically disappeared as a utilitarian vehicle. These data appeared as a result of the birth of ecological awareness, which led to a revived interest in cycling in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and encouraged research in this area. The last significant figure before 2006 that has come down to us is from the 1990 Mobility Home Survey (Junta de Andalucía 1990), which evaluated the use of the bicycle in the Metropolitan Area as 12,741 daily trips, 0.6% of the total trips in the area, which in 1990 had 980,000 inhabitants, of which 31.5% lived outside of the Municipality of Seville. This figure is very similar to that of Figure 5.1 for 2006, which suggests a stagnation in the use of bicycles throughout the period between the beginning of the 1990s and the mid-2000s. Previously, a study published in 1987 (Mateos et al. 1987), had included a count that evaluated at 5,285 the number of cyclists who commuted daily between the outlying neighbourhoods and the city centre, a figure that qualitatively agrees with the previous figure. However, the most interesting conclusion of the aforementioned study for our subject is the characterization of the type of cycling in the city: a mostly utilitarian cycling, with a high percentage of young and adult cyclists, who used bicycles of low exchange value, probably to minimise the risk of theft associated with the use of the bike as a daily vehicle. Thus, everything seems to indicate that utilitarian cycling did not disappear completely in Seville before the ‘boom’, and bastions of daily use remained, which had as their reflection the typology of the urban cyclist of Seville. As for the participation of women, according to the study, it was low, just 12.7% of the total, as might be expected given the poor development of bicycle use in the city (see Chapter Four, Part VI). One of these strongholds was the university. We have already mentioned the high impact of the university population on the life of the city. In particular, the University of Seville, whose buildings are distributed throughout the city, had a long tradition of bicycle mobility, with many students going to their classes by bicycle. This led to bicycle parking problems at the university campuses, which successive governing teams of the university tried to solve, first by offering bicycle parking in university courtyards, and then by offering closed parking corrals with access

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restricted to members of the university community. Again, we do not have quantitative data about bicycle mobility in the university until a much later date (Chávez et al 2009). However, the data from this report reveal that the use of bicycles among university members nearly doubled throughout the city, in what seems to be a long-term effect of the aforementioned policies.

Figure 5.3: A knife sharpener uses his bicycle both as a vehicle and as a tool in Seville’s ‘El Tardón’ neighbourhood, exemplifying the survival of everyday bicycle use in the city. Photograph courtesy of F. M. García-Farrán.

The daily use of the bicycle in Seville during the 1980s is reflected in some urban social movements contemporary with other similar ones in the rest of Spain. In the first meeting of Cycle-tourists and Urban Cyclists, held in the Lagunas de Ruidera in 1985, an ephemeral group called 'Amigos de la Bici' of Seville is mentioned (Club Cicloturista Pedalibre 1985). This association carried out cycle-tourism activities and lobbies local authorities to promote the use of the bicycle. Another collective that organised bike demonstrations in the city, demanding bicycle infrastructure, is the also ephemeral 'Grupo Ecologista Autónomo Sevillano' (GEAS). In 1987 'A Contramano: Asamblea de Ciclistas de Sevilla' was founded in an assembly held in a classroom in the Physics Faculty of the University of Seville. This collective was legalised as an environmental association one year later. 'A Contramano' would become the pre-eminent social pro-bike movement in the city during the following years and continues in that role today (A

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Contramano 2011). Throughout these years, 'A Contramano' has combined the organisation of civic mobilisations (bike demonstrations), participated in by thousands of people, with the drafting of reports and proposals addressed to the local authorities, while actively participating in urban planning. At the same time, it organises congresses and activities of all kinds, among which the First 'Bike and City' Conference in 1993 and the 8th Iberian Congress 'The Bicycle and the City' in 2010 stand out. Among 'A Contramano’s' publications, its critical analysis of the metropolitan mobility of Seville from the perspective of sustainability stands out (A Contramano n.d.). It includes an extensive compilation of the information available up to 2011, including its proposals for the promotion of the bicycle and for the creation of urban and metropolitan networks of cycle paths. Little was done in the way of planning and building of cycling infrastructure prior to 2006. In 1980, a cycle lane of 350 metres was painted in San Fernando street, in the city centre, in front of the University Rectorate. It was not connected to any other infrastructure, and its only merit was that it was the first cycle path in the city. In 1987, the first serious plan to promote the bicycle in the city was drafted (Mateos et al 1987). This plan included the building of 32 km of transport cycle paths plus another 15 km of recreational cycle tracks. However, the municipal elections of 1991 brought a change of government to the city, and the plan did not come to fruition. Finally, the big transformation which the city underwent during the Universal Exhibition of 1992 made many of the plan’s proposals obsolete and it was forgotten. In 1993, after the Universal Exhibition, a new Bicycle Master Plan with a much lower budget than the previous one was written. This plan included two recreational cycle path projects, one along the new promenade on the left bank of the Guadalquivir River and another one through the historic Maria Luisa Park. The plan also included a map of a future network of cycle paths through the city, but without any indications on their specific design. From this plan, only 5.5 km of the river path were finally built. It has been remarkably successful for recreational rides. Subsequently, a number of unconnected transport cycle paths were built, apparently as a concretion of the aforementioned cycle paths map. By 2004, they had reached a total length of 12 km (see Figure 5.2). One of them was a separated 800-metre cycle path along a main avenue (Avenida de la

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Palmera), which provided access to an important university area. In 2002, this infrastructure was being used by 628 cyclists per day, while another 395 cyclists preferred to ride on the ordinary carriageway (A Contramano 2002), instead of on the cycle path, citing its short length as the main reason why they chose not to use the path (ibid....).

Figure 5.4 Cover photo of 'El Correo de Andalucía' of 05/31/1993 giving an account of the bike demonstration organised by 'A Contramano' the day before with the slogan Cycle Paths Now!

In summary, the daily use of the bicycle in Seville followed a process similar to that of many other Spanish and European cities, going from a meaningful presence in urban mobility before the first private car boom in the 1960s until it practically disappeared in parallel with the boom. However, utilitarian cycling in Seville in the years prior to 2006 presented some special characteristics that allowed it to survive in some social niches (amongst university students, for example) which were sufficiently numerous and aware that they gave rise to an important citizens’ movement in support of cycling mobility. There were also specific actions of public

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administrations, some of which reaped a certain level of success.

Part III.- The 'Seville Model'. Planning and development of cycling infrastructure between 2004 and 2011 The development of the bicycle path infrastructure shown in Figure 5.2 began in 2004, after the main socialdemocrat party of the Country, the 'Socialist Party (PSOE)' won the elections and formed a coalition with a leftwing platform called 'Izquierda Unida (IU)', to govern the city. This leftist platform, strongly influenced by certain social movements, including the aforementioned cycling association, asked for the implementation of a network of bicycle paths as a main part of the coalition’s programme. People like Paula Garvín and José Antonio García-Cebrián of IU, as well as the major, the Socialist Alfredo Sánchez-Monteseirín, played an important role in these negotiations and in the subsequent decision to build a complete network of cycle paths throughout the city. According to this programme, the bicycle promotion policy was designed following the guidelines contained in three main planning documents. First, the General Plan for Urban Planning (PGOU) (Ayuntamiento de Seville. n.d.), whose subject was the regulation of the urban development of the city, which was approved by the City Council in 2006. In 2005, with the PGOU still being debated, the City Council approved a strategic document entitled 'Bases and Strategies for the Integration of the Bicycle in the Urban Mobility of Seville' (Ayuntamiento de Seville 2005), which was aimed at integrating bicycles into Seville's urban mobility. Finally, in 2007, the City Council approved the Bicycle Master Plan for the city (Ayuntamiento de Seville 2007). The main contents of these documents in relation to bicycle mobility were (Marqués et al. 2015): D

General Plan for Urban Planning (PGOU): D Introduces The concept of a network of cycle paths for the city. D Draws up a 'theoretical network' of cycle paths. D Establishes the separation of bicycles from motorised traffic as a main characteristic of the network.

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D

Bases and Strategies for the Integration of the Bicycle into the Seville’s Urban Mobility. D A preliminary design for the basic network of cycle paths is drafted. D A first proposal on the execution period of the project (less than 4 years) is drawn up. D A bicycle parking programme is proposed. D The first detailed proposal of cycle path typologies along the cycle network is made.

D

Bicycle Master Plan D A study on the potential of cycling in the city is undertaken. D Defines the basic cycle path network (77 km). D The main constructive criteria for the cycle paths are defined. D Defines the strategy for the historical centre. D Analyzes bicycle intermodality with public transport. D Defines the bicycle parking policy. D Defines the main criteria for the public bikesharing system. D Defines other policies for the promotion of urban cycling. D Creates a Bicycle Planning Department. D Makes a preliminary proposal for bicycle traffic regulation.

One of the trigger factors for the development of this process was the strong popular support detected during the participatory budgeting process initiated by the city in the spring of 2003. At the beginning of 2004, the initiative for a cycle paths network designed to meet daily mobility needs is the most voted for among the citizens participating in this process. As a result, in that same year, the drafting of the aforementioned 'Bases and Strategies for the Integration of the Bicycle in the Urban Mobility of Seville' document was undertaken. Subsequently, a survey conducted in 2006, just before construction of the bicycle network started. The potential number of users was estimated to be 89,000, more than 10% of the city's population (Ayuntamiento de Seville 2007). This survey also revealed a high level of interest in the project among the population, providing strong political support for its implementation. Finally, the building of the bicycle network began with this chronology (Marques et al 2015):

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D D

D D

D D

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2004-2006: Drafting of the projects for the basic cycle paths network. August 2006 – December 2007: Public works for the building of the basic network (77 km), with a budget of 18 million euros were developed. July – Nov. 2008: Drafting of the projects for the complementary network of cycle paths. Nov. 2008 – June 2010: Public works for the building of the complementary network (up to 120 km), with a budget of 12 million euros were developed. Oct. 2009 – Feb. 2010: Drafting of a project for improving the cycle network. Sept. 2009 – June 2011: Public works for improving the cycle network, with a budget of 2 million euros were developed.

The starting point for the design of the basic cycle path network was the network proposed in the PGOU, based mainly on the proposals made by the cyclists' association 'A Contramano' and on the data collected during the elaboration of the plan. This theoretical network was developed with the criteria of connecting the main trip attractors (public transport hubs, public buildings and services, relational spaces such as squares, commercial streets and green areas, etc.) with each other and with the main residential areas. During discussions prior to the definition of the network, some specific trips attractors - such as university centres - were favoured because of their longer cycling tradition. The next step was to adjust this theoretical network by optimizing the distance to the main trip attractors along the network while considering the availability of space on public roads. This adjustment was made qualitatively, based on fieldwork and discussions with stakeholders, resulting in a first detailed proposal for the network. It is worth noting that both the location of the trip attractors and the limitations and opportunities of available space generally favoured the placement of cycle paths along the main streets and avenues. On the other hand, it was considered desirable to build the paths along the main roads of the city in order to give visibility to the network. Therefore, it can be concluded that, as a general rule, cycle paths were located along the main streets and avenues of the city. Finally, after some final adjustments, more than 200 trip attractors were identified at a distance of less than 300 meters from the cycle path network (Ayuntamiento de Seville 2006).

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The main characteristics of the resulting network were (Marqués et al 2015): D

D

D

D

D

Continuity and connectivity: The network was designed with the aim of connecting, through a continuum of cycle paths, the main trip attractors of the city among themselves and with the main residential areas. Cohesion and homogeneity: The design of cycle paths was quite homogeneous along the network, so that it was easily recognizable. This was achieved through the use of a specific and differentiated pavement, as well as a uniform morphology (see below). Directivity and visibility: The network follows the main streets of the city and is quite visible. On the other hand, as far as possible, detours and multiple street crossings were avoided. Comfort and safety: The network was designed with the aim of being comfortable, safe and attractive for potential cyclists, with parking areas along its route, smooth transitions at intersections, etc. Rapid construction: The basic network (77 km) was built in less than two years (between 2006 and 2007).

Of course, not all of these criteria are original. Many of them - such as connectivity, cohesion and directivity - can be found in many manuals and are commonplace today. Other features, however, can be considered specific to the Seville network, such as its rapid construction and its extremely homogeneous design As for the constructive criteria of the cycle paths themselves they can be summarised as follows (Marqués et al. 2015): D D D

D

Separation: the entire cycle path network is separated from motorized traffic. Bidirectionality: most of the bicycle paths are bidirectional, with a width of 2.5 metres. Uniformity of pavement and signage: bituminous pavement painted in green, with uniform vertical and horizontal signage, including specific traffic lights. Location of the bicycle path between the motorized traffic zone (roadway or parking lane) and the pedestrian zone, according to the following criteria: D Raised to the level of the pavement but with the pavement of a different colour and texture, or

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To the same level of the carriageway, but separated from traffic by bollards or other kinds of discontinuous physical barriers (see Figure 4.1). D When a parking lane needed to remain in the street, the cycle path was always raised to the level of the pavement, leaving a space between them to avoid dooring (see Figure 4.16). Design of intersections in parallel to pedestrian crossings, but separated from them. The bicycle tracks were mainly built on former parking lanes (see Figure 4.2). D

D D

Again, many of these criteria are well known concepts. What is not so usual is the systematic application of these concepts to ensure the aforementioned homogeneity of the network. The bi-directionality of the cycle paths generated some controversy, because in many cities with a long tradition of cycling, such as Amsterdam or Copenhagen, cycle paths are usually mono-directional. In the case of Seville, a bi-directional design was chosen primarily because it saved space (see Chapter 4 Part I) and because in some previous projects, it was observed that cyclists ended up using the mono-directional cycle tracks as bi-directional ones, creating traffic conflicts (A Contramano 2002). The location of many cycle paths at the same level as the pavement which does not mean that they were built on the pavement: they were mainly built on previous parking lanes (A Contramano 2009) - has been controversial due to conflicts with pedestrians, creating a debate with strong ideological components (Malpica 2010; Castillo-Manzano & SánchezBraza 2012). However, the net loss of pedestrian space due to the implementation of the cycle paths was only 9% of the total surface dedicated to such bicycle facilities (Hernández-Herrador & Marqués 2017). Like many other European cities, Seville has a large historic city centre of around 4 km², with very narrow streets and a tortuous street map. More than 56,000 people live in the area and many of the most important relational spaces, as well as the main shopping streets, are located there. Both the PGOU of the city and the Bicycle Plan determined that, within this area, there should not be cycle path routes, but rather traffic restrictions and priority for pedestrians and cyclists. Therefore, as shown in Figure 5.2, bicycle paths were not planned in the historical city centre. The promotion of the bicycle was entrusted to traffic calming policies, including the creation of new pedestrian zones, speed limitations and traffic restrictions

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on non-residents. The bike-sharing system, Sevici, with 2,500 bicycles in 250 dock stations, also contributed in a large degree to the bicycle boom in Seville (see Figure 5.1). It was introduced in a relatively late planning stage but its success was immediate, reaching a maximum of 59,455 associates in December 2009, two years and four months after its inception. At that time, the system was almost saturated with peaks of more than 10 uses per bicycle and day, in part due to the signing of an agreement with the University which promoted their use by university students (Castillo-Manzano & Sanchez-Braza 2013). This saturation problem was solved in part by the creation by the University of Seville of its own system of long-term (one academic year) bike-sharing system (SIBUS 2013), which partly alleviated the high demand for public bicycles by the university community. By the end of 2011, Sevici began to stabilise, with 51,876 associates and around 6.5 uses per bicycle on a typical working day. Sevici works as a public-private partnership. The operator (JC Decaux) receives advertising spaces from the municipality in exchange for the implementation, management and operation of the system. This model is also in place in many other cities, such as Rome, Paris, Zaragoza and Valencia (Midgley 2011), and has the obvious advantage of not representing any cost to the city (except for the loss of income associated with advertising in the spaces ceded to the operator). The registration fees and tariffs follow the same scheme as in the cities mentioned above, with the particularity of a 24-hour operating time. Although the system costs are not directly borne by the municipality, an estimate of the operation cost per trip can be illustrative of the intrinsic profitability of the system. Our estimates give a figure of around €1.00 per displacement, which is in line with other estimates for similar systems (Midgley 2011). This figure is also similar to the operating costs of city buses, around € 1.3 per trip, and much lower than the cost per trip of the city's only functioning metro line, around € 4 per trip (Marqués et al 2015). These data show the comparatively high economic profitability of the bike-sharing system. Another important aspect of the infrastructures undertaken was bicycle parking on public roads. At the beginning of 2011, there were more than 5,700 parking spaces for bicycles installed on the public roads of the city as part of the Bicycle Plan. This Plan also included initiatives for the implementation of indoor bicycle parking lots in schools, workplaces, public buildings, public transport stations and blocks of flats, which had a

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fairly irregular follow-up. The most important performance was carried out by the University of Seville, which in the 2011-12 academic year offered a bicycle parking system restricted to members of the university community, with a total of 2,389 regulated parking spaces (SIBUS 2013). Although intermodality with public transport was an important part of the Bicycle Plan, this determination was followed up in a very limited way, and only a few outdoor bicycle-parking areas and a few bike-sharing stations near public transport hubs were built. The only exception was the main metropolitan bus station, Plaza de Armas, where 90 indoor parking spaces for bicycles were implemented, as well as a free and manually operated bike-sharing system for users of the buses that stop at the station. This bike-sharing system had 172 bicycles in 2011, which are lent for a whole day after the user signs a short contract. The system operates from Monday to Friday, from 7:30 a.m. to midnight. Bicycles have an approximate turnover rate of 1.5 loans per day, which gives an estimate of around 3-4 daily trips per bicycle. The estimated cost is around € 0.75 per trip, including capital, maintenance and operating costs. The demand was and still is very high, with 65% of the loans made during the first two and a half hours of operation each day, mainly to university students (CTMAS 2010). All these programmes, except for the aforementioned initiatives developed by the University and the CTMAS, were managed from a new municipal department created ad hoc, the Bicycle Office, and were disseminated through its website. This office was responsible for the development of projects and the supervision of public works. It was also in charge of the development of the different programmes included in the Bicycle Plan, including the supervision of the public bikesharing system. To facilitate the participation of the stakeholders, a 'Civic Commission of the Bicycle' was created, and was participated in by cycling and pedestrian associations, bicycle retailers, experts, etc. It can be said, therefore, that the development of the cycling infrastructure that enabled the bicycle boom in Seville was the result of a widely agreed process of planning and citizen participation, led by the City Council and participated by other public bodies, such as the University or the Metropolitan Transport Authority (CTMAS), as well as the main associations of bicycle users in the city.

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Part IV.- The impact on city mobility The impact of the infrastructure and policies described above on citizen mobility was dramatic, as can be seen in Figure 5.1 and Table 5.1. Between 2006 and 2011, there was a continuous growth in the number of trips by bicycle in the city, which multiplied by a factor of close to six. The public bikesharing system contributed significantly to this growth. Bicycle trips in this system experienced spectacular growth during the two years after the start-up of the service, but stagnated and even decreased in subsequent years, most likely due to the aforementioned saturation problems. The profile of urban cyclists remained very different between working days and holidays, with the total number of trips on workdays being substantially higher (Ayuntamiento de Seville 2010), which suggests that the kind of cycling developed in Seville after the implementation of the cycle path network was mainly utilitarian, oriented to satisfying the needs of daily mobility: work, studies, shopping, etc. According to a survey carried out on a typical working day of 2011 (SIBUS 2012), 32% of the cyclists were workers, 32% were students and 10% were self-employed, which is consistent with the main reasons for the trips found in the survey (education 26% and work 26%), although there was also a significant number of leisure trips (21%). The people interviewed said they cycled very often (60% every day), which is consistent with the aforementioned profile of urban cyclists (workers and students who use bicycles for utilitarian purposes). Figure 5.5 shows the age distribution of cyclists on a working day obtained from the aforementioned survey (SIBUS 2012), compared with the age distribution for the entire population of the city. The Figure shows that the age distribution is quite similar in both cases. Only among the elderly does the number of cyclists decrease drastically with regard to the general population. Therefore, although there is a tendency towards a higher use of the bicycle among young people, cycling is present in almost all age segments of the population.

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Figure 5.5: Age distribution among cyclists and among the general population. Sources: SIBUS (2012) and Municipality of Seville.

Figure 5.6 shows the modal shift towards new bicycle trips (i.e. the modes previously used by people shifting to bicycle trips) obtained from two surveys conducted in 2009 (Ayuntamiento de Seville 2010) and in 2011 (SIBUS 2012). The results are quite consistent and show a quite similar modal shift (around 30%) from all kind of motorised transport (car/motorbike), public transport and walking trips. This modal shift, induced by the presence of the cycle paths network, evidences a strong impact on urban mobility, which has consequences on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and public health that will be analysed below. Finally, the aforementioned survey (SIBUS 2012) showed that the average time per bicycle trip was 21.8 min. Assuming an average speed of 14 km/h for cyclists, the average length of a bicycle trip can be estimated to be roughly 5 km, a figure that is consistent with estimates made in other European cities and with the estimates of the efficiency of the different modes shown in Figure 3.3.

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Figure 5.6: Two different surveys were conducted in 2009 and 2011 to determine from which travel modes the new cyclists had shifted. Both surveys show that about a third of new bicycle trips came from former car and motorcycle trips and about two-thirds from former walking or public transport trips. Sources: Ayuntamiento de Seville (2010) and SIBUS (2012).

As to the impact on GHGs emissions, this was calculated using the methodology developed by the European Cyclists Federation (ECF 2011), with the mobility and modal shift data presented above. The result was that utilitarian cycling in the city of Seville in 2011 involved a global saving of more than 8,000 tons of CO2-eq per year (SIBUS 2012), corresponding to a fuel savings of approximately 26,000 barrels of petroleum per year (ibid...). Another important environmental impact was the change in the urban landscape: The presence of a continuous and uniform network of cycle paths throughout the city, and the continuous presence of bicycles on it, changed this landscape in an irreversible way.

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Figure 5.7: Evolution of the number of registered bicycle accidents per million bicycle trips in the periods 2000-2005 and 2007-2013. The trend lines for both periods are also displayed. Source: SIBUS (2016).

Using the aforementioned data on cycling mobility, it is also possible to estimate the public health benefits derived from the levels of use of the bicycle in 2011. These benefits would be linked to a lower incidence, derived from bicycle use, of coronary heart disease, obesity and other diseases (see Chapter Three Part IV). The World Health Organization has developed a methodology for the evaluation of these benefits in terms of 'avoided deaths' per year (HEAT n.d.). The results (SIBUS 2012) show health benefits quantified in 24 deaths avoided per year. The impact of the network of cycle paths on the risk of cycling was also dramatic (Marqués & Hernández Herrador 2017). Figure 5.7 shows the evolution of the number of recorded traffic accidents involving a bicycle per million bicycle trips in the city of Seville between 2000 and 2013 (excluding the transition year 2006). Figure 5.7 clearly shows two stages, before and after 2006 (the starting date for the construction of the bicycle paths) with a sharp step on that date and similar slopes before and after. Therefore, the longitudinal analysis of cycling accidents shows a clear reduction of the risk of cycling in Seville due to the implementation of the cycling network. The analysis of the number of severely injured cyclists leads to a similar

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conclusion (Marqués & Hernández-Herrador 2017). The sharp increase in urban cycling during the period analysed also had a positive impact on the local economy. Although more detailed and specific research is needed to quantitatively assess this impact, it is qualitatively evident that many local industries, such as bicycle shops, bicycle rentals and repair shops flourished along with the new wave of urban cycling (Huerta & Hernández 2015). Tourism, which is an important part of the economy of the city, also benefited from the cycling network and the public bikesharing system, which changed the landscape and the external image of the city, as was noted by some of the main tourism websites (Reuters 2012; Lonely Planet 2012). Finally, regarding the macro-economic impact of the implementation of the city cycling network, the benefit-cost analysis of the infrastructure (Brey et al 2017) reported a current net value of 557 million euros and an internal rate of return of over 130%, mainly in terms of sustainability, health as evaluated according to WHO methodology (HEAT n.d.) and leisure time.

Part V.- Beyond the 'boom': Stagnation and slow recuperation After the cycling ‘boom’ during the five-year period 2006-2011, the use of the bicycle in Seville first stagnated (SIBUS 2014), and later began to decline until reaching values of around 62,000 daily trips in 2015 (SIBUS 2016), with a decrease of 15% compared to 2011. In the case of the public bikesharing service in the city, this decline was even more pronounced (ibid....). Although such a decrease in bicycle usage could be attributed in principle to a general decline in urban mobility due to the economic crisis, this fact, while it cannot be denied, is insufficient to fully explain the decline in bicycle use. If we take the evolution of the annual average daily traffic in the city as a measure for the global decrease in urban mobility, we will see that this index was falling after 2011 at a rate of 1% per year on average, which is not enough to explain the 15% decrease observed in the use of bicycles between 2011 and 2015. We must conclude, therefore, that after 2011 there was a period of accelerated decline in the share of bicycles in the modal split of the city. However, bicycle paths continued to be very attractive for the population, which continued to demand their construction, with many neighbourhood

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initiatives in the peripheral districts or even in the towns closest to the Municipality of Seville requiring new bicycle connections. This demand, together with the inertia of urban planning, led to a notable increase in the length of the cycle path network within the Municipality compared to 2011, exceeding 170 km, which contrasts with the contraction in the use of the bicycle indicated above, which shows that there is not a linear relationship between the length of the cycling network and the number of bicycle trips. What then was the reason for the decline experienced in the use of bicycles? First, there is the fact that in 2011 there was a change in the government of the city, and a growing disinterest on the part of the new government towards the promotion of cycling mobility. This lack of interest was reflected in the disappearance of planning and participation instruments that played a fundamental role during previous years, such as the Bicycle Office or the Bicycle Civic Commission. There was also a radical change in the official discourse regarding bicycles and cyclists, which was reflected in the complete absence of urban cycling promotion campaigns. Also, many of the prescriptions of the previous city government involving motorised traffic restrictions in the historic district of the city were reversed, while the creation of new car parking lots was promoted in this area. It seems reasonable to assume that this change of policy played an essential role in reducing urban cycling by making the bicycle a less attractive option for accessing the city centre as compared to the private car. On the other hand, during this period, no progress was made in aspects such as the metropolitan connections of the cycle path network, nor on traffic calming measures favouring bicycles on streets without bicycle paths, nor on the promotion of bicycle parking at trip origin spots (residential buildings) or destinations (workplaces, schools, shopping centres, etc.), nor in measures favouring intermodality between the bicycle and public transport. After 2015, however, a new change in the city government brought about the return of some bicycle promotion policies and the drafting of a new Bicycle Plan and, as can be seen in Figure 5.1, it also coincided with a certain renaissance of cycling. However, traffic restrictions in the city centre were not brought back.

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This limited urban cycling renaissance is consistent with the also limited development in Seville of complementary measures and services, such as traffic calming measures and bicycle parking infrastructure. Moreover, there is still a lack of connections between the Seville’s urban cycling network and the populations of the metropolitan ring, and of links with public transport. The implementation of these measures and services would be necessary for another sharp increase in city cycling to come about. We would therefore be faced with a clear example of how cycle paths, although necessary, are not sufficient to further improve cycling mobility. In order for this to occur, the measures described in Parts II to VI of the preceding Chapter, as well as strong restrictions on motorised traffic, are necessary. In any case, the experience in Seville is still of great interest as an example of how the implementation of a well-designed network of bicycle paths can lead to a dramatic growth in urban cycling. The fact that this infrastructure was built in a short period of time was more of an advantage than a disadvantage in this respect. It also illustrates the resilience of these processes, already indicated by other authors (Morales 2011): While it is certain that from 2011 to 2015 the use of bicycles fell by 15% as a result of mistaken policies, it is no less true that this decrease was much smaller than the 500% increase in cycling in the previous four years that resulted from the implementation of the cycling network. At the same time, Seville's experience confirms the aforementioned fact that, although the positive effect of a good urban network of bicycle paths on the cycling mobility of a city is incontestable, this effect has its limitations. That is, once the network is built, other measures are necessary. These measures include: Additional measures to calm and restrict traffic. An effective bicycle parking policy, not only on public roads, but above all at the points of trip origin (neighbourhood communities) and destination (places of study, work, leisure, shopping, etc). D Effective measures to promote intermodality between bicycles and public transport. D Promotional campaigns and an official public discourse supporting and lending prestige to urban cyclists as citizens committed to improving the livability of the city. D D

FINAL REMARKS

Throughout the preceding pages, we have taken a tour of the different aspects and issues related to the bicycle - a machine that has been around for 200 years and whose basic design was set just over 100 years ago - and its role in urban mobility. It is meaningful that such a device continues to be a symbol of modernity. The reasons for this were seen in Chapter I: the bicycle, in addition to its surprising dynamic stability, is the most efficient mode of transport when it comes to moving about in urban environments. In addition, its non-motorized character allows its user to establish a relationship with the urban environment much more humanised than any motorized mode would allow. We have seen how, despite this, the bicycle has been expelled from the vast majority of cities in the industrialised world by the motor car, a much less efficient mode of transport that promises, however, a mirage of individual freedom that vanishes as soon as it is used massively. We have also seen how, even in the cities of the poorest and least industrialised countries, this illusion of individual freedom, which constitutes the core of the car-based ideology, is capable of provoking regulations and policies that also serve to expel the bicycle from urban mobility, even though most people in those countries do not have access to a private car. The growing problems associated with this model of mobility based on its motorisation-privatisation, however, have led to a growing interest in how to overcome this model, and how to move towards a more sustainable and healthy model. In practice, however, and despite the fact that no one denies the efficiency or suitability of the bicycle as an urban transport mode, its role in the new model of urban mobility still has not been sufficiently recognised or enunciated. Describing this role has been the main aim of this book. For this reason, we have had to address issues such as the limitations of purely technological solutions, which we could call ‘solutions within the model’, based on the promotion of biofuels and electric mobility, which do not challenge the paradigm of the motorisation-privatisation of mobility.

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We have seen how these solutions are, first of all, incomplete, as they do not solve essential aspects such as congestion, the abusive occupation of urban space, the dehumanisation of the city, etc. Moreover, the possibility that they will grow and become global solutions is quite doubtful, because of the scarce capacity of the proposed technologies to efficiently replace current fossil fuel-powered private cars. Next we have addressed the critique of the dominant proposals to overcome the crisis of urban mobility, offering sustainable mobility alternatives based almost exclusively on the promotion of collective public transport for non-pedestrian journeys. We have seen, in the first place, that the energy efficiency of public transport depends to a large extent on both the occupancy rate and traffic congestion, leading to energy consumption as high as 80% of those of the private car in some cases, which raises serious concerns about the effectiveness of public transport as a sustainable alternative to cars in such cases. Likewise, we have verified that the practical implementation of this model collides with insurmountable difficulties in the metropolitan areas of low population density, where it is almost impossible to design efficient public transport systems serving the entire population. Faced with these proposals, we have raised the need to develop mobility alternatives based on the promotion of sustainable travel in all its stages, among which the bicycle would play a central role. This role involves the development of bicycle mobility systems capable of satisfying a wide range of journeys, ranging from one or two kilometres up to five or more kilometres, for which the bicycle is the ideal mode of transport in most cities. In addition, it includes the promotion of the bicycle as a means of accessing collective public transport systems for longer distances. In this way, the disadvantages of public transport systems derived from the scarce population served by their stations can be alleviated to a large extent in areas of dispersed population. The final objective of this programme, which the integration of the bicycle in the model makes possible, is that practically all urban and metropolitan trips could be made through intermodal chains which are sustainable in all of their phases. The programme described in the previous paragraph is very attractive from a conceptual point of view, but its implementation faces considerable practical difficulties, derived from the urban structure of most cities, designed as they are with the car in mind. This forces us to consider what should be the place of the bicycle on public roads. The solution advocated in this book can be summarised in this sentence from Chapter Four: 'we can

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conclude that, if the different transport modes (pedestrians, bicycles and motor vehicles) are to fully develop their potential, separation between them is always desirable because of their very different characteristics... This does not mean that the coexistence between bicycles and motor vehicles or between bicycles and pedestrians is not possible, but it will always require some kind of additional regulation which eliminates or at least attenuates the differences in speed between such disparate modes.' According to this vision, the city must be transformed to welcome the bicycle again as a central mode of its mobility structure. Therefore, the safety of cyclists, the main problem that must be overcome if use of the bicycle as an urban transport mode is to become widespread, should be approached as an urbanistic problem and not as a problem of traffic regulations (although these, of course, are also important). Moreover, a global approach to cycle traffic safety shows that this problem, in the end, is the same as that of promoting the use of bicycles: the more cyclists and pedestrians there are, the safer it will be for them. Hence, the central role that must be played by good cycling infrastructure, particularly the need to build networks of safe bicycle paths, separated from motorised traffic, which allow citizens to safely travel by bicycle from one neighbourhood to another in the city. But bicycle paths, although necessary, are not enough to guarantee the integration of the bicycle in urban mobility. For this to occur, it is also necessary to develop policies of traffic calming and restriction, complementary to bicycle paths, in order to create a safe environment for cyclists and pedestrians. The problem of what to do with bicycles when they are not circulating around the city must also be addressed. This would require the offer of safe bicycle parking, not only on public roads, but also at points of trip origin (residential buildings) and destination (work, study, leisure, shopping ...). Finally, it would not be possible to reach the final objective that would allow any trip to be made through a sustainable intermodal chain without first developing adequate solutions of individual public transport (bikesharing), and solutions to combine bicycles and public collective transport. This implies the development of powerful intermodality infrastructures in public transport stations, some of which can already be seen in operation in many cities in Northern and Central Europe, as well as in Japan. Personally, I am convinced that, in the not too distant future, the inhabitants of cities will remember the times in which the private car dominated

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urban mobility with the same mixture of disbelief and commiseration with which we now remember the times in which people smoked in classrooms, theatres, bars, lifts and buses. This will also mean the liberation of a huge amount of public land, as the space needed for the circulation and parking of bicycles is much smaller than the space needed for the circulation and parking of cars; land that could be used for the leisure and enjoyment of citizens.

REFERENCES

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