The Bicycle Boom: Redefining Urban Mobility

Copenhagenization, the integration of bicycles as a primary mode of transit, began with a photograph taken by Mikael Colville-Andersen in 2006. Captivated by a cyclist lost in thought at a traffic light, he snapped a picture, capturing not just her but also other cyclists gliding by. This transformative image went viral, sparking a global movement and establishing Mr Colville-Andersen as the leading consultant and speaker on urban mobility. During our coffee chat, he shared insights about the company he founded, Copenhagenize, and the evolution of cycling as transportation.

A Short History of Bicycles

In the 1880s, when the first modern bicycle emerged, personal transportation was primarily limited to walking, horseback riding, and horse-drawn carriages and streetcars. The bicycle ushered in a new era of active mobility, with a much greater practical range over walking that was remarkably inexpensive and accessible to the masses. All the way into the 1950’s, bikes remained popular because tram and streetcar companies were still in business and provided alternative transport to the bicycle on bad weather days as well as for people with lengthy commutes.

Bicycle ridership dropped precipitously after the 1950s as marketing by the automotive industry ignited some poor-choice planning in cities. Streetcar networks were reduced or dismantled altogether to make room for the automobile and its massive appetite for urban space, taking with it a large share of bike riders. Today, multimodal planning is catching hold as cities realize they can still accommodate cars while reclaiming space for bike commuters and express bus lanes.

Bicycles Not Taken Seriously in American Cities

Urban chaos and an alarming rise in middle-class car ownership in major nations like China and India are prompting cities to rethink street designs and transit options. In the U.S., while some cities are recognizing the everyday utility of bikes and making changes to accommodate them, most still lack quality cycling infrastructure. The majority of bike lanes in the United States consist merely of painted lines next to traffic, often placing cyclists in dangerous situations. Moreover, American societal conditioning favoring the automobile, combined with a political system that leads to incremental, piecemeal changes, hampers significant improvements to bicycle infrastructure.

Urban Mobility Models for Planners

American business leaders, urban planners, and active transportation advocates have traveled to European bike capitals for years to study and observe urban mobility standards there. The key benefits of such business trips are the witnessing of real-life examples that might be applicable back home in their own jurisdictions. To this end, the power of lessons learned in an exemplary urban mobility environment is magnified when more than one country is visited since national policies vary due to cultural and geographic differences. A good example would be the comparison of two classic cities from different countries, Amsterdam and Copenhagen.

Both cities are famous bike capitals for a good reason which is the high level of safety and culture of cycling as a primary mode of transportation. Copenhagen has more automobile traffic and wider, straighter roads than Amsterdam, which helps explain its more rigid system of traffic signals and road separation from bicycle lanes compared to Amsterdam. Bike lanes are often raised to sidewalk level in Copenhagen whereas Amsterdam relies on red paint and physical barriers.

In both cities, drivers are very courteous and cautious around bike riders, maintaining slower speeds and reticent to honk their horns even when a cyclist isn’t following correct cycling etiquette. Many drivers are themselves also cyclists and, importantly, the overall prevalence of bicycles as a vehicle choice has led to a cycling-centered culture that is practically non-existent in the United States.

The Rise of Cycling-Centered Cities

Global awareness is fueling a bicycle boom, but America still struggles to normalize cycling as a transit option. In the U.S., cyclists are often stigmatized as either impoverished or recreational, deterring potential commuters. This social bias wrongly emphasizes individual cyclist behavior instead of comprehensive road design. Nevertheless, the number of Americans switching to bikes for utilitarian purposes is rising every year.

Cities around the country are fostering more favorable environments like slow-streets, bike-share, and separated bike lanes. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic Ocean, robust change has been gathering steam in a variety of European countries not formerly known for cyclist centered urban design. Several cities in Spain, for example Barcelona, Valencia, and Seville have in recent years built out extensive networks of bike lanes.

Valencia has transformed its urban landscape with the ambitious “Anell Ciclista” (Cycling Ring) project, creating a 10-kilometer protected bike lane circuit encircling the historic city center. This network connects to over 40 kilometers of additional cycling infrastructure along the reclaimed Turia riverbed garden, allowing cyclists to traverse the entire city safely separated from motor traffic. Valencia’s commitment to cycling infrastructure has resulted in a 20% increase in daily bike commuters since 2022.

Paris has made stunning progress in its cycling infrastructure, expanding from just 200 kilometers of bike lanes in 2015 to over 1,000 kilometers by 2024. Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s “Plan Vélo” has systematically transformed the French capital, removing car lanes and parking spaces to create protected bike corridors along major boulevards and connecting previously isolated cycling networks into a comprehensive system. This remarkable transformation has positioned Paris as one of Europe’s most rapidly evolving cycling cities, preparing it for further innovations in the coming years.

More Livable Cities through Urban Mobility

Bicycles represent an effective tool for enhancing urban livability, offering a silent, compact solution that harmonizes human movement with city landscapes while engendering personal wellness. Inspired by the success of places with multi-modal engineering standards, cities in the U.S. like Minneapolis and Portland have embraced the bicycle as a serious transit mode and made notable progress creating infrastructure that encourages more people to cycle. Parents in these and other American cities have started ferrying their young children to school with cargo e-bikes, something almost unheard of 10 years ago.

With improved e-bike battery technology introduced in 2015, e-bike sales in the United States and Europe have risen sharply in the intervening years. Helping to encourage the continuation of escalating bike sales is a plethora of bike advocacy organizations like the European Cyclists’ Federation and the League of American bicyclists, the latter of which published a list of 450 bike friendly cities in the country.

With greater numbers of people from all walks of life pressing bikes into service in their everyday lives, urban planners around the world are prioritizing human-scale design and integrating bike and pedestrian infrastructure with public transit. As cities continue to transform, bicycles are resurfacing not just as a mode of transportation, but as a powerful catalyst for reimagining urban spaces—metamorphosing concrete jungles into more human-centered places where mobility is a bridge between individual and community.

The Future of Urban Cycling

As cycling continues to reshape urban landscapes worldwide, forward-thinking cities are now developing comprehensive policy frameworks and ambitious goals to further cement bicycles as legitimate transportation. These initiatives go beyond mere infrastructure creation to address systemic barriers and create truly bicycle-friendly cities.

In San Francisco, the Slow Streets program—which temporarily restricted vehicle traffic on residential roads during the pandemic—recently received approval for permanent expansion over the coming years. This innovative approach will transform over 100 miles of residential streets into bicycle and pedestrian priority corridors with limited local vehicle access, creating a secondary transportation network that complements the city’s traditional protected bike lane system. Similar programs are gaining traction in Oakland, Seattle, and Boston, where residents have embraced calmer, safer neighborhood streets.

New York City has committed to an unprecedented “Five Borough Bike Blueprint” that promises to add 250 miles of protected bike lanes by 2030, with at least 30 miles to be built annually. The plan intentionally prioritizes historically underserved neighborhoods, recognizing that equitable access to safe cycling infrastructure is essential for transportation justice. NYC’s commitment includes not just bike lanes but also 25,000 new bike parking spaces at transit hubs, schools, and commercial districts to solve the “last mile” problem for multimodal commuters.

In Paris, Mayor Hidalgo has doubled down on her transformation of the city with a new “Paris 100% Cyclable” initiative announced in late 2024. This ambitious plan aims to make every street in Paris safely navigable by bicycle by 2030, eliminating all “cycling dead ends” while converting several major thoroughfares into bicycle highways with synchronized traffic signals calibrated to cycling speeds. Perhaps most notably, Paris is pioneering “cycling schools” for adults and children, recognizing that infrastructure alone isn’t enough—cultural shifts and confidence-building are equally vital to increasing ridership among all demographics.

The most promising aspect of these initiatives is their comprehensive approach. Modern cycling policy no longer treats bike lanes as isolated projects but integrates them into broader visions of urban transformation addressing climate change, public health, economic vitality, and social cohesion. As these ambitious plans take shape, they signal a fundamental reimagining of urban space—one that prioritizes human movement and connection over vehicle throughput and storage.

The bicycle, once relegated to recreation or consigned to the margins of transportation planning, has emerged as a powerful symbol and practical tool for creating more sustainable, equitable, and livable cities. As we look toward the urban landscapes of tomorrow, the continued expansion of cycling infrastructure represents not just an alternative mode of transit, but a fundamentally different relationship between people and the places they inhabit.