Workshop TR 2.1, Tuesday 20 June, 14.00 - 15.30
Cycling in Brazil and China
Andres Pacheco, Instituto de Desarrollo Urbano Bogotà, Colombia

Bogotà
Antonio Carlos Miranda

Diagnosis of the Use of Bicycle in Brazil

The Brazilian Ministry of Transport, through GEIPOT, the Brazilian Transport Planning Enterprise, is again interested in transport by bicycle. Private consultancy has now been commissioned and the same experts who carry out the first study, published in 1976, were hired.

Until recently, horse used to be the most widely used means of transport in the provincial cities and in the countryside. In the last 20 years, the bicycle has been adopted as a substitute. Nowadays, “çargo-bicycles” and mountain-bikes are intensively used, especially by workers in cities where there is some degree of industrialization. In the larger urban areas, especially in the suburbs, there has been an increase in the use of bicycles. This is largely due to the deterioration of the quality of public transport and the lower cost of a bicycle. It is also noted that there has been a large increase in the number of sport events involving bicycles, such as bicycle competition and triatlon. A strong movement towards cyclotourism has also started, stimulated by communication through internet.

To better understand this ebullience, GEIPOT has decided to divide the study in two different approaches:

1)       Diagnosis of the use of bicycle in Brazil – by means of a questionnaire with 15 questions, to be applied in about 40 cities around the country which have traditionally used bicycle;

2)       Manual update – turned mainly to the development of infrastructure for bicycle and incorporating succesful measures adopted in Brazilian cities which have implemented good infrastructure for bicycle and incorporating international examples.

This presentation aims at summarizing the findings of the research which has been finished in February 2000.

Lu Ximing, Zhu Hong & Zhao Oulai

Policy to the Bicycle Traffic in Shanghai

Each day in Shanghai, 5 million bicycles are running on the city’s streets and roads. The bicycle trips in Shanghai are larger than 40 % in proportion of all trips. From view of trip makers, the bicycle has its merits of being flexible, economic and good to health, and is commonly accepted by the civilians. In a view of the overall efficiency, the contribution of the bicycles to the urban traffic can not be denied, which have borne more than 10 million trips each day in Shanghai, but only have occupied a very small amount of road area resource and produced no pollution. It, however, also constitutes many negative impacts on the road safety, the traffic order and the movement of motor vehicle traffic, particularly because cyclists are huge in number in Shanghai. In studying bicycle traffic policy in Shanghai, one cannot neglect the moped bicycle issue. Presently, there are 0.7 million moped bicycles running on the streets and roads. Consequently, it has constituted severe harms to the road safety and city environment.

Therefore, Shanghai has formulated the bicycle traffic policy of positively guiding the cyclists according to its real condition, while the advanced cities abroad are promoting bicycle traffic. In Shanghai, the ultimate objective is to limit the use of bicycles to a reasoned area, where its merits of flexibility and convenience can be brought into full play, and positively guide the cyclists to transfer to the public transit mode.

Francis Papon, Chargé de recherche, INRETS, France

World mobility trends: what place for the bicycle?

Position Paper