Cycling for Sustainable Cities Symposium Provides Inspiration from Around the World
On October 12, over 125 people joined CalBike for our first Advance Symposium ahead of the California Bicycle Summit. Authors and researchers John Pucher and Ralph Buehler shared a presentation based on their indispensable book, Cycling for Sustainable Cities. The webinar included data on cycling rates in different cities, including inspiring examples of cities that vastly increased their cycling mode share through concerted and forward-thinking planning.
Just a few of the interesting details from the session:
- From 1990 to 2017, San Francisco more than tripled it’s cycling mode share. That still only took it from 1% to 3.3%.
- Portland, Oregon, started at 1% bike mode share and, by building a connected bike network over a span of 20 years, saw 7% of trips by bike.
- Seville, Spain, achieved a leap from 1% to 6% of trips by bike in just four years, showing what is possible if a city throws its muscle into better bike infrastructure.
If this kind of cycling data makes your heart beat faster (it does for us!), watch the video below and then pick up a copy of the book.
The Advance Symposia are free sessions offered on zoom. We will hold two more: Lessons from Latin America on December 7, 2021, and California Advocacy Success Stories on February 22, 2022. Our in-person California Bicycle Summit will take place in Oakland on April 6-9, 2022. You can register for the Symposia and get a special early-bird rate for the Summit (until November 30, 2021) at calbike.org/summit.
