Cycling the city
Stories about cycling in cities around the world. Contact: nick.mead@theguardian.com
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Did Seattle's mandatory helmet law kill off its bike-share scheme?Seattle has become the first major US city to shut a public bike share scheme. Was it the helmet law … or the lack of cycle lanes and the city’s notorious hills and rain?
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Is London's new cycling tsar too nice to face down the bike-haters?Sadiq Khan made big promises to make London bike-friendly, and now it’s up to Will Norman to deliver. In a rare interview, the walking and cycling commissioner defends his plans
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Uber for bikes: how 'dockless' cycles flooded China – and are heading overseasNew cycle-share firms in China allow you to simply drop your bike wherever you want. They have caused colourful chaos – and world cities could be next
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Cardiff v Cambridge: can the Welsh capital steal the crown of Britain's top cycling city?Cardiff’s ambitious new cycling strategy aims to double the number of trips taken by bike, part of its ultimate goal to become Europe’s most liveable capital. But Cambridge, the reigning champ of cycling, won’t be beaten easily
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Houston's hit-and-run problem: ghost bikes honour 'invisible dead' cyclists1,700 cyclists have been hit by cars and trucks in four years, with one in four drivers failing to stop. Personalised ghost bikes are an effort to show people noticed when someone was killed – and give their families some closure
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Cycling heaven and Hull: can the city recapture its 1950s pedal power heyday?Poet Philip Larkin described Hull as ‘very nice and flat for cycling’ – and in the 1950s a third of the population rode regularly. It’s still flat, so why is this pioneer cycling city back-pedalling?
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Two-wheel takeover: bikes outnumber cars for the first time in CopenhagenDenmark’s capital has reached a milestone in its journey to become a cycling city – there are now more bikes than cars on the streets. Can other cities follow?
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Car-free Belgium: why can't Brussels match Ghent's pedestrianised vision?In Belgium, cars are cherished possessions and driving is a staple of everyday life. But two of its major cities are making forcible efforts to cut down the traffic on their streets – with wildly different results
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The world's worst traffic: can Jakarta find an alternative to the car?Attracted by the air-conditioning and the status, many of the 3.5 million people who commute into the hot and humid Indonesian capital come by car. With four hours in traffic not unusual, Jakarta is searching for solutions
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Could Chicago's floating cycle path defy the doubters and reconnect the city?Plans for a continuous route along the Chicago River include cycling on floating pontoons – like the controversial Thames Deckway in London. But with the US city’s cycle numbers growing, this long-held ambition could yet be realised
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Tax break proposals aim to boost cycling to workNew report by British Cycling suggests tax incentives for employees and businesses, to encourage bike commuting
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Blame it on the bike: does cycling contribute to a city's gentrification?Hostility to cyclists and bike lanes often seems to be a proxy for wider anger at gentrification. But does this urban phenomenon really arrive on two wheels – or is new cycle infrastructure a sign the street has already transformed?
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Will car drivers ever learn to share the road with bikes?In many ‘car-centric’ cities around the world, drivers still think they own the whole road – with cyclists merely unwelcome interlopers. So how do you go about changing this mindset?
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Is the mass sharing of driverless cars about to reshape our suburbs?Sidewalk Labs believes personal car ownership is about to become history, making suburbs more accessible and better for walking and cycling. But what if it simply means people shove each child into a different car to get to school?
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A world without cars: cities go car-free for the day - in picturesFrom Bogota to Paris to Istanbul, cities around the world have been imposing traffic restrictions to mark World Car-Free Day. Is it a vision of the future?
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Paris is banning traffic from half the city. Why can’t London have a car-free day?Cars will be outlawed from 400 miles of Paris streets on Sunday as the French capital joins the likes of Brussels, Bogotá, Jakarta and Copenhagen in marking World Car-Free Day. Isn’t it time for London to join the club?
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Can e-bikes revolutionise long-distance commuting?Marc Dekker commutes 80 miles a day on his high-speed e-bike. Are these powerful new bikes the long-awaited green solution for lengthy commutes?
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Sydney's 'war on cyclists': 'I got fined $106 for not having a bell'Recent changes have seen huge increases in fines for not wearing a helmet or jumping a red light. Next year it will become compulsory for all cyclists to carry identification on every trip – have state authorities gone too far?
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Bike jams and unwritten rules: a day with Amsterdam's new 'bicycle mayor'Rush-hour bike jams, speeding scooters, ignorant tourists … Amsterdam may be the world’s busiest cycling capital but it is no two-wheeled paradise. ‘Bicycle mayor’ Anna Luten is working to smooth conflict and export the lessons learned
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Bike share mapping creates beautiful portraits of London, NYC and BerlinResearchers in Germany have turned GPS data from three major world bike share programmes into living, breathing visualisations of the cities themselves
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'Get yourself a bike, perico!': how cycling is challenging Santiago's social barriersCycling is now shedding its ‘loser’ image in the Chilean capital, and bikes are enjoying a renaissance. This movement around the city has, in part, brought greater social mobility, and is bridging long-term class segregation
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Could intercity cycle highways revolutionise the daily commute?Germany is building the world’s biggest ‘bicycle autobahn’ to connect 10 cities and remove 50,000 cars from the road. With the popularity of e-bikes growing, is Europe about to see a new era of long-distance cycle commuting?
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Minneapolis tries to topple Portland as America's most cycle-friendly cityThe Twin City’s ambitious new bike plan includes 144 miles of protected lanes and a doubling of cycle numbers by 2020. Portland, though, is fighting back …
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Cycle hackers of the world unite: how a global movement grew out of GlasgowLater this month sees the third running of CycleHack, a collaborative brainstorming event which has grown to cover 38 cities on five continents. Will this year’s hacks outdo past successes like the viral hit Penny in Yo’ Pants?
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Can Johannesburg reinvent itself as Africa’s first cycle-friendly megacity?In a city of 10 million designed around the car – but where most can’t afford one – could bicycles be the answer? The legacy of apartheid planning makes change difficult but cyclists are pushing and, crucially, they have the mayor’s support
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Story of cities #30: how this Amsterdam inventor gave bike-sharing to the worldIn the 1960s, a Dutch engineer devised the ‘white bike’ plan to counter the rise of pollution and cars. His invention has since revolutionised public transport all over the world – so why has cycle-loving Amsterdam never embraced it?
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Return of the Bicycle Kingdom? How pavement cycling is transforming TaipeiTaiwan’s capital – notorious for elevated highways and swarms of scooters – is in the early stages of a cycle revolution powered by legalised sidewalk cycling and a bike-share scheme where more than half of users are women
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Getting people cycling on residential streets needs more than 20mph limitsSlower motor traffic where people live helps get people on bikes. But there also needs to be less traffic – and that means curbing rat runs,
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Streetfighting woman: inside the story of how cycling changed New YorkAs transport commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan faced down critics to transform New York with 400 miles of cycling routes, a bike share scheme and the remodelling of Times Square. Any city can do it, she tells Peter Walker
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Cash for cycling? Polluted Milan wants to pay commuters to bike to workWith its serious pollution problem and notorious driving styles, Milan is hardly renowned as a cycle-friendly city – but a radical new scheme aims to change that
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Ice cycles: the northerly world cities leading the winter bicycle revolutionOulu in Finland and Winnipeg in Canada are two winter cities with remarkably different stories. Oulu is just like Winnipeg – except for the bike paths stretching for miles in every direction and the thousands of people riding bicycles in the snow – says Winter Bike to Work Day founder Anders Swanson
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The transformation of Tel Aviv: how cycling got cool in Israel's hippest cityNot so long ago, the idea of promoting cycling was a source of hilarity for Tel Aviv’s politicians. Now it is part of the city’s culture – but there are still many problems to tackle, from chaotic streets to the summer ‘sweat factor’
City lites Anti-smog bikes: could pedal power clean China's polluted air?