A Guide for Sustainable Urban Development of the 21st Century

Sustainable Urban Transportcycling, which is now spreading all over the world. Copenhagen also has its frequent“Bicycle Account” where they do a follow-up on the goals that have been set from year2000 to improve the situation of cyclists in their city (City of Copenhagen, 2008; 2010).Engagement of urban stakeholdersThe transformation of Bogotá could be described as one which was implemented “topdown”,where the decision makers defined the policies and moved forward to implementthem. Since the policies were properly researched and had as their main goal to improvequality of life for citizens as a whole, it produced positive effects in the short, mediumand long term.However, one must also note that after some years, there was a strong emergence of localgroups related to cycling which enabled an appropriation of bicycle culture andpromotion from the citizens’ side. This complemented the “top-down” approach withseveral “bottom-up” initiatives which have been given these policies a more long-termoutlook. The strongest of these groups are Ciclopaseo de los Miércoles and Mejor enBici, both striving to find ways to promote bicycle use in the city. With their work,cycletracks have been improved and policies have been redirected towards a morecomprehensive approach to cycling as a mode of transport.In the case of Copenhagen, ideas such as “Cycle Chic” and “Copenhagenize” haveresulted in an interaction between political levels and citizen initiatives. These initiativespromote urban cycling in the city of Copenhagen as a “chic” mode of transport, whilepromoting this vision beyond the city limits, such that various cities have now developedtheir own versions of the “Copenhagen Cycle Chic” and follow this approach to promotecycling.Lessons learnedThe following lessons can be drawn from these two examples:- Cycling can be a suitable mode of transport, regardless of a city’s economicconditions, level of development and previous history.- Promoting cycling by means of infrastructure, policies and education results inhigher levels of use and greater road safety for all users.- There are many risks associated with promoting cycling, both at political andcultural levels, but these can be overcome.- Policies related to cycling policy must not be isolated from general transport andurban planning policy, and must form a coherent whole. The Bogotá andCopenhagen examples are useful because their cycling policies were part of abroader set of policies which created positive feedback to the other transportsystems.- Stakeholders must be engaged for the development of these policies, and citizenscan act as powerful agents of change in a properly developed policy. Engagingstakeholders from the outset of projects can produce greater outcomes.24