Local Environment, Vol. 5, No.

1, 83–95, 2000

VIEWPOINT

Bike Networking in Rio: the

challenges for non-motorised transport
in an automobile-dominated
government culture
ALFREDO SIRKIS

ABSTRACT Rio de Janeiro has developed, since 1992, an 84 km cycling

network, more as the outcome of green and NGO lobbying than of clear cut and
continuous government choices. The city transport policies are widely dominated
by car and bus oriented priorities with insufŽ cient investment in rail, ferryboat
and other mass transport options. Bicycle use is potentially part of a new policy
aimed at reducing automobile dependence and its social and environmental
consequences. The Rio experience was in uenced by the Dutch example,
especially the Amsterdam achievements. The process of building this cycling
infrastructure is also a political and cultural one, sometimes encountering tough
resistance from some sectors of the city government and the public, hostile to an
investment they consider futile. However, opinion polls conducted in Rio have
shown impressive support for bike networking. The main conditions for success
are: good integration, maintenance and security; appropriate support infrastruc-
ture; and continuity with regular investments and upgrading.

Introduction
The public demand for the construction of a cycling network in Rio de Janeiro
since 1985–86, together with several cyclist demonstrations, led to the construc-
tion in 1991 of the Ž rst bicycle tracks along the famous beaches of Ipanema,
Copacabana and Barra da Tijuca. The project was called Rio Orla and it was
aimed at restructuring the seafront sidewalks as the city looked forward to
hosting UNCED in 1992. In the 1992–96 period the construction of a new
cycling infrastructure gained momentum and bicycle use expanded. By the end
of 1999 Rio had 84 kilometres of bike tracks and lanes, including a connection
from the residential middle-class south zone to the downtown area. Since 1997
the construction of the bicycle infrastructure has slowed down.1 Nevertheless,
the idea of bike use as alternative transportation has virtually won its place in
the city’s culture.
Though smaller and less comprehensive than several Dutch and north Eu-
Fundação Ondazul, Rua Alcindo Guanabara 15 sala 1401, Centro 20031-130, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Email: sirkis@ax.apc.org

1354-9839 Print/1469-6711 Online/00/010083-13 Ó 2000 Taylor & Francis Ltd.

 A. Sirkis

TABLE 1. Intermodal split of daily trips in the metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro*

Buses 61.02%
Cars (includes taxis) 11.5%
Trains 3.13%
Subway 2.28%
Ferryboats 0.66%
Motorcycle 0.26%
Other 0.17%
Total motorised (10.4 million daily trips) 79.04%
On foot 19.68%
Bicycle (170 000 users in the metropolitan area and 78 000 in the city) 1.28%
Total non-motorised (2.7 million daily trips) 20.96%

Note: * Population: in the metropolitan area, 10 million. In the city of Rio de Janeiro, 5.5 million.

ropean cities’ bike networks, Rio’s is quite impressive considered in the context
of Brazilian and Latin American big cities. Although it has been well rated in
opinion polls 2 and can be considered part of an effort to reduce automobile use,
and consequently, CO2 and local-effect pollutants, the establishment of a bicycle
network was never a clear-cut choice of the city government but the result of
intense green and NGO lobbying 3 at Ž rst, and then of a rather isolated effort by
the city’s environmental department. This had little support and, occasionally,
some hostility, from the transport and urban development departments, continu-
ously in uenced by conceptions favouring investments in ever-expanding ex-
pressways, viaducts, tunnels and broader carriageways, under the hegemony of
automobile and bus-oriented policies.
Research in 1994 4 gave us the proŽ le of Rio’s urban transport use set out in
Table 1. This picture illustrates the dominance of bus commuting. As in most big
cities of the South, it plays the role carried out in big European or Japanese cities
by rail mass transport. Another aspect to observe, of course, is the role of the
automobile. There are approximately 1.7 million cars in Rio. Big investments in
motorised transport in the last 30 years5 have not been sufŽ cient to cope with a
constant growth in car trafŽ c. The consequences are quite obvious: congestion,
increased emission of pollutants, social inequalities, decay in the overall quality
of life, loss of diversity in most neighbourhoods.
The city’s fastest growing area, Barra da Tijuca, to the south, is a good
example of modernist urban planning favouring extreme automobile dependence.
Masterminded in the 1960s by the famous architect and urban planner Lucio
Costa (a talented Le Corbusier disciple also responsible, in the 1950s, for the
Brasilia urban development project) this area is mainly occupied by high-rise
upper middle-class condominiums and American-style shopping malls with
virtually no traditional urban tissue such as streets, sidewalks or corner shops.
A new transport paradigm for Rio would have to consider the following
strategic goals:
· reducing the demand for transport by promoting mixed-use neighbourhoods
and telecommuting;
84
 Viewpoint

· switching investment from new express roads and other automobile priority
infrastructure to well balanced inter-modal mass commuting projects;
· investing in rail mass transport: trains, subway and modern tramways;
· rationalising bus transport, establishing free corridors and inter-modal net-
working;
· expanding bay and sea-coast ferryboat and catamaran lines;
· implementing private car use restrictions in some areas of the city and
trafŽ c-calming urban design;
· upgrading and expanding constantly non-motorised transport infrastructure
favouring pedestrian comfort and cycle networking.
Bicycle use is therefore just one aspect of this new paradigm. Some of its
elements have started to develop in the depths of the hegemonic automobile-
dominated transport model. The percentage of bicycle transportation use found
in the 1994 study (1.28% of the daily trips, or 168.369 cyclists in the
metropolitan area and 77.627 in the city of Rio itself) can seem very modest but,
compared with other low Ž gures related to fairly traditional means of mass
transportation such as the trains (3.13%), subway (2.28%) and ferryboats
(0.66%), it becomes somewhat more signiŽ cant. There are 3 million bicycles in
the city of Rio. The study excluded recreational uses, limiting its scope strictly
to home–workplace bike trips which, as we shall see later, are not the only
possible transport use. In a subsequent 1995 poll, 14% of the interviewees said
they had already used bicycles for transport purposes, 71% said that they might
eventually use them and only 15% asserted bluntly they would never do so.
Another poll, aimed speciŽ cally at three west-zone low-income neighbour-
hoods, found substantially higher Ž gures in daily bike use to workplace destina-
tions and other kinds of non-recreational trips. 6 Some 52% claimed to own a
bicycle. Among those owners, 34% said they used it for transportation, 58% just
for leisure and 8% claimed never to use it.

Some Dutch In uence

The action in Rio was very much in uenced by a 1993 Amsterdam visit. This
omnipresent network, well connected to other transport modalities and built in
a clever, socially and administratively integrated fashion, was a good source of
inspiration though there are big differences in scale, and social, economic and
cultural conditions. Amsterdam started to act systematically on its bicycle-ways
system in 1979 by forming a special working group composed of several
municipal departments and users. Fifteen years of planning, well-integrated
action and a regular budget resulted in the construction of an enviable network
of bike lanes, tracks and parking facilities, quickly accessible in any part of the
city. This accomplishment was favoured by a historical-cultural inheritance: the
bicycle was very much used in the city up to the 1950s. From the 1960s to the
end of the 1980s, as elsewhere, there was an important automobile boom that
strongly undermined bicycle use.
The resistance to increasing pollutants and uncontrollable trafŽ c intensiŽ ed
from 1975 on, when the Dutch Union of Cyclists (ENFB), was formed and
started to lobby for greater bicycle use and limiting automobile use. The ENFB
85
 A. Sirkis

FIGURE 2. View of the Sugar Loaf, the Guanabara

Bay and Mané Garrincha Cycle Way.

FIGURE 1. Bicycle way along Ipanema beach.

FIGURE 3. Family biking in Copacabana.

won political in uence, particularly through city councillor Michael Van de Vlis,
who became responsible for trafŽ c and transport policies in 1978. In the 1980s
the working group could rely on annual budgets that varied between
US$500 000 and US$2.5 million, destined to deal at Ž rst with what they called
the bikers’ ‘bottlenecks’ , critical points for the cyclists. Federal and state
resources, destined for more extensive bike tracks in parks, and alongside
highways and channels were also made available.
It is important to point out the role of ENFB, whose volunteers worked on the
streets preparing sketches of suggestions to be developed later by city techni-
cians. The group was capable of elaborating and discussing in detail about 10
projects per month and of planning the solution for 200 critical bottlenecks in
several neighbourhoods. All public works plans in the city were discussed
previously with the working group, thus allowing the bicycle-ways system
expansion plan to take advantage of every new regular re-urbanising, drainage
or other street reform works, favouring the construction of bicycle lanes, tracks
and parking racks at a substantially lower cost. By 1993, 26% of the daily
displacements in the city were made by bicycle (34% by car and 40% on public
transportation: subway, trolley trams and buses). Some 80% of the inhabitants of
the city own a bicycle, although only half of them use it on a daily basis. The
inhibiting elements seem to be thefts, the difŽ culty of transporting objects and
cold and rainy weather.
86
 Viewpoint

Bike Networking as a Political Challenge

The Ž rst bicycle ways built in Rio along the beaches, in 1992, met some
criticism that was assuaged in the Ž erce discussions about the Rio Orla
re-urbanisation project itself. They were seen as basically recreational, which is
only partially true. The clashes over whether or not bike ways were a real
transport alternative heated up in the second phase. Work began in 1994 on the
14 km Mané Garrincha bike track, connecting Copacabana to downtown Rio
right through a dense urban area and interfering (quite moderately) with the
trafŽ c and reducing some parking space. Opponents of the project and some of
the press argued loudly that the whole idea was crazy and would not suit the
city’s hot climate, describing bicycle transportation use as ‘cold-country stuff’
that could only be successful in cities such as Amsterdam or Copenhagen.
Anybody familiar with the rainy climate, cold winter and chilly winds of the
north of Europe can easily see that this was plain nonsense and that Brazilian
climate conditions are actually much more favourable to regular bicycle use for
short and average distances (up to 15 km) than in Europe. As for the ‘heat factor’
it is, of course, perfectly viable to have schools, ofŽ ces, shopping malls and
speciŽ c public lavatories provide shower facilities and public changing rooms
for employees, students or users. In a 1995 poll7 this factor revealed itself as
quite unimportant: only 1.36% mentioned ‘heat factor’ as a liability.
In fact, the potential for bike ways in Brazil is immense, not only in large
cities but, in particular, in small and medium-size ones with a tradition of bicycle
use. There is, though, a serious obstacle: insecurity due to chaotic and dangerous
trafŽ c and the risk of being mugged or having one’s bike stolen. In the same poll
28.9% mentioned these as major inhibitors. In Brazilian cities the use of
physically unprotected bicycle lanes (ciclofaixas) is not a safe enough solution.
Having a painted lane for bicycles can represent a Ž rst step, better than no
separate marked cycling space at all, but a network depending exclusively on
bike lanes, quite common in several European and American cities, would tend
to attract a very limited number of users in addition to those brave ones who
already take their chances amidst the city’s chaotic trafŽ c.
In large Brazilian cities it is important to have separate cycle tracks (ciclovias)
though one cannot always discard lanes, well demarcated by yellow-painted
strips with beams, in those places where it is not possible or not yet possible to
build bike tracks, physically separated from the carriageway and also from the
sidewalk. Sometimes an unprotected lane is a Ž rst step towards a proper bicycle
way in the future. An example of this is the João Saldanha bicycle way, between
Ipanema and Copacabana. In 1992 it was improved as a 4.5 m wide bike lane
on Francisco Otaviano street, connecting two heavy-trafŽ cked beachside avenues
with separate bike ways alongside the beachfront sidewalks. The street has
several shops, a school and a church, and parking in the bicycle lane became
frequent (as well as on the sidewalk itself). Cars trying to force their way
through trafŽ c jams often invaded it. Several serious accidents, including two
fatal ones, occurred when bikers were hit by cars. In 1995 the lane was
transformed into a 3 m wide protected cycle track. There was a Ž erce uproar
especially from shopkeepers, residents and students’ parents who used to park
87
 A. Sirkis

their cars on the lane or on the sidewalk. The priest presented a protest petition
with more than a thousand signatures and there were furious letters in the
newspapers.
Through dialogue, persuasion and some minor concessions the environmental
department managed to calm the quarrel. It was possible to demonstrate that
conditions for bikers and pedestrians were to improve. Even the drivers would
beneŽ t from a wider carriageway with no parking on the right-hand side. The
resistance that would have been too big to handle politically in 1992, when there
was virtually no visible bicycle use on that street, in 1995 was still quite tough
but could be overcome since it became clear to most people that protecting the
cyclist properly and keeping the cars from parking on the lane and blocking
them from the sidewalk was, after all, a reasonable decision.
The process of building all these cycling facilities was combined with several
public campaigns, some organised by the environmental department, some
spontaneous. The most interesting of the latter kind was the 1993 Tuesday Night
Bikers. This was a weekly evening ride with several thousand bicycles along the
south-zone beachfront to downtown. It followed the route of the beach bicycle
ways (the Mane Garrincha one was still being planned) but on the avenues.
Other trafŽ c was diverted, and police motorcyclists and ambulances
accompanied the ride. It was a sport and leisure event but helped to create
momentum for cycleways. Other events generally linked to bikers’ environ-
mental education were promoted directly by the environmental department;
there were also lea ets published and TV broadcasts focusing on cycling trafŽ c
rules.
Establishing a bike network in a big city is a step-by-step process where the
important thing is to gradually upgrade safety and comfort conditions, as well as
providing cultural stimulus for bicycle use. This is not always successful. In
New York the experience seems to have backŽ red. In Paris it appears difŽ cult
to expand it beyond the Boulevard Saint Germain. Some Asian cities, particu-
larly in China, appear to be downgrading the cyclists, but others have created
different forms of coexistence. Tokyo, for instance, has a high rate of bicycle
use, lots of parking facilities but no cycleways. Cyclists share sidewalks with
pedestrians. Cycling, generally combined with rail, accounts for 13% of Japan’s
daily short-distance trips. Sidewalk sharing is an experience that certainly cannot
be reproduced in other contexts, in less spatially disciplined cultures, but it
illustrates the idea that bicycle ways are just one element of the equation. Even
when we cannot build a bike track or outline a lane, there are other possible
actions: a small ramp, a passage, Ž lling holes in the asphalt near the sidewalk
where bikers ride, all micro-interventions that improve cycling conditions.
It is also important to understand that bicycle ways are destined for the
common user, not for experienced and well-trained cyclists who, in general,
prefer the trafŽ c and like to speed in hallucinating zigzags competing with the
cars. As we build cycling infrastructure in a big city we want to stimulate
bicycle use for trips to the beach, shopping, school, ofŽ ce or movies by people
who previously did not cycle. We know this represents fewer cars in a trafŽ c
jam or fewer passengers commuting in crowded buses. If we achieve the goal of
having a signiŽ cant portion of short-distance urban trips by bicycle we will
88
 Viewpoint

obviously reduce local pollution effects and CO2 emissions and improve the
quality of life in various ways.

Several Strategic Elements

In fact, public works to make cycleways or lanes are part of a range of
interventions destined to stimulate and to give more safety and comfort to the
user of the bicycle as means of transport. The design manual of Dutch trafŽ c
engineering 8 lists Ž ve basic requirements for a successful cycle network:
· coherence: forming a coherent unit and links with all departure points and
destinations of cyclists;
· directness: offering as direct a route as possible;
· attractiveness: design Ž tting in with the surroundings so as to make cycling
there as attractive as possible;
· safety: maximum guarantee for cyclists and other road users;
· comfort: enabling a quick and comfortable  ow of bicycle trafŽ c.
These criteria are applied to all different aspects of the process of establishing
the cycle network. In Holland and several other European countries there are
national policies that help local non-motorised transport programmes by at least
creating a favourable administrative environment. A cautious and detailed
planning process precedes action. In Brazilian cities, and speciŽ cally in the Rio
case, conditions are quite different and very much related to an ongoing political
struggle to afŽ rm the pertinence of non-motorised alternative transport and then
cope with bureaucratic obstacles and budget restraints.
In these conditions that might be similar in other cities in the South (and in
the North), where the government and most of the public are still very much
exclusively motorised-transport oriented, implementation should also take into
account some strategic elements. These are very much linked to administrative
and, thereby, political conditions: the demonstration effect; good social and
administrative integration; the importance of efŽ cient maintenance; the basic
support infrastructure and, last but not least, continuity.

The Demonstration Effect

It is convenient to start in an area of high visibility in order to create a cultural
impact and an effect multiplier. In the case of Rio de Janeiro it was apposite to
start from the seafront and the connection of the middle-class south zone to
downtown. As we have mentioned before, there was some harsh criticism in the
media, by the city council and within the administration itself. The main
resistance came from drivers living in areas where cycleways were likely to
suppress street parking space (frequently blocking illegal parking on the side-
walk). These criticisms, though strident, did not Ž nd much of an echo among the
overall public. Polls conducted in different areas of the city demonstrated an
impressive approval level of up to 88%. Most of the constructed cycleways
became highly successful, in particular the Mane Garrincha and the beachfront
89
 A. Sirkis

ones. The exception was the Ayrton Senna bike track alongside 12-lane Ameri-
cas Avenue in Barra da Tijuca, used only by a relatively small number of bikers.
Another kind of criticism levelled later on was that these bicycle ways were
in fact more for leisure use than for transportation and that they privileged the
wealthier neighbourhoods of the city. Also mentioned was the fact that they were
executed without a previous master plan. These restrictions are partially correct
but should be put into context. It is a fact that the Mane Garrincha did not lead
to a massive use of people biking to downtown work destinations coming from
the south-zone neighborhoods. Its access to the downtown area has a lack-of-di-
rectness problem. The bike track becomes a ‘shared strip’ and makes a detour
through Flamengo Park, which is not the shortest route. Shorter access routes
bypassing the park had been planned but were not executed, owing to budget
cuts when the expansion pace slowed down abruptly in mid-1996.
Thus most of Rio’s bicycle trafŽ c is concentrated between three south-zone
neighbourhoods, Flamengo, Botafogo and Copacabana, where there are bay and
ocean beaches, lots of street commerce, big shopping malls, schools and
universities, movies, in mixed-use high-density streets. This bicycle way is
intensely used every day with a strong increase at weekends. Though the bikers’
destinies are beaches or commercial premises rather than the workplace, and
these bike trips are often associated with the idea of getting some physical
exercise and contemplating the beauty of Rio’s south seafront, they should still
be considered as alternative transportation use since they replace a potential
journey by car or bus. SpeciŽ c leisure bicycle use, with no transport signiŽ cance,
is in fact limited to situations where one bike’s around in a home-to-home
destination just for fun or physical exercise, or when someone puts his or her
bike on a car rack, drives to a park, bikes there and then drives back. The
transport logic is given by the substitution of a motorised mode by a non-mo-
torised one and thus should include a wider range of bike trips than simply the
residence–work pattern.
The most intense bicycle use to the workplace or to train, subway or bus
stations was clearly identiŽ ed in our polls in the west zone of the city. It became
quite obvious that an important investment should be made in the area. A third
phase of the cycleways programme was included in the 1996 budget but was
severely cut by a mayoral decision limiting the investment to those cycleways
already under construction at that time. In the following years, budgets were kept
at a lower level limiting the development of the network in that area of the city.
It would have been good to have a previous city-scale master plan and
meticulous studies but the fragile political conditions under which we had to
intervene conditioned this style of opportunity planning and action, a sort of
‘let’s go for it!’ strategy. It was important to start the programme in the most
visible area of the city, where it would inevitably have the biggest cultural
impact and also the toughest opposition. It would not have especially advanced
our purpose beginning timidly in a park, some discreet-route through secondary
streets, or a peripheral industrial zone with consistent bike use but far from the
city’s cultural and political centre. The genesis of the cycleways in a city where
there has been no previous consensus and where such a plan is the subject of a
political clash should have as much visibility as possible. Therefore, in coastal
90
 Viewpoint

or riverine cities it is a good idea to start from a valued waterfront and in other
cities from a highly cherished area that could meet this purpose and become
fashionable. The next step, however, should favour itineraries with the largest
number of bicycles and possible connections with other transportation systems
such as train and subway stations, bus terminals and stops, assessed in detailed
studies searching for the best alternatives.

Integration
It is very important that integration be achieved:
· internal to the city administration;
· with users and concerned citizens in general;
· with other transportation systems.
Integration within the local administration itself is extremely important but can
be, as in the Rio case, somewhat difŽ cult. The best practice for implanting a bike
network involves a united and well co-ordinated effort encompassing different
sectors of the municipal administration. Taking advantage of every single
re-urbanising work to expand the cycle network at low cost is absolutely crucial.
Missing the occasion does not mean just a lost opportunity to reduce costs 9 but
a near-fatal postponement. Once the street works are completed it will be highly
inconvenient to break everything up again a few months later to build the
missing cycleway. Therefore every time a street reform does not involve cycling
infrastructure it is in fact relegating it to a distant and unforeseeable future.
Unfortunately, and quite different from what happened in Amsterdam, in the
Rio experience this kind of integration was not granted systematically. Some-
times it did happen as in the Rio Orla Project, but most of the time it did not.
A major setback was the high-proŽ le Rio Cidade re-urbanising project remaking
the sidewalks and urban installations in several of the most important axes of
different parts of the city, in the 1995–96 period. In general it improved
pedestrian conditions but very little cycling infrastructure was integral to it
because of the opposition of the urban development department and its contrac-
ted architects’ ofŽ ces, and intense political rivalry between the urban develop-
ment and environment departments.
The ideal instrument for integration is a working group where several
municipal and state organs are involved and users represented. In Rio the
municipal Working Group for Cycle Systems was created in 1993 and chaired
by the secretary for the environment. It became a very useful forum and a
planning collective where bottlenecks and critical points were detected and
interventions decided and plans for new bicycle ways were discussed. The best
ally in this kind of planning is the inveterate cyclist who knows each detail of
a route and is capable of proposing practical solutions. There was also some
planning over a long period; the priority routes were determined according to
bicycle  ows and possible links to the public transport system. Around 500 km
of bicycle tracks and lanes were planned. The integration between the various
municipal departments became effective at the technical level but was frequently
jeopardised by political inŽ ghting at the higher echelon.
91
 A. Sirkis

Good Maintenance
This is crucial. Cycleways should always have speciŽ c conservation contracts,
because they are a much more delicate type of infrastructure than roads and
carriageways. An attentive eye to drainage performance following every rainfall
event is important since rainwater plays a serious role in degrading the cycleway.
In a hot climate, it is more convenient to use concrete than the more abrasive
asphalt. The Ž rst cycle tracks on the beachfront were made of common asphalt;
later on red concrete was used. Neither resists poor maintenance. Taking good
care of the bike-trafŽ c signs is also very important. In Rio they are submitted to
intense vandalism. Recently cycleways conservation has been poor and this, of
course, does not stimulate use expansion.

Security
The security aspects should be considered from the beginning of the project and
in every phase. The cycleway should always be very well illuminated, avoiding
empty places or areas with poor visibility that can favour muggers. The presence
of the police or security guard bikers patrol is an important factor in reducing
insecurity. In Rio the Environmental Detachment of the Municipal Guard formed
a special bikers’ squad to protect users and enforce bike-trafŽ c rules. The results
were fairly good, and the bicycle ways in Rio are reasonably safe.
Absolute security, of course, is nigh on impossible. But visible patrolling day
and night integrated into a general crime-prevention strategy for the whole
neighbourhood is very important. Bicycle policing has its speciŽ c role as it gives
better observation conditions than patrolling by car and greater mobility than on
foot. In the night period it is also a dissuasion element to vandalism such as
grafŽ ti, and destruction of signposts and bicycle-parking racks. Coping with
common theft is quite difŽ cult even in European and American cities. Amster-
dam, for example, has an extremely high rate of bicycle theft. The solution, in
this case, is not to use locks with  exible steel cable, which is relatively easy to
cut, but the two-piece hard metal variety.
Another problem concerning bike use in Rio is transgression by bikers, drivers
and pedestrians. Cariocas (Rio’s inhabitants) are notoriously undisciplined
drivers and pedestrians and it would be a true miracle if they became prudent
and rule-abiding bikers. With the bicycle boom, after 1992, there was also a
steady increase in accidents involving bikers. A set of rules was approved by the
city council after long discussions in the working group, with bikers, trafŽ c
specialists, etc.
These rules try to prevent the cyclists from racing at high speed; pedalling in
the left lane of the bidirectional tracks; doing acrobatic or imprudent manoeu-
vres; disrespecting pedestrians’ crossing priority at the intermittent red light; or
stopping in the middle of the cycle way to talk to someone on the sidewalk.
Pedestrians should not walk inside the cycle track or lane (unless it has as a
‘shared strip’ status). Two tracks only (in Flamengo Park and around Rodrigo de
Freitas lake) have ‘shared strip’ status where people can both walk and bike,
with priority for pedestrians. These are speciŽ c situations related to the absence
92
 Viewpoint

of sidewalk space. The general rule in Rio’s cycleways is that you can also run
or skate (if on the correct side) but not walk in them. Learners or unŽ t skaters
are also forbidden. Other rules Ž ne severely motorcycles or cars parking in the
cycle network. Some of the Ž nes are severe but enforcement is weak and
disregard runs high.

Support Infrastructure
Well-organised storage facilities with bicycle-parking racks are important to
stimulate bike use and they can precede the construction of cycleways. One of
the obstacles to bicycle use is, of course, not having a safe place to leave it.
Train stations or subway, bus or ferryboat terminals, shopping, clubs, movies,
parks, beaches, squares are all areas that need to have bike-parking racks with
someone in charge. The racks in Rio were inspired by the Amsterdam model and
enhanced and adapted to speciŽ c local circumstances.
We have already mentioned, in the case of hot-climate cities, the demand for
public and private showers and dressing rooms. It is important as well to have
bike maintenance shops at strategic points of the cycle network. Cheap rental
bikes that can be returned at different location points around the network are also
a very important element in this support infrastructure. Copenhagen has a
one-thousand-bicycle City Bike system with automatic coin locks in 120 racks
scattered around the whole city centre. This kind of service maximises the
potential for bike use and can be achieved by partnership with the private sector.

Continuity
This is the basic element for a successful cycling network. In the same way that
continuing to pedal is vital to prevent a bicycle from falling over, expanding the
city cycling network is vital to consolidate alternative non-motorised transport.
A constantly upgraded bicycle infrastructure will attract more and more users,
help to reduce automobile use, congestion and pollution, and humanise and add
charm to a city.
Discontinuity is one of the chronicle difŽ culties in Brazilian public adminis-
tration. Rio’s cycle network has suffered from this but, nevertheless, it is likely
to survive and expand in the future. The creation and good maintenance of a
network of cycleways and support infrastructure capable of stimulating an
increase in safe bike use is just one of the many components of sustainable urban
transport. Probably not the main one, it certainly does play a role that should not
be neglected. It is a relatively cheap but promising investment for any city that
would like to promote a new paradigm and to associate its image with this
ancient yet modern tool of free and environmentally clean human-powered
transport.

93
 A. Sirkis

Notes
[1] Cycleways built in the 1991–92 period:

Area Length in km Zone

Copacabana, Leme, Ipanema and Leblon beaches** 13 South Seafront

São Conrado beach** 2 South Seafront
Barra of Tijuca beach** 13.5 South Seafront
Maracanã Stadium 1 North
Rodrigo of Freitas lake (shared pedestrian/bike strip) 7.5 South
Total 37

Note: ** Built as part of the Rio Orla project.

In the 1994–96 period:

Area Length in km Zone

Mané Garrincha (Copacabana-Flamengo) 14 South/centre

Marechal Rondon (Copacabana) 1 South
João Saldanha (Copacabana– Ipanema) 1 South
Rubro Negra (Leblon–Lagoa–Gávea) 3 South
Praia do Dendê 1.5 North
Orlinha 1.5 Centre
Ayrton Senna (Barra da Tijuca) 8 West
Av. Automovel Clube 4 North
Total 34

In the 1997–99 period:

Area Length in km Zone

Bangu 4 West
Campo Grande 4 West
Avenida Meriti 3 North
Jardim America 2 North
Parque da Catacumba 0.5 South
Total 13.5

Note: Rio’s bicycle network budget expenses (in US dollars) 1994–750 000; 1995–1 650 000; 1996–
2 200 000; 1997–300 000; 1998–820 000; 1999 (forecast)—820 000. (The 1991 and 1992 estimates are not
available as there was no speciŽ c budget. Cycleways in this period were integrated into the Rio Orla and
Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas re-urbanising projects. In 1993 there was no investment budget for cycleways
works but it was a very important organising and planning year).

[2] An April 1995 poll by Infoglobo research institute, linked to O Globo daily newspaper with the residents
of the Rio south-zone neighbourhoods, asked: “What is the main reason that, in your opinion, inhibits
people from biking for transportation purposes?” Responses were as follows: dangerous trafŽ c, 11.22%;
personal safety risk, 9.87%; distance and time, 8.03%; absence of bicycle parking racks, 7.81%; health
reasons, 6.30%; unfavourable topography, 2.13%; absence of dressing rooms and shower, 1.36%; other
reasons, 11.22%.
A December 1994 poll (researched focus group: total 500; gender: 45% male, 55% female; age: 38%
up to 20, 34% from 21 to 30, 15.4% from 31 to 40; 8.2% from 41 to 50; 4.2% over 50) conducted by
the State University of Rio (UERJ) in the low-income west zone of the city showed: bike ownership— yes,
51.4%; no, 48.6%; owners’ use—just for leisure/exercise, 57.6%; for transport, 34.3%; do not use at all,
8.1%; would use more frequently if there were—bicycle ways, 66.6%; safe bike-parking racks, 14.7%;
showers/dressing rooms, 5.7%; never would, 9.5%; opinion about having cycleways in the neighbour-
hood—very important, 88.2%; not very important, 9.2%; against, 2.6%.
[3] In 1985, 1986, 1990, 1991 and 1993 there were cyclist demonstrations organised by the Green Party and

94
 Viewpoint
by NGOs, demanding the construction of cycleways in Rio. Three successive mayors—Saturnino Braga
(1985–88); Marcello Alencar (1989–92) and César Maia (1993–96)—agreed publicly and/or signed ofŽ cial
programme compromises with the Green Party to build them.
[4] See IPLANRIO (1994).
[5] US$35 billion, in the 1960–94 period, in the Rio metropolitan area.
[6] See poll in note 2.
[7] See poll in note 2.
[8] See CROW (1994).
[9] The estimated average cost for a bicycle lane or track without pavement reforming using the existing
asphalt, with separation elements and signs, is US$20 000 per km. For a specially built bidirectional red
concrete bicycle track, 3 m wide, with signposts and 5 m re-urbanising perimeter, the cost is US$140 000
per km. Diluted in a larger re-urbanising project these costs fall dramatically and are limited to speciŽ c
cycle pavement signalling strips, signposts and bike-parking racks.

References
Centre for Research and Standardisation in Civil and TrafŽ c Engineering (CROW) (1994) Sign up for the Bike:
design manual for a cycle- friendly infrastructure (The Netherlands, CROW).
Dutch Cyclists’ Federation (1984) Grassroots and Community Participation in the Bicycle Master Plan (The
Netherlands, Dutch Cyclists’ Federation).
Engwicht, D. (1992) Towards an Ecocity: calming the trafŽ c (Sydney, Envirobook).
IPLANRIO (1994) The ProŽ le of the Urban Transport User in the Metropolitan Area (Rio de Janeiro,
IPLANRIO).
Sirkis, A. (1996) Verde Carioca (Rio de Janeiro, Ed. Record).
Sirkis, A. (1999) Ecologia Urbana e Poder Local (Rio de Janeiro, Fundação Ondazul).

95