Bike blog | The Guardian – Tagged "Environment" – Page 13

Africa, Cities, Environment, Inequality, Race, South Africa, World news - June 26, 2019

How apartheid killed Johannesburg's cycling culture

Racial segregation meant cycling lost status in South Africa earlier and more intensely than in the rest of the western world

Cycling Cities: the Johannesburg Experience is published by the Foundation for the History of Technology

“The writer counted, in the space of only four minutes, 93 native cyclists riding past the Astra theatre,” wrote a journalist for the Star newspaper in July 1940. Standing almost 80 years later on the same corner of Louis Botha Avenue at the same time and day of the week – 6.30pm on a Monday – it is hard to imagine. The theatre is long gone and not a single cyclist is to be seen on the car-choked thoroughfare.

What happened to Johannesburg’s once vibrant commuter cycling culture? The dominance of the automobile marginalised the bicycle in many cities around the world through the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s but that process was accelerated in South Africa by apartheid. When policies of spatial segregation forcibly moved black people to faraway townships at the periphery of the city, the distance between work and home increased dramatically and cycling collapsed as an everyday practice.

It may be said of the Johannesburg child that he learns to cycle before he can walk

Members of Johannesburg Amateur Bicycling Club, a white leisure cycling group, in the 1890s

Alexander Township residents ride bicycles in 1957 as part of a boycott of bus services in protest at high fares

Left: two men pose proudly with their bicycles in 1922. Right: 1890s Johannesburg

Workers from a white working-class neighbourhood cycle towards the then city centre

Left: white children’s bicycles at an airshow. Right: Alexandra Township residents discuss the 1957 bus boycott

What £1.4bn buys: 1,800 miles of cycle lanes or one big roundabout

What happened to Chris Boardman’s plans for the UK’s biggest cycle route network in Greater Manchester?

Almost exactly a year ago, Chris Boardman – the Olympic champion turned walking and cycling czar – revealed a bold vision: Greater Manchester was to turn itself into a Dutch-style cycling paradise by building a huge, joined-up 1,000-mile network of walking and biking routes called Beelines, after Manchester’s civic symbol, the worker bee.

A year on, the network has changed its name to the Bee Network after a rather embarrassing copyright infringement, and has now expanded to cover 1,800 miles. Yet so far, only only one tiny section – a bit of towpath in Wigan known as the “muddy mile” – has actually been started, and the first wodge of money has already gone.

Share your photos of the best and worst cycling infrastructure in your cities

Some cities feature spectacular bridges, bike paths and transport hubs designed with cyclists in mind, while others remain less than cycle-friendly. We want to see your examples, both good and bad

Some of the best and worst of examples of cycling infrastructure in cities have hit the headlines this week. On Monday, the Bicycle Architecture Biennale – which celebrates cutting edge designs from around the world – launched in Amsterdam. Schemes included a 8km bicycle skyway in Xiamen – China’s first suspended cycle path and the world’s longest aerial cycle lane, and projects from cities as far afield as Australia, the US and of course the Netherlands.

Build it and they will bike: the second Bicycle Architecture Biennale – in pictures

15 projects from nine countries have been selected for the second Bicycle Architecture Biennale, which launches on Monday in Amsterdam

• Guardian Cities is running a short series next week on urban cycling around the world – from Dublin to Johannesburg, Berlin to Karachi

The depressing lesson of west London's lost cycle route

Kensington and Chelsea council has blocked a flagship plan after a campaign based largely on myths

More or less every time a city orders a report into how expanding populations can be moved around in efficient ways that also improve liveability and sustainability, the same answer comes back: active travel – that is, more walking and cycling.

And yet in many of those same cities, when specific plans are introduced to make walking and cycling safer and more pleasant, they face a fierce backlash, which can be sufficiently noisy and disruptive to scupper the schemes.

Read more

Environment RSS

How apartheid killed Johannesburg's cycling culture

What £1.4bn buys: 1,800 miles of cycle lanes or one big roundabout

Share your photos of the best and worst cycling infrastructure in your cities

Build it and they will bike: the second Bicycle Architecture Biennale – in pictures

The depressing lesson of west London's lost cycle route

Tags