Cycling or Not? How Urban Policy Influence the Bicycle Evolution in Shanghai and its Impact on Local Cyclists

摘要

Bike has a long history in China. In 1980s, China was known as “the kingdom of bicycle”. Shanghaiwas once the largest national bicycle manufacture base, and cycling continues to be one of the mostimportant commuting modes in Shanghai. However, Shanghai’s bicycle mode share reduced more than60% from 1995 to 2009. In the last few decades, no legitimate bicycle transportation policy in Shanghaiwas developed. Were the previous urban policy and planning account for the decline of cycling use? If so,to what extent had these urban policies influenced the bicycle usership in Shanghai?This paper aims to answer three of the following questions:1) Which urban policies were germane to the development of cycling based on reviewing the bicycledevelopment trend in shanghai?2) How did the previous policies influence cycling in Shanghai. Why did that happen?3) How did these policies affect local cyclists?This paper is arranged in three main sections. The first section reviews data based on statisticalrecord, examines the bicycle evolution in Shanghai and analyzes previous urban policies adopted whichare pertained to the development of bicycle transportation in the same decade. The second sectionanalyzes how these policies influence cycling and its environment. Based on the analysis of survey data,the paper discusses the change of the local cyclists’ travel characteristics due to the impact of the abovepolicies. Finally, implications are drawn to determine what the criteria of a sustainable cycling policy are.