Opinion: At this year’s Olympics, Britain won an impressive 8 gold medals in cycling events. Right after the Games ended, the British government not only launched the “Daily Cycling Plan” and a “Bicycle-Themed Film Festival,” but the education sector also began offering free beginner courses, aiming to train 100,000 children in cycling skills over the next few years. To make cyclists more comfortable, they even thought of installing showers near some bike parking spots. Similar practices are not uncommon in Europe and America. What do you think about this?
Yang Xiaoguang: There was a reason why Hou Baolin’s line “His bicycle makes noise everywhere except the bell” became an overnight sensation across China. To some, bicycles are often associated with “shabby” and “backward.” But if we look at the current situation in Europe and America, most cyclists are fully equipped, making biking a cool and dignified activity. We need to realize that the popularity of cycling in these regions today is not only a continuation of their urban transport development but also a necessary response to a range of social issues.
Opinion: How do you interpret this so-called “necessity”?
Yang Xiaoguang: Looking at the evolution of transportation, European and American cities have gone through a long journey. From the era of horse-drawn carriages to the age of motor vehicles, alongside all the physical changes, a set of urban traffic culture has also taken shape. Its core issue is how motor vehicles can coexist harmoniously with people, and how users of different transport modes can get along with each other and with pedestrians. But as the number of cars increased—and various forms of improper use went unchecked—cities became more congested, and the supply-demand conflict in travel grew sharper. That’s when they started doing something important: developing public transportation extensively, especially rail and bus transit. Then, cities carried out a new round of planning, construction, and management around the needs of public transport users. Even after the public transport system became relatively complete and travel became much more convenient, congestion still persisted. After all, no matter how advanced public transport becomes, it cannot meet everyone’s needs due to limitations in capacity and conditions, so point-to-point travel inconveniences remain. As people continued to search for solutions, they gradually discovered that this gap could be filled by walking and cycling. This gave rise to the now widely discussed concept of urban slow traffic systems.
The bicycle is an inevitable choice once urban and transportation systems reach a certain stage of development. In this process, the role of the bicycle is not to replace other modes but to complement public transport.
Opinion: After all, improving public transport involves reallocating public resources. In Europe and America, how smoothly has the implementation of slow mobility systems—including cycling—gone?
Yang Xiaoguang: Creating a good environment and conditions for cycling is essential. Through the efforts promoted by the EU, a pan-European cycling network has been largely established, making it no longer a pipe dream to bike across Europe. Some neighborhoods have relocated all motor vehicle lanes to the outskirts of residential areas and turned certain zones into car-free districts, aiming to create a paradise for pedestrians and cyclists. At some well-developed metro stations, conditions have been created to allow cyclists to enter directly and bring their bikes on board. Some buses have special hooks at the back for bicycles. Some companies encourage employees to drive less or not at all, even offering subsidies.
Looking deeper, the current widespread popularity of cycling is fundamentally tied to growing public awareness of many modern societal issues. For example, during the height of car culture, many people spent almost their entire day inside vehicles—commuting, withdrawing money from banks, attending cultural events, or even just buying a hamburger—always defaulting to driving. But such unrestrained car use led to mounting pressures on energy and the environment. Moreover, more and more people realized that due to constant driving and lack of exercise, their physical health was deteriorating.
Therefore, it is the public’s concern over a series of issues—including energy, environmental protection, transportation, health, and equitable distribution of public resources—that has driven European and American cities to focus on cycling and pedestrian transport. It is this heightened awareness and the necessity to address these problems that have compelled major cities in Europe and America to treat the promotion of cycling culture and the development of urban slow traffic systems as a “huge yet essential” priority.
Opinion: When we discuss cycling culture and slow traffic systems today, we can’t help but question whether such discussions are premature, given that we are still in the early stages of car culture.
Yang Xiaoguang: To be precise, the emergence of slow traffic systems represents a realization—a wake-up call—about past urban development methods and transportation system designs. It is a discovery made while contemplating how future urban life can be better. It points to the direction of future human urban mobility. In this sense, Europe and America are just a few steps ahead of us. For us, discussing how to build urban slow traffic systems and what role bicycles can play in our future transportation is not about blindly following a trend we don’t yet need—it is about having reached this stage of development, where we must pay closer attention to people’s travel needs and the quality of their mobility. Nowadays, in many Chinese cities, the persistent presence of illegal taxis in certain areas is often a concentrated reflection of unmet travel demands. Rather than simply banning them, we need to analyze the root causes of such services. In more developed areas, we can swiftly introduce multimodal public and slow traffic systems to improve livability. In the long run, this will also directly influence people’s perception and approval of urban harmony.
In international metropolises like London and Paris, the successful introduction of slow traffic systems has led to an increase in the proportion of local residents using public transport. The resulting improvement in overall travel efficiency has significantly enhanced travelers’ impressions of local transportation. Over time, it is believed they will make more rational choices in how they travel. In this process, the phenomenon of motor vehicles yielding to slow traffic according to regulations has become a beautiful sight in these cities—and it is something we can soon expect to see in Shanghai as well.