Research Aim: To consolidate a consistent narrative on Bogotá’s cycling history in terms of policies and practices, and related to utilitarian cycling, while also exploring the relationship with recreational and sports cycling in the city and the country.

Thomas van Laake is an urban geographer with an interest in cycling policy, sustainable mobility, and transportation infrastructure. Though he is a Dutch citizen, his professional trajectory in cycling promotion and sustainable mobility policy has focused on the Latin American context over four years of work at Despacio, a Colombian NGO based in Bogotá. Since 2021, he has been undertaking doctoral research at the University of Manchester, developing a comparative analysis of cycling infrastructure policy and planning practice in the metropolitan areas of Greater Manchester, Mexico City, and Toronto. Placing cycling research in dialogue with geographical approaches to urban policymaking, infrastructure planning, and comparative urbanism, his research explores how cycling policies and planning knowledges articulate with and are adapted across heterogeneous urban contexts.

 

Claudio Olivares is a Visual Communication Designer with a Master’s in Residential Habitat. Since 2011 he has been helping to formulate active mobility plans and projects in both public and private sectors, working with international organizations and cooperation agencies at regional, national, and local levels. He specializes in planning and executing communication strategies for policies, infrastructure projects, design manuals, and sustainable mobility events. Claudio has contributed to disseminating scientific knowledge from academia and has developed methodological tools for citizen participation and social diagnosis in mobility challenges. His project experience spans Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and Bolivia.

 

Carlos Felipe Pardo is a Colombian psychologist with an MSc in Contemporary Urbanism from the London School of Economics. He has worked on topics related to cities, mobility, climate change, technology / digitization and linkages between these topics from the advocacy and policy perspectives, with several projects in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the United States. He has worked predominantly with multilateral/ cooperation agencies and development banks,taken part in the delivery of more than 100 training courses, and have written various chapters, books and articles. He has advised, managed, coordinated and supervised of various international projects in developing cities. A proud recipient of the Danish Cycling Embassy’s 2018 Leadership Award, and a Distinguished TUMI friend 2019. He founded Despacio.org in 2008 and was its Executive Director until 2018, and was part of the New Urban Mobility Alliance from its creation until April 2023. He is an advisor to UNEP, World Bank, GRSP and lead sabidurAI .