In 2018, Enrique Peñalosa, then mayor of Bogotá, declared the city the ‘World Capital of the Bicycle’. This rather self-congratulatory announcement raised several questions. Many asked whether the honorific was really justified for such an unlikely candidate. Others wondered what it might even mean to be a ‘World Capital’, rather than simply another ‘Cycling City’ among many. Our research takes that provocation as its starting point by to addressing the question: why and how did cycling become such an important part of everyday life, public policy, and the identity of the Colombian capital? By examining this question historically and critically, we show why Bogotá has emerged as one of the world’s most influential—and contested—cycling cities.
Bogotá, the first city in South America to be featured in a volume of Cycling Cities, has good reason to be proud of its cycling culture. It hosts the Ciclovía, the longest-running, most extensive, most frequent, and most visited open-streets program in the world, and a major source of inspiration for similar initiatives elsewhere. Nearly every Sunday and public holiday, large parts of the city are given over to people on bicycles, on foot, and on skates. The city’s network of dedicated cycling infrastructure, among the most extensive in the Americas, now supports nearly a million bicycle trips every day. Unlike in many other cities in the Western Hemisphere, support for cycling has also endured across different political administrations. As a result, Bogotá has become a global reference point, shaping cycling policies and programs across Colombia, Latin America, and beyond.
At the same time, Bogotá’s reputation as a cycling success story is deeply contradictory. While cycling plays a major role in how the city moves, it is not always safe or easy. Some cycling advocates have gone so far as to describe Bogotá as the ‘capital of cycling death’. Broken and disconnected infrastructure, traffic violence, and the risk of crime discourage many people from cycling—especially women, who make up only about a quarter of cyclists. In recent years, growing numbers of motorcycles have made streets more crowded and dangerous, while small electric mopeds have increasingly appeared on cycling paths, further undermining the appeal of the bicycle.
Given these tensions, what can Bogotá’s experience tell us? Drawing on academic research, policy documents, and popular accounts, this book traces more than 100 years of the city’s relationship with the bicycle. From the arrival of this new technology in the high Andes, through its rise as a national sporting symbol in the ‘Vuelta de Colombia’, to the unlikely origins and lasting success of the Ciclovía, we show how cycling took hold during a period of rapid and often turbulent urban growth. Over the course of the twentieth century, Bogotá was transformed from a remote capital into a sprawling metropolis of nearly 10 million people—and the bicycle played a surprising role in that story.
Building on this history, we explore how cycling came to be promoted by city governments as part of wider efforts to rethink transport and public space from the 1990s onward. Rather than focusing only on policy achievements, we look at how cycling has been shaped by everyday struggles over safety, access, and who gets space on the street. In reflecting on what Bogotá has done well—and where it has fallen short—we consider the challenges the city now faces, as well as the opportunities that lie ahead.
Throughout this analysis, we pay close attention to what makes Bogotá distinctive, from its geography and climate to its planning history, political debates, and diverse cycling cultures. We also draw on key publications by NGOs, researchers, and practitioners to guide readers who want to learn more. By telling the story of Bogotá’s cycling journey—messy, uneven, and often inspiring—this book offers valuable lessons for cities around the world that hope to expand cycling while grappling with the real social and political challenges such change brings.
We are pleased to introduce the Bogotá research team:
Thomas van Laake is an urban geographer with an interest in cycling policy, sustainable mobility, and transportation infrastructure. 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 working on his PhD at the University of Manchester, comparing 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 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.
Julián Andrés Alfonso Sánchez is a historian and researcher with a master’s degree from the National University of Colombia. His research interests have focused on the history of bicycles and cycling in Colombia and related topics such as public policy, museology, and cultural heritage management. He has worked with public entities in Bogotá and supported the process of declaring Bogotá’s bicycle culture as intangible cultural heritage. In his recent master’s thesis, he traced the origins of cycling in Bogotá and the different cultural practices and representations associated with the bicycle during the first half of the 20th century. He is a member of the International Veterans Cycle Association (IVCA) and has participated in the International Cycling History Conference (ICHC) on several occasions.
Carolina Fernández is an Industrial Designer with a Master’s in Transport Engineering and ongoing doctoral studies in Civil Engineering at the National University of Colombia. She specializes in equitable accessibility, active mobility, shared bicycle systems, transport emissions analysis, and gender-responsive mobility planning, with professional experience spanning organizations such as NUMO, CAF, the World Bank, C40, and Purdue University. Her work focuses on the Latin American context, where she applies mixed-methods approaches and data analysis tools to support sustainable urban transport projects. Carolina is the recipient of the 2024 Marble Fund Award from the American Association of Geographers and has been awarded multiple scholarships by the Transport Studies Unit at the University of Oxford. She has been involved in gender-focused initiatives promoting cycling among women in Bogotá. Her research has been presented at international conferences including ITEA, NECTAR, and PANAM, and she is the developer of VulnerApp, a platform for assessing socio-spatial vulnerability in public transport accessibility.