This course explores how Seville, Spain, transformed from a city with virtually no cycling culture to one where cycling accounts for 6% of daily trips, achieving a tenfold increase in daily cyclists from 6,000 to 60,000 in just a few years. This session delves into the strategies, infrastructure development, and policies that drove this remarkable shift. Participants will examine Seville’s approach to creating a cohesive cycling network, integrating it with sustainable mobility policies, and overcoming political and cultural challenges, all while working within a constrained budget. Learn how Seville’s model can inspire practical, scalable solutions for promoting active transportation in cities worldwide.

The course will cover the identification of key technical and political challenges in fostering cycling in cities without a biking tradition, drawing on Seville’s experience of building 80 kilometers of bike lanes in two years and implementing a citywide bike-sharing system. Participants will explore how Seville prioritized continuous, recognizable, and safe cycling infrastructure, repurposing road space from cars to create a network that serves daily commuters, not just recreational cyclists. Through case studies and interactive discussions, attendees will gain insights into effective approaches for active transportation adoption, as well as pitfalls to avoid, ensuring actionable takeaways for their own urban mobility initiatives.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify technical key issues that can promote cycling, such as designing continuous and uniform bike lane networks at sidewalk level to ensure safety and accessibility.
• Discuss the main challenges for cycling promotion, including political resistance and public backlash, and strategies to build consensus while advancing sustainable mobility agendas.
• Learn approaches to active transportation adoption that work, such as building a complete network as a single project, and those that fail, like incremental or disconnected bike lane development.
• Analyze the integration of cycling infrastructure with broader sustainable mobility policies, including public transit and parking reduction strategies, to enhance urban accessibility.
• Evaluate the role of community engagement and master planning in sustaining long-term cycling culture growth, drawing from Seville’s civil society participation and strategic vision.