COVID-19 Impacts on Cycling in Europe and North America

The COVID-19 pandemic drastically changed the way we accessed society. Lockdown restrictions and fears of contracting the virus impacted the number and types of journeys and that we were taking.

Researchers from Virginia Tech were particularly interested in the impact that the pandemic had on cycling levels and the governmental policies that were instated to facilitate cycling. This research has now culminated in a fascinating article providing detailed analysis of how pro-cycling measures were introduced during and after the pandemic and some visions for the future.

The article “Cycling through the COVID-19 Pandemic to a More Sustainable Transport Future: Evidence from Case Studies of 14 Large Bicycle-Friendly Cities in Europe and North America”, published in the journal ‘Sustainability’, details the impacts of COVID on cycling levels and policies using the case studies of 14 different cities throughout 13 different countries in Europe and North America during the period 2019-2021.

• The first part of the article compares cycling trends in these countries using bicycle counter data.
• The second part of the article then follows detailed case studies of the 14 different cities and how government support into pro-cycling policies increased and the different policies chosen.

It is important that we learn from the pandemic, and this article captures the important lessons available in supporting the proliferation of cycling, an important non-carbon emitting form of transport.

The full article is available free online here (open access).

Full citation of the article:

Buehler, Ralph, and John Pucher. 2022. "Cycling through the COVID-19 Pandemic to a More Sustainable Transport Future: Evidence from Case Studies of 14 Large Bicycle-Friendly Cities in Europe and North America" Sustainability 14, no. 12: 7293. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14127293