Context:
Increasing the prevalence of bicycling can reduce greenhouse gas and pollution emissions from the transportation sector—thereby reducing air pollution and climate impacts—while also leading to public health benefits from more physical activity. Some cities in high-income countries have made large investments in bicycling infrastructure that have proved successful in increasing bicycling, decreasing car use, reducing vehicle emissions, and improving air quality. Following their success, many low- and middle-income countries are increasingly investing in bicycling infrastructure. But just because a policy works in certain high-income settings, it does not mean replicating it will be successful in the local contexts of low- and middle-income countries.

Research Design:
The researchers study bicycling in four similar low- and middle-income cities: Delhi and Chennai (India), Dhaka (Bangladesh), and Accra (Ghana). The cities are all rapidly densifying and expanding cities with flat terrain, heterogeneous traffic, and subtropical to tropical climates marked by very hot summers and seasonal flooding. Between 2022 and 2023, locally based teams gathered “in the moment” feedback from 459 bicyclists on busy arterial roads in Delhi, Dhaka, and Accra, and conducted 109 interviews in Delhi, Chennai, and Dhaka with bicyclists, non-bicyclists, and stakeholders such as repairers, retailers, parking providers, activists, and officials. They also tracked observations of street layouts, traffic patterns, and social uses of bicycles. Throughout, they asked: Who bicycles in the selected cities? How do they experience and perceive bicycling? What barriers to bicycling do they face? They synthesized the findings to describe the physical, financial and human infrastructures that shape bicycling in the cities, and identified ways to increase bicycling while prioritizing accessibility, safety and social inclusion.

Findings
Bicycling is everyday transport for low-income working men, and some women.

Across the cities, bicyclists were largely adult men, typically from households earning well below their city’s average income. For most, bicycles were not a lifestyle choice but a relatively affordable way to reach distant jobs in dense, congested cities. They rode to their jobs as vendors, factory workers, delivery riders, security guards, and cleaners, often commuting 30–50 minutes each way and cycling several hours per week. Once people could afford an automobile, bicycles were not a preferred mode of transportation.

Unlike their male counterparts, women rode shorter distances (~2 km). They rarely appeared on main arterial roads, instead cycling on residential streets, school zones, and other low-traffic areas, and often walked their bicycles through busy areas. Families frequently discouraged children and elderly from riding in mixed traffic due to crash risks and stress of navigating fast-moving vehicles. 

Automobile-oriented roads and harsh weather make bicycling risky.

Riders reported near-misses and minor crashes as routine on multi-lane roads designed for fast automobile traffic. Flyovers, medians, and complex junctions force cyclists to take long detours, push bicycles up ramps, or weave through vehicles. Where separated bicycle tracks existed, they often became flooded by motorcycles escaping traffic on the main roads, as well as blocked by vendors, parked cars and other obstructions. This led bicyclists to skip the tracks that did exist and ride within the main traffic, especially for long commutes. Extreme heat, heavy rains, and flooding added to the strain, making timing and route choices crucial. Many bicycled early or late in the day to avoid the hottest times. Many bicyclists improvised visibility and safety adding bright reflectors, horns, or lights to cope with conditions that road designs largely ignore.

Bicycling remains largely invisible in policy, appearing as predominantly for recreational use and education access.

The study shows that in many low- and middle-income cities, bicycling remains largely invisible in policy. Planning documents often reflect a “commonsense” view that nobody bicycles, mentioning it mainly as access to education, recreational infrastructure for beautification projects or, more recently, as generic “active mobility.” The responsibility of bicycling infrastructure is peppered among different government bodies: urban development, transportation, education, youth and sports affairs agencies promote bicycling for physical activity and leisure benefits. Bicycle distribution schemes, common across Indian states, are welfare programmes aimed at improving school access for children and empowerment of girls. Meanwhile, roadway infrastructure remains centered around accommodating automobiles, and any bicycling infrastructure is highly fragmented. When planning prioritizes automobiles, increasingly electric vehicles, or short, disconnected lanes in wealthier areas, it sidelines the everyday routes of low-income riders and overlooks opportunities for more equitable, sustainable mobility transitions.

Future investments should be directed at nurturing and growing existing bicycling cultures.

Achieving widespread bicycling in low- and middle-income cities will require attending to the needs of current cyclists—needs that are often overlooked in present policy and infrastructure planning. Bicycle tracks, for example, are frequently built in affluent neighborhoods where few people actually bicycle, while areas with high cycling prevalence remain underserved. Investments must also support the maintenance of bicycling cultures. This includes, for instance, supporting fragile repair networks and ongoing attention to the upkeep of physical infrastructure by removing construction debris, repairing damaged barriers, and keeping tracks clear of motorized vehicles. By building on existing bicycling cultures and the everyday practices that sustain them, future policies can more effectively promote safe, accessible, and environmentally positive mobility.

Closing Take-Away

Though bicycling is a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, pollution and traffic injuries, while increasing physical activity, the social and policy constructs of low- and middle-income cities do not view it in this way. Health and environmental agencies—for example, ministries of health or pollution control agencies—should advocate for more and safer bicycling. This starts with improved infrastructure and policies based on cyclists’ lived experiences.