“Bolzano is the only city in Italy where those who travel by bike are the most. 30% against 25 % who still keep using the car.” This great result has been achieved through 15 years of work by the local administration, which focused primarily on building an interconnected network of bike lanes. It is not the number of miles available that is relevant, but where the bike lanes are built and how they are interconnected. “The most important thing is the connection between the individual bike lane sections” emphasized Ivan Moroder, the Director of the Mobility Office of the City of Bolzano in an interview with Presa Diretta [1].

Since 2018, the year of that report, the situation has not changed. In Italian metropolises, less than 10 % of people continue to move by bicycle (6 % in Milan, 1 % in Rome), with a massive impact on environmental and social levels.

Italian mobility is definitely not environmentally sustainable. The greatest consequence is the terrible air quality that characterizes big cities. This is mainly because of vehicle combustion engines, which produce not only carbon dioxide but also large amounts of nitrogen oxides (NO, NO2) and fine particulate matter (PM10, PM2.5).

In Turin, the PM10 maximum limit was exceeded for 98 days in 2022, in Milan for 84 days, in Modena for 75, and in Padua and Venice for 70, doubling the number of exceedances allowed in one year by regulations [2].

In 2022 the European Parliament spoke out against combustion vehicles, decreeing that from 2035 all vehicles on sale must have zero tailpipe emissions [3]. This move will certainly have positive effects on air quality in cities since the electric motor does not produce particulate matter and volatile organic compounds. Unfortunately, however, if electric cars can be a solution to the environmental problem, they are not a solution to the more complex social problem related to road safety.

Indeed, the huge amount of cars in Italian cities affects the safety of those who choose sustainable mobility. The Associazione Sostenitori e Amici della Polizia Stradale (ASAPS) calculated that in 2023 there happened 197 fatal accidents involving cyclists [4] and in the first three weeks of 2024, occurred  16 deaths from the same kind of accidents [5].

Last year, as a consequence of a deadly accident between a 60-year-old bicyclist and a truck, cyclists blocked Piazzale Loreto in Milan demanding deeds, not just words from the City Council, in particular a pact to share urban space: “City 30”, safe bicycle lanes, and more control on the most air polluting vehicles [2].

If a response is struggling to come from Milan, Bologna has become the first metropolitan city to join the “City 30” pact, following the example of Olbia, and Treviso in Italy, as well as some European capitals, such as Brussels, Zurich, and Paris. 30 km/h has then become the speed limit on the most populated streets, where there is a dense mix of cars, motorcycles, pedestrians and bicycles, or where there are schools, hospitals and polyclinics. As for roads with adequate infrastructure to separate vulnerable users, the limit remained at 50 km/h [6].

Fig. 1: Bikes parked in downtown Bologna. Photo courtesy of Giovanni Vignoli, 2021.

This transformation is raising strong discussions locally and nationally, especially after the first few days, when the whole city seemed like an enormous, connected traffic jam.
At the moment it is too early to say whether this measure will benefit or inconvenience citizens and weak road users. What is certain is that it must not be an isolated measure; it must be carried forward by improving the quality and quantity of sustainable ways of mobility.

Coming back to the bicycle, it is necessary to continue to strengthen the bikeway especially the interconnection between the various segments that already exist in the territory. Finally, it is necessary for cyclists to feel protected and comfortable, whether from cars, pedestrians, or other cyclists.

References

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Cover- and preview image: Public Bicycle Sharing Station in Lyon. Photo by Stéphane Mingot on Unsplash.