Cycling Through Modernity

• In Event: Transportation, Progress, and Decay

Abstract

This paper looks at the economic, technical, political, and cultural aspects of the bicycle movement in São Paulo in relation to larger conflicts of modernity and politics of mobility. Even though Brazil is the world’s third largest bicycle manufacturer, cycling is perceived as either the pastime of elites, or “an extreme sport for spandex warriors.” With bicycles costing more than motorcycles, and all but 40 kilometers of ciclovias confined within city parks, few commuters are willing to risk cycling. Even as public campaigns promote non-motorized transport as central to sustainability, the ministry of health declared it unsafe to bicycle on any street in São Paulo.

Brazil is often said to have developed through the automobile industry, and political discourses discuss motorized traffic as modernizing and democratizing, providing social mobility with spatial mobility. However, from the 2013 protests over public transportation (the Free Fare Movement) to the implementation of hundreds of kilometers of Bus Rapid Transport and ciclovias, politics of mobility are shifting in Brazil.

In the last year, the IMF proposed initiatives for developing non-motorized transportation, two banks sponsored bike share projects, and the Workers Party, which was formed in the automobile syndicates in the 1970s, promised to implement 400 kilometers of bike paths. The response has been controversial. While transportation experts maintain that bicycles are a form of public transportation, critics (mostly motorcycle delivery boys, shopkeepers, and taxi drivers), argue that Brazil is not modern enough to support bicycle culture.

Author

• Craig Schuetze, Graduate Student