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City Cycling (STADTRADELN)
Published on 16 April 2020
Germany
This is the good practice's implementation level. It can be national, regional or local.
About this good practice
The campaign contributes to climate protection and sets an example to promote cycling in municipalities. As the local decision-makers for cycling infrastructure, local politicians should experience first-hand what it means to cycle in their own municipality and help to initiate and implement measures to improve the situation for cyclists. The CITY CYCLING campaign is designed as a competition to promote cycling. The most active local parliaments and municipalities are sought – as are the most active teams and cyclists in the municipalities themselves. Members of local parliaments are invited to form teams with citizens and to compete to top the leader board. Ideally, they should act as team captains for CITY CYCLING teams to set a positive example to encourage citizens to cycle more. During the 21 consecutive days, as many journeys as possible should be covered by bike – for both private and professional purposes. School classes, clubs, organisations, companies and local inhabitants are also all invited to form teams. During the three-week campaign period, cyclists record the kilometres they cover in an environmentally friendly manner in their online cycling log, a web-based database for logging the kilometres cycled.
Expert opinion
Stadtradeln is an interesting practice for increasing cycling, via a competition between municipalities. It is well understood that competitions are an excellent way of changing behaviour and motivating action, not only because of the chance of a prize, but mainly because of constant comparison with the competition. The approach here, with policy-makers in the lead and recruitment of ‘star cyclists’, as well as with centrally designed awareness raising and communication activities helps to recruit citizens and give high-profile to the competition. Such an approach could be replicated in other countries and regions if there is an organisation able to take the lead and recruit municipalities to the idea.
Works at
Interreg Europe Policy Learning Platform
Resources needed
No financial means or resources are required, except for a participation fee depending on the size of the municipality. Apart from a coordinator, no human resources are tied up. Citizens, politicians and municipal employees can participate in the programme with their mobile, internet or pen & paper
Evidence of success
A total of 1127 municipalities took part in the urban cycling programme in 2019. More than 400,000 cyclists registered, 7,000 parliamentarians of various levels participated and almost 77,800,000 kilometres were cycled through all participants. In total, more than 11,000 tons of CO2 could be avoided.
Potential for learning or transfer
The potential for transferability to other regions is estimated to be high. Replication of this Climate Alliance campaign is inherent in its concept: the participating municipalities replicate CITY CYCLING at the local level. Overall, municipalities can draw a lot of lessons from city cycling as how to engage people into cycling and therefore, to advocate mobility change and climate protection.
With the use of the CITY CYCLING-App, coordinators receive an anonymised profile of their citizen’s mobility use and can therefore use these dates to plan their infrastructure.
With the use of the CITY CYCLING-App, coordinators receive an anonymised profile of their citizen’s mobility use and can therefore use these dates to plan their infrastructure.
Further information
Website
Good practice owner
You can contact the good practice owner below for more detailed information.
Organisation
Klima-Bündnis der europäischen Städte mit indigenen Völkern der Regenwälder | Alianza del Clima e.V.
Germany
Darmstadt
Contact
Project Manager