Policy to promote bicycle use or bicycle to promote politicians? Bicycles in the imagery of urban mobility in Brazil

Abstract

During the last 15 years an increasing number of presidents, prime ministers, governors and mayors in developed and developing countries have been riding bicycles to promote a more sustainable and friendly form of urban mobility. We believe that these images also reveal and influence the image of contemporary urban mobility – the way in which people see what urban mobility is and how it should be. In this paper we discuss how the image of the bicycle has changed in Brazil and how this may influence an increase in its actual 1% bicycle modal share in big cities. We conclude that the importance of the bicycle in the image of urban mobility has been changing cyclically, and what seems to be a positive trend today might end up as being just an ephemeral positive image, with the risk of having no further practical consequences.