Cycling can cut pollution in Global South cities but policies must start with those who already ride: Study

Bicycling has the potential to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution in rapidly growing cities of the Global South, but only if policies are informed by the lived realities of people who already depend on cycles for daily travel, a new international study has found.

Published in Nature Cities, the research examined bicycling in Delhi and Chennai in India, Dhaka in Bangladesh and Accra in Ghana. All these cities are expanding rapidly and have dense and mixed traffic, flat terrain and climates marked by extreme heat, heavy rainfall and seasonal flooding. They reflect conditions common across much of the low- and middle-income world, where transport emissions and air pollution are rising sharply.

Drawing on “in the moment” feedback from 459 cyclists and 109 interviews with cyclists, non-cyclists and stakeholders conducted between 2022 and 2023, the researchers found that bicycling is not a lifestyle choice but a necessity for many. Across the four cities, most cyclists were low-income working men using bicycles to commute long distances to jobs as vendors, factory workers, delivery riders, cleaners and security guards. Typical journeys lasted 30 to 50 minutes each way, often several days a week.

Women cyclists were far fewer and tended to ride shorter distances, usually on quieter residential streets. They were rarely seen on major arterial roads and often walked their bicycles through busy junctions. Families commonly discouraged women, children and older people from cycling in mixed traffic because of safety risks and stress.

Those who cycle face difficult and often dangerous conditions. Roads are largely designed for fast-moving automobiles, with flyovers, wide medians and complex junctions forcing cyclists to make long detours or weave through traffic. Near-misses and minor crashes were described as routine.

Where cycle tracks existed, they were frequently flooded, blocked by parked vehicles or vendors, or taken over by motorcycles. Many cyclists therefore avoided them altogether and rode with traffic instead.

Extreme heat, heavy rain and flooding added to the physical strain, pushing riders to travel early or late in the day and to improvise safety measures such as extra lights, reflectors and horns.

Bicycling remains largely invisible in policy, the researchers found. Planning documents often assume that hardly anyone cycles, mentioning bicycles mainly in relation to recreation or beautification projects. “Additionally, the responsibility of bicycling infrastructure is spread among many different agencies, while bicycle distribution policies were aimed at improving access to school for low-income girls,” the researchers wrote in a press statement.

Core transport planning, however, continues to prioritise automobiles, increasingly electric ones. As a result, new cycling facilities are often built in wealthier areas, while routes used daily by low-income cyclists are neglected.

“There is enormous potential for bicycling to be used as a way to reduce harmful pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector in low- and middle-income countries,” said Kavi Bhalla, one of the study’s co-authors and Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Chicago’s Biological Sciences Division. “But just because certain policies work to boost bicycling in cities in the United States or Europe doesn’t mean the same policies will be successful in countries in the Global South, where the context is much different.”

The researchers observed that future investments should focus on supporting and strengthening existing bicycling cultures. This includes maintaining cycle tracks, keeping them free of obstructions, and protecting fragile repair networks that keep bicycles operational. Many such repair shops operate informally and face growing regulatory pressure.

“What we saw was not a lack of bicycling, but a lack of institutional support,” said Rahul Goel, a co-author of the study and an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi. “Bicycling continues largely because of informal systems that keep bicycling viable from day to day. These systems are essential, yet they are increasingly fragile and invisible to policymakers, even as motorised traffic and regulatory pressures make cycling harder to sustain.”

The authors concluded that making cycling safer and more workable for those who already rely on it could slow the shift towards private motor vehicles as incomes rise, while delivering long-term gains for public health, equity and the climate.