Madrid, the capital of Spain, is a typical south-European city with high densities and a generally compact layout. However, with more than 3 million inhabitants and another 3 millions in the surrounding cities and towns in the metropolitan area, Madrid is quite extensive. The Spanish housing boom led to the construction of large new towns at the fringe of the city, all connected via trains or even subways to the city center. Besides public transport, which saw big investments in the last two decades, car traffic grew in the past decades in the metro area (CRTM- presentation). Wide and spacious streets provide for ample space for cars, with the exception of some neighborhoods in the center like Chueca, Malasana or La Latina having narrow streets and irregular street grid.
Despite the summery climate Madrid has never be known as a cycling city, and during my first visits some years ago, a cyclist wasn’t a common sight on the streets of the Spanish capital.
This seems about to change right now.
Madrid Discovers the Bike
The city government of Madrid invested in cycling infrastructure in the last years, starting off at basically zero. Many streets now feature road markings denoting lanes or streets cycle streets. Dedicated cycle paths are still very rare, and mixed-use lanes between cars and bikes are the most common solution in Madrid at the moment. Since cycling was not common at all, the city historically lacks a bike network, only the outskirts have a vast network for cycling. Until recently, cycling was understood as a leisure activity only, not a means of urban transport.
Especially in the dense and less car-oriented inner-city neighborhoods like Chueca, Malasana or La Latina, the bike became more and more popular as a means of transport under its young residents. The street layout doesn’t allow for much car traffic and thus the inhabitants were used to walk rather than drive a car. At the bike shop where I rented my bike, two cycling groups have been recommended to me as being very active in Madrid: ‘Pedalibre’ and ‘en bici por madrid’. Both offer not only information and tips around cycling but host as well events promoting and supporting cycling.
Thanks to the big number of young inhabitants, the bike became increasingly important to move around in the dense area. Like in other cities, the bike became as well a symbol of the young and the hip, visible at the many cafés and bars which include the bike as decoration or even call themselves ‘bike café’ (for example ‘La Bicicleta– cycling café’), where all of a sudden you seemed to have fallen in a wormhole which dropped you in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Besides a few tourist-oriented bike rentals, no public bike rental system has existed until earlier this year. During my visit in June, it was not yet in operation, thus the rental station on my picture is empty and I did not get a chance to try the ease of renting nor how comfortable it is to ride the bikes. What struck me though was the rather high density of rental stations, especially in the central districts. Most of them were placed at intersections or squares and close to subway stations, providing for good availability. Ironically, the system is called ‘Bici Mad’, which in fact describes pretty well how cycling on Madrid’s streets feels like: madness.
‘Drive Like A Respected Vehicle’
As mentioned earlier, the cycling infrastructure consists so far of bike symbols painted on the street to denote where bikes are allowed to ride. For most of the streets it works well for the experienced cyclist, as motorists are slowed down to 30kph on secondary streets. However, it is important to claim your space on the street otherwise you’ll end up in very uncomfortable situations between all the cars, the motorbikes, and the buses. This was one of the first tips I got upon renting a bike, and the group ‘en bici por madrid’ recommends that too in their section (‘drive like a respected vehicle’ they say…) on how to ride a bike in Madrid. A traffic etiquette that respects bikes is lacking leading to some conflicts between cars and bikes especially, not surprisingly.
These issues seem negligible compared to cycling on the mayor streets with several lanes. This is the place, where Bici Mad stands up to its name in particular. You have to navigate on the multiple lane streets between the speeding cars, which don’t stick to 50kph at all, as it seems. Taxis, cars and trucks are racing each other down on these streets and you are in the middle of all the craziness trying to get safely to next intersection and off the racing track to hell.
Biking gets even more spiced up as soon as the street has a dedicated bus lane. As a cyclist you are not allowed to use the bus lane, and it is separated from the normal traffic lanes by plastic barriers. On a multiple lane road, this means you have to cycle on the second lane, as the first lane is reserved for the buses. Personally, I cannot recall any other biking situation that felt more wrong, more dangerous and more suicidal than cycling on the second lane of a six-lane road between traffic. Thanks to the plastic barriers, the cyclist is trapped on the second lane and cannot move, nor move out of the way of traffic effectively. Even London felt safer on the bike despite driving on the other side. Madrid definitely deserves the suicide cycling- tag!
Considering where Madrid was starting from in terms of cycling, it is on a good way to become a more bikeable city. Slowly, but steady.
Author’s Note: This is an updated version clarifying statements about the modal split in Madrid.