Pueblos Bicicleteros: Three Essays on Cycling Policy in Mexican Cities

Abstract

In this dissertation, I investigate cycling policy adoption, design, and implementation in Mexico. In Chapter 2, I research the interactions between driving restrictions and bikeshare usage in Mexico City. The Mexico City government has introduced policies to reduce pollution from cars, including a license-plate based driving restriction and a bikeshare system. When restrictions are in place, people need to find transportation alternatives. In this research, I leverage the random nature of driving restrictions to explore whether people use bikeshare differently when driving is restricted due to poor air quality. I use negative binomial models to study these effects using data from 2016-2019. Results indicate that restricted days exhibit approximately 17% lower bikeshare use (10 - 24% decrease, 95% CI) for non-peak traffic hours compared to regular days. However, ridership increases during peak traffic hours. Morning ridership increases up to 12.5% (3 – 22% increase, 95% CI) and evening ridership increases up to 16.2% (5 – 27.6% increase, 95% CI). The analysis suggests that the poor environmental conditions may buffer bikeshare system use increases and that bikeshare can be a critical partner in local transportation infrastructure.In Chapter 3, I researched cycling infrastructure implementation in ten cities in Mexico using a multiple case study research design and thematic analysis. The questions motivating this research were: What is the role of civil society organizations in the process of infrastructure delivery? Why and how do governments implement cycling infrastructure? In the first part of this chapter, I analyzed the role CSOs have played in developing cycling infrastructure in Mexican Cities. While the presence or activity of civil society organizations did not guarantee the implementation of cycling infrastructure, this research demonstrated that in most settings, CSOs are not only actively involved in every aspect of infrastructure provision and its institutionalization as a governmental activity but represent an essential presence in ensuring progress and the professionalization of infrastructure design. In the second part of chapter 3, I studied how infrastructure is implemented in each city included in this study: Cuernavaca, Toluca, Oaxaca, Mérida, Aguascalientes, Querétaro, Morelia, León, Puebla, and Guadalajara. I studied the primary laws, organizations, and planning instruments and norms that cities have used to implement cycling infrastructure and policy successfully. I found that high-level mandates in state laws on their own make very little difference in terms of making progress on the ground both for kilometers of infrastructure implemented and its quality. Lack of laws can be a barrier, for example, for garnering funds to build infrastructure, limiting or slowing down the ability to implement projects, but this is not always the case. Specialized agencies (Municipal Mobility Offices and State Mobility Agencies) containing non-motorized mobility departments have proven to be one of the most important variables promoting the implementation of cycling infrastructure. The agencies responsible for designing and implementing projects are critical for sustaining cycling infrastructure planning and implementation. Finally, in Chapter 4, I studied the institutionalization of cycling policy in Guadalajara. Over the past 20 years, Guadalajara Jalisco has gone from being a city with few cyclists and no public policy or funding to support cycling as a transportation mode to a nationally and internationally recognized city for its work in advancing cycling mobility. The research questions guiding this case study are: what were the main factors and events that have led Guadalajara to adopt and implement policies to promote cycling mobility? What is the story behind Guadalajara’s adoption and implementation of cycling policy? What evidence exists about the success of these policies? In this paper, I analyzed the process that led to this urban and institutional transformation of Guadalajara. This analysis identifies the actors and events that have made Guadalajara a reference as a cycling city and presents salient evidence on the impact of these programs. I demonstrate how local actors built a strong, diverse, and highly media driven movement to mobilize sustainable transportation as a new policy issue and successfully pushed for its gradual institutionalization as a core part of Guadalajara’s metropolitan urban planning agenda.