A ban on bicycles in China may seem the ultimate irony, and authorities in Shanghai are now beginning to understand that they might have erred in implementing such a ban last month. Shanghai is at the center of China’s booming economy, and in its efforts to modernize decided to prohibit bicycles from downtown streets. But Shanghai is still largely a city of cyclists who can’t afford cars. Automotive gridlock suggests that cars instead should be restricted, but the solution appears to be the construction of a bicycle path network throughout the city. Nine million cyclists can’t be wrong.
