As part of Mobility Week, Rio de Janeiro launched its first official bike map on Friday, September 21st. ITDP Brazil, with local NGO partners Transporte Ativo and Camelo Urbano, spearheaded the map’s creation. The map was been produced by the Secretary of Environment in partnership with the Secretary of Tourism. The map and cycling guide are part of the Secretary of Tourism’s “official package” to be distributed in hotels, airports and other key tourism locations.

The bike map outlines the current and planned bike lanes in Rio’s South Zone, city center and Tijuca, Grajaú, Maracanã and São Conrado neighborhoods. It highlights modal integration points like bike parking facilities at train and metro stations and public bikesharing stations. It also includes touristic points of interest, bike shops, police departments and hospitals near the bike lane network. On the reverse side of the map, the cycling guide draws attention to cycling safety, recommendations and environmental benefits. The guide includes key information on city signage related to bike use and instructions for use of bicycles on other transportation modes like metro, trains and ferries.

Intermodal Challenge

Rio de Janeiro’s 7th Annual Intermodal Challenge, organized by local NGO Transporte Ativo with ITDP Brazil’s support, took place on Thursday, September 20. Eleven different transportation modes raced between the Central do Brasil train station in the city center and Praça Antero de Quental in Leblon at the edge of the city’s South Zone at 6 pm. Below are the results:

1. Motorcycle – 38 minutes
2. Taxi – 42 minutes
3. Metro + Bike Rio (public bikeshare) – 51 minutes
4. Bicycle (via city streets) – 53 minutes
5. Metro + bus – 57 minutes
6. Metro + Pedestrian – 65 minutes
7. Bus – 70 minutes
8. Car – 69 minutes
9. Bicycle (via bike lanes) – 72 minutes
10. Electric bike (via bike lanes) – 80 minutes
11. Pedestrian – 129 minutes

These results highlight the importance of modal integration and especially the Bike Rio public bike share system. The taxi in the race used the BRS bus corridor, since it had a passenger. The taxi also gained time since it did not spend time looking for parking spot like the car. The bus experienced a significant improvement in time since the installation of the BRS bus lanes. It took the bus 84 minutes to complete the same route in 2010 and 124 minutes in 2009.

Altamirando Moraes, Acting Secretary of Environment, was present both at the start and end of the event. He applauded the results of the metro+bikeshare mode, as bringing modal integration to the forefront has been a major focus of his administration. Modal integration is in fact the theme of the BiciRio conference that began on Sunday.

Rio’s sister city, Niterói also held their own Intermodal Challenge on September 19th with 11 participants covering 5 km. The race was held at 6:30 pm from the Ferry Boat Station in the city center to Barreto, in the Northern part of the city. The results are summarized below.

1. Bicycle (male) – 14:50 minutes
2. Motocycle – 15:16 minutes
3. Electric Bicycle 1 – 17:26 minutes
4. Bicycle (female) – 21:15 minutes
5. Electric Bicycle 2 – 21:15 minutes
6. Car (male) – 25:27 minutes
7. Taxi – 26:14 minutes
8. Car (feminine) – 32:59 minutes
9. Bus (line 42) – 40:48 minutes
10. Bus 1 (line 42A) – 44:44 minutes
11. Pedestrian 1 – 55:46 minutes
12. Pedestrian 2 – 59:44 minutes

The event in Niterói was promoted by NitTrans. Glauston Pinheiro, Coordinator of NMT at NitTrans, said that “the Intermodal Challenge is becoming a working tool for city managers” and that “it is an excellent way to discover possible solutions.”