Brno City Municipality is a city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic, home to 400,000 inhabitants, making it the second largest city in the country. Historically, cycling has been popular in Brno for both sport - Favorit Brno and Dukla Brno have numerous successes in road, track and ball cycling - and recreation, as the entire South Moravian region is traversed by cycling routes enabling a very special type of cycling tourism – wine cycling!

Nevertheless, only 4% of citizens use the bicycle as a means of transport in the city. Brno’s current Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) aims to increase the modal share of cycling to 6% by 2030, and to 12% by 2050.

There are currently 110 km of cycling infrastructure in place, most of which are shared-use paths and cycle lanes. However, there is a lack of connected, safe, and convenient network to link the outskirts of the city to its centre. The city is committed to investing in its cycling development and is currently working on a new Cycling Strategy. The strategy seeks to update original infrastructure plans from 2012, while several important sections of cycle paths are being prepared in parallel. At the same time, all of the city’s new street reconstruction projects incorporate cycling as much as possible, for example with the construction of new cycle paths or cycle lanes as well as temporary traffic measures in favour of cycling.

Photos by Brno City Municipality

One of Brno’s major achievements in recent years, is the construction of a cycle underpass on an important route along the river. The city aims to replicate such infrastructure improvements along the two important rivers of Brno, such that cycle paths do not have to cross major roads for motorized traffic.

Furthermore, bikesharing is an important aspect of the city’s cycling promotion, with residents having the ability to access shared bikes twice a day for 30 minutes at no charge. The city collects data from the bikeshare systems in place, which when analysed, further informs the plans and activities for improving cycling conditions. The data is freely available to the public at the city’s website.

Photos by Brno City Municipality

For more information on how to join ECF’s Cities & Regions for Cyclists network: https://www.ecf.com/community/cities-for-cyclists

For more information on the Brno City Municipality: https://www.brno.cz/

For more information on cycling in Brno: https://brnoinmotion.cz/cyklodoprava/