Accoding to the Barómetro anual de la bicicleta, 20,5 million spaniards have a bike for their personal use, and some 3 millions use it almost daily. Some of them live in Madrid…

2013 will not bring the once expected municipal shared bike system (the current economic crisis does not seem the good time for it), but we have a new bike lane through central Madrid. After years of a strange situation in which the bike network in Madrid was just a peripheral ring more fit for leisure than for commuting, at least a small change. The bike trail along the Manzanares and the western part of the bike ring are now connected to the eastern part through calle de Alcalá and Calle O’Donnell, configuring a good route for tourists, even if there is still a lack of good connexions with some jobs concentrations.

The municipal bike paths map (accesible through the internet, you must notice that the default view also includes recomended streets that have no proper bike lane) shows more clearly the situation; there are still a lot of unconnected bike lanes sections, without a proper grid.

On the metropolitan scale the situation is far from easy; the Bicisur project is led by the Consorcio de Transportes (the regional transportation authority) to make the bike a real alternative to mass transit and private cars in southern metro madrid, along the metrosur line (a curious subway ring that is in an excentric situation).

The method applied is:

• 1: A collaborative map of quiet itineraries is defined on the web
• 2: A collaborative map of black spots (traffic problems) is defined, from february 2013
• 3: A collaborative map of the most popular subway stations as modal exchange points

There will be more initiatives, with the initial participation set to be closed in march 2013