TAIPEI: Bicycles that cost half the fare of a subway ride to rent. A 300-km cycling network and wider shared pavements. That’s how Taipei revolutionised its cycling culture in just eight years, cutting pollution and congestion in the city.

These days, the city is a fine representative of the “Bicycle Kingdom” – a moniker that Taiwan originally earned as the largest exporter of bikes in the world, but increasingly now, because of residents’ reliance on pedal power to get around.

Taipei residents made 5.5 per cent of trips in the city on bicycles in 2014, according to the European Cyclists’ Federation. That’s twice more than Londoners, and four times more than New Yorkers.

After Youbike, Taipei’s public bicycle rental system, started in 2009, Taipei’s cycling population shot up by 30 per cent.

Read the full story at channelnewsasia.com.