Castellana Cycling Lane Redesigns Traffic in the City of Madrid

A new bike lane section on the Paseo de la Castellana avenue is part of the main axis of the cycling network in the city of Madrid. It aims to provide a segregated, safe, and connected bike lane infrastructure from north to south, covering one of the busiest internal transport corridors of the city.

Objective: The objective of the Castellana Bike Lane project is to promote cycling as a mode of transport and support a cultural change in the city´s mobility towards cleaner and healthier transportation options.

Strategic vision to make Madrid a bike-friendly city

Madrid city council is strongly committed to sustainability and is making efforts to achieve a more sustainable and inclusive mobility system in the city.

The Madrid 360 sustainability strategy is the flagship instrument to transform the city and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. It identifies sustainable mobility as one of the main pillars of the city´s sustainable transformation. In this way, the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan, approved in 2022, has the primary goal of achieving a safer, healthier, more sustainable, and more efficient mobility in Madrid.

Promoting active modes of transportation such as walking, and cycling is one of the strategic actions to shift the modal share and thus reach those goals. More specifically, the plan has set the target that 85% of journeys of less than 2 km will be made via active modes

This Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan promotes the use of bicycles, Personal Mobility Vehicles (PMV) and other forms of micro-mobility due to their minimal environmental and energy impact, as well as their versatility to complement high-quality public transport in Madrid to provide multimodal and clean door-to-door trips. The bicycle has enormous potential as a mode of transportation in Madrid since 70% of the residents’ journeys within the municipality are less than 5 km long. However, only 0.6% of journeys are made by bicycle. Therefore, it is crucial to accelerate actions to promote this mode of transport.

Among other measures, the plan foresees the completion and improvement of the current cycling network. One of the key projects is the development of a segregated bike lane on the Castellana-Recoletos-Prado axis, which forms part of the basic cycling network defined by the Madrid cycling director plan and will be the backbone of all north-south bicycle journeys.

Political consensus, dialogue, and participatory process

The construction of the Paseo de la Castellana cycling lane was agreed upon by a unanimous consensus of all the political parties in the City Council through the “Acuerdos de la Villa” agreement in July 2020.

Given the significance and complexity of an intervention in a busy avenue like Paseo de la Castellana, it is essential to involve all relevant stakeholders from the beginning. In this case, the design was a result of co-creation and participation of all areas of government in the City Council. In addition, during the design phase, the City Council engaged with cycling organizations and other relevant stakeholders such as the Spanish Committee of Representatives of People with Disabilities who could participate since the project's inception. Their contributions, as well as their needs, were considered and included in the final design.

Context: Paseo de la Castellana

The Paseo de la Castellana, along with Recoletos and Paseo del Prado, is a vital corridor in the city centre, with mixed uses such as commercial, financial, cultural, institutional and residential buildings and institutions.

View of the Paseo de la Castellana from Raimundo Fernández Villaverde (2021) before incorporating the Bike Lane

This avenue is well connected and easily accessible by transit of multiple metro lines (L1, L10, L9, L8, L6, L7, L4), bus services that run along the street, as well as a commuter rail station, “Nuevos Ministerios” which is one of the main multimodal transport hubs for passengers in Madrid.

This traffic artery also connects the city centre of Madrid to the business areas of “Las Tablas” and Plaza de Castilla as well as the Chamartín train station, from where all high-speed trains to the North and East of Madrid leave. Furthermore, Paseo de la Castellana is one of the busiest streets in Madrid with intense pedestrian traffic, more than 56.000 journeys per day and it is characterised by heavy traffic with almost 90.000 vehicles a day.

However, notably, cycling is not a very common means of transport, with only around 900 daily bicycle trips compared to the high traffic in this area. The City Council has decided to tackle the problem and promote cycling as a safe, healthy and convenient way to access this traffic artery of Madrid.

Castellana Project 01: First section between Plaza de Castilla and Nuevos Ministerios

The project consists of the construction of a high-quality segregated bike lane of 13 km that aims to be the backbone of cycling mobility in Madrid. The construction has been split into five sections. The first section has a length of approximately 2km and connects Plaza de Castilla with the Nuevos Ministerios multimodal station.

The project for the execution of the first section of the bike lane, approved in July 2021, included the construction of two segregated bike lanes of 2 km in length on each platform. However, the scope of the intervention was more ambitious, as it aims to reorganize and enhance the shared mobility in the section. The key goals and defining facts for the project design are as follows:

View of the bike lane, including also the side road (right) and a wide pedestrian lane (left), which are separated from traffic

Safety and comfort: The bike lane is segregated, avoiding crossings of the bike lane with the bus and other vehicles, thus improving cyclist safety;
Improved public transport operation: An exclusive bus lane has been built and the accessibility and comfort of bus stops have been enhanced;
Maintenance of traffic service levels: The project ensures that traffic flow remains efficient and uninterrupted through the entire planning and construction cycle;
Pedestrian and accessibility improvements: The project includes the construction of a continuous pedestrian path along the boulevard platforms, the widening of sidewalks and the creation of connections between the side and central roads with new pedestrian crossings;
Improvement of the environment: To improve the ambience and well-being of citizens, trees were planted, and the landscape was enhanced by installing additional street furniture.

Initial situation and solutions adopted

The project corridor features a cross-section composed of a central six-lane urban road and two segregated bus lanes separated by lines of trees. In both directions, there are spacious pedestrian boulevards with garden areas between the central platform and the side roads.

The side roads are divided into two 3.5-meter lanes and a slanted parking strip. Currently, cyclists use a marked shared lane or "cycle lane" on the right lane of the side road, with a maximum permitted speed of 30 km/h.

The adopted design involved installing two one-way bike lanes on the left side between the pedestrian boulevards and the side roads. This layout has proven to be safer as it reduces conflicts with motorists, enhances cyclists’ visibility and minimizes dangerous interactions. The bike lane has a 2-meter-wide section, except for the roundabout sections where the two-way bike lane is 2.5-meters wide.

The bike lane is located on the street parking space that has been reorganized to avoid losing parking capacity. Consequently, the proposed solution does not affect any of the coexistent traffic (transit, or car traffic). As for pedestrian traffic, complete segregation is ensured since the bike lane is located at road level. The crossings of the pedestrian routes with the cyclist lanes incorporate mandatory curb ramps, podotactile paving, and islands at uneven levels to achieve an effective separation between cycling and pedestrian paths.

Cross-section adapted bike lane solution

Improvements in accessibility, safety, and efficiency

A comprehensive study of traffic and mobility, adopting a “complete street approach”, led the Mobility Planning Department to propose the reorganisation of the current street layout and the improvement of intersections for increased safety and smooth traffic flow, reducing congestion and therefore GHG emissions. The project also aims to ensure accessibility by providing equal and barrier-free access to all by adapting sidewalks and creating continuous pedestrian itineraries. Implemented actions include:
New pedestrian crossings between the sideway and boulevards;
Design of accessible bus stops;
Adaptation of pedestrian crossings and itineraries following accessibility criteria;
Placement of tactile pavement strips on affected itineraries and curb ramps;
New continuous and connected pedestrian routes

New green spaces and landscaping

As mentioned before, the new bike lane occupies the parking strip between the boulevard and the sideway delimited by two lines of trees. The design and planning of the project have been optimised to ensure minimal tree relocation and increasing green space. A vegetated strip runs along the stretch between the bike lane and the boulevard.

Projected landscape and cycling lane

Tree trunk protection

The execution works began on 1 April 2022 and ended on 31 March 2023 with a total budget of €4,039,784.34. The construction was co-funded by the Programme of Aid to Municipalities for the Implementation of Low Emission Zones and the Digital and Sustainable Transformation of Urban Transport of the Spanish Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility (C01.I01 in the ES Recovery and Resilience Plan).

Expected outcomes

With the execution of the Paseo de la Castellana bike lane, a drastic increase in the number of daily bicycle trips on the axis is expected, concretely increasing by 3.000 trips per day to a total of 4.000. The City Council, by providing a safe and connected bike lane, aims to encourage the change of mindset and culture needed to introduce cycling as a mode of transport in Madrid.

Lastly, this infrastructure will improve the environmental quality of the area by reducing up to 10% of journeys previously made by car or motorbike, resulting in a cumulative reduction of more than 1 million vehicle- -kilometres per year and a reduction of 187 tonnes of CO2 and 319,000 kilograms of NOx.

The bike lane’s first section, opened in March 2023, has been well received by the citizens. According to a study conducted by the Mobility Planning Department to assess the performance of the infrastructure, since the opening the bike lane use has shown a positive evolution with an increase of up to 20% from June to October 2023.

Other measures

The construction of the Castellana bike lane is not an isolated action but part of the integrated Madrid 360 strategy and SUM plan. The city is making significant efforts to promote cycling, implementing measures such as the development of the Cycling Infrastructure Design Guideline and the completion of 94.4 km of high-quality new bike lanes (38.8km segregated and 55.13km of shared use).

Between 2019 and 2020, BiciMAD experienced the largest expansion in its history with 90 new stations. The new expansion project, completed in November 2023, consists of the deployment of 7,500 bicycles and 611 stations in the city’s 21 districts to further support the wider vision and ensure that cycling becomes an integral component also of the public transport offer.

In addition, the City Council allocated a total budget of 48.8 million euros to the complete technological transformation of BiciMAD.

The new expanded BiciMAD service that started operating on March 7, 2023, offers all citizens the possibility of benefiting from unlimited free travel throughout the fleet until January 2024.

In Nov 2023 the BICIMAD use data were as follows:

6,995 bicycles
277k subscribers (+432% s/2022)
6.42M trips (+95% s/2022)
592 operating stations

And this is just the first step. The city is currently outlining a new and ambitious Cycling Master Plan that will define the following investments and actions to make Madrid more cyclable.