Cuba's two-wheel revolution.

• Author: Baker, Christopher
• Position: Bicycles

Five years ago there were only an estimated thirty thousand bicycles in Havana, a city of two million people. With the exception of a few small cities, such as Cardenas and Camaguey, Cuba never evolved a bicycle culture. It didn't have to. Hungarian buses may have spewed out palls of black smoke, but they provided an efficient transport network. Gasoline was plentiful. And cars were everywhere, including high-finned, voluptuous dowagers from the heyday of Detroit weaving among the sober Russian-made Ladas, their large engines guzzling gas at an astonishing rate.

However, the demise of the Soviet Union in 1989 cut Cuba adrift, severing the gasoline pipeline. The resulting shortage forced a reevaluation ... and a new revolution that marks a two-wheel triumph over adversity.

In January 1990 the Cuban government announced it would "enter the bicycle era" and contracted with China to purchase 1.2 million bicycles. Within two years, the number of buses on the streets of Havana fell by half and cars by two-thirds, as the number of bicycles increased twenty-five-fold to over 800,000. Bicycle lanes appeared, including along the Malecon, the sensuous seafront boulevard that seems to embrace all Havana. Many colonial streets in Old Havana were closed to motorized traffic. Bicycle parking lots sprouted throughout the city. Special buses were detailed to carry cyclists through the tunnel beneath Havana harbor. New traffic regulations were adopted. And bicycle repair shops appeared on every comer.

The World Bank has applauded the "comprehensiveness and speed of implementation of this program" as "unprecedented in the history of transportation." Today, every second citizen in Havana, and one-fifth of the populace nationwide, owns a bicycle. Old and young Cubans alike have taken to two wheels with characteristic zeal.

"Even an old guy like me rides a bicycle to work," says a fifty-nine-year-old waiter, "and...