Rimini’s comprehensive Bicipolitana cycling network has been expanding since the 1960s, converting car culture into enthusiasm for active mobility through joy and convenience.
Nestled on the Adriatic coast to the northeast of Italy is Rimini, a medium-sized historic city that has pushed ahead with cycling and walking infrastructure development for more than sixty years with no sign of slowing down.
The city’s integrated bicycle network – Bicipolitana – today offers eight interconnected lines, resembling a metro system. That’s in addition to Anello Verde, the Green Ring, which passes places of interest like parks, the seaside, the ancient city wall, and Rimini’s canal. Paths shooting off from the circular route intersect the urban centre, giving active mobility users plenty of chances for access to everything the city centre has to offer.
In recognition of Rimini’s efforts to become a cycle-first city, in June 2026 it plays host to the annual world cycling summit, Velo-city, organised by the European Cycling Federation. The theme for this gathering of 4,000 prominent cycling voices and enthusiasts is “Delivering the Urban Dream”. It seems apt. Rimini’s exemplary achievements will show those in attendance what a city with ambition can get done with a sustained long-term vision and the right political will.
Rimini’s Active Transport Policy
Bicipolitana was inspired by a similar idea implemented by another Italian city, Pesaro, Valentina Ridolfi tells us.
Valentina is Rimini’s Deputy Mayor for Urban and Territorial Planning, Private Construction, European Policies, State property, and PNRR (Italy’s growth-focused post-COVID-19 National Recovery and Resilience Plan). She currently oversees the Bicipolitana project.
The cycle network initiative feeds quite naturally into the city’s territorial plan, which she took charge of in 2008. Written just a year before by a community working group made up of “economic, environmental, cultural, and social bodies,” this document has directed Rimini’s urban development for the best part of two decades.
Our CityChanger says that putting the plan in black and white was a good move, allowing the vision to stand firm even as mayors (and their policy changes) came and went. Bicipolitana has benefitted from this stability, enjoying continuous expansion without interruption.
The Legacy & Challenges of Roman Roads
Valentina explains that, after decades of enjoying cycling routes along the seafront, historic streets, shopping areas, and dried riverbeds, there is a firmly established cycling culture among Rimini’s residents. In fact, she says that the attraction of active mobility – walking, cycling, scooting, etc. – is a reason for low rates of patronage on public transport. Sadly, services suffer as a result.
Public transport systems are not effective because many people use to go, for example, to work or to school by bicycle.
That can mean trouble in summer months. As one of the country’s busiest tourist destinations, Rimini experiences an influx of tourists, attracted by “sports and wellness activities”. At other times of the year, the city plays host to major events like trade fairs. Both crowds bring their cars.
Private vehicles are still a strong status symbol in Italy, Valentina explains. This is what Rimini’s cycling strategy is really up against. Making matters worse, new cars rolling off production lines are increasingly large. That’s a problem for a city with a built heritage spanning back 2,000 years, to the Roman empire, and “characterized by narrow streets very dense [urban] fabric”. Cycling is much more suitable.
Canvassing Ideas
Sometimes dealing with ingrained systemic issues like love for the motor car just requires a little sideways thinking. But always an understanding of the problem.
“Our strategies and actions started with a rigorous strategic planning approach,” our CityChanger explains. “I like My Bike – MoviMenti Under 30” was a participatory project involving a group of young people under 30 years of age, which the city worked with to identify shortcomings in cycling provison at the time. “They were the first group to design the Bicipolitana, then it was implemented by the internal offices of the municipality.”
Why begin with them?
“Because young citizens are the most innovative citizens that we have,” Valentina says. Teenagers especially, who cannot yet drive, have to get round the city in other ways, so brought that first-hand knowledge to the discussion. “And so, they designed something that they had experimented with daily.”
Bicipolitana developed from here, and officially began in 2018 when the city adopted a notion to pass the PUMS (Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan of the Municipality of Rimini), which also paved the way for more school zones, 30 km speed limits, and limited traffic zones.
What Well-Planned Cycling Infrastructure Looks Like
Jump ahead to present day, and now Rimini’s metro-like Bicipolitana network stretches to almost 200km; around 75% (142 km) of it offering two-way routes, and 130km of which they share with pedestrians.
But Bicipolitana is not just a network of sealed bike paths. This is a holistic project, complete with secure bike parks, e-bike charging points, shade to protect travellers from the sun, and traffic-calming zones for extra safely.
Under- and overpasses have been installed to enhance accessibility, allowing cyclists to continue their journeys without stopping at roads, waterways, and a railway line that bisects the city. In some cases, pre-existing pedestrian underpasses have been refurbished to add bike lanes.
With the addition of strategically placed transfer hubs, Rimini has managed to get people – namely visitors – to park their cars and take more journeys by bike, streamlining traffic flows and keeping many cars out of the city.
It’s a massive construction project, and any changes to the built environment have to get approval from the Ministry of Culture, which oversees the preservation of Rimini’s urban heritage. Valentina’s team has done a lot of work “on the systematic removal of architectural barriers and on integrating essential services such as bike sharing, or bike racks all around the city,” she explains.
Benefits of a Culture Change
But Bicipolitana is as much about liveability and culture change as it is a building project.
The innovation that we implemented was not only limited to large scale infrastructure.
Active transport, Valentina reminds us, is low on CO2 emission, supporting municipal climate targets. “And of course there are physical and psychological benefits as well.” In Rimini’s public relations, this became a useful communication point.
To encourage residents who weren’t already active travel enthusiasts, the city teamed up “with a network of stakeholders, both national and local” to run awareness campaigns to promote “a new culture of physical exercise”.
Sensibly, they did it by talking about biking as convenient, affordable, and fun rather than evangelising. “Our focus was to convince people that cycling is the most convenient and natural way to get around.”
Has it worked? In a word: yes. And there’s evidence to prove it.
Data gathering is a pillar of Rimini’s strategic transport plan. In 2025, the city introduced a Mobility Geoportal, which Valentina describes as “a sort of mapping platform showing cycle paths, restricted traffic zones, 30 kilometre zones, locations of bike racks,” etc. This together with sensors dotted around the city monitor emissions and help the municipality understand traffic flows. In other words, track the impact of the cycling network.
Velo-city reports that “nearly 490,000 cycling trips were recorded at a single counter” in 2025, saving “an estimated 199 tons of CO₂”. Scale that up across the whole city, and those figures really stack up.
Justifying the Economic Burdon
Of course, large scale cycling infrastructure does not come cheap. Spreading the construction work out over 60 years and more helps with budgeting, but Rimini relies on national and European level funding opportunities to pull it all together.
It does pay off, though. Valentina points out that the city has experienced significant economic benefits because of the cycling network. First off, it brings people in contact with businesses on the various cycling routes. And by connecting every extremity of Rimini, Bicipolitana is stirring interest to redevelop and renew interest in “abandoned” or “degraded areas” of the city, where new economic opportunities may take root, Valentina suggests.
Already Rimini is seeing “a new employment sector flourish,” built on the city’s cycling and micro-mobility policies: “A new economic sector made of cycle tourism, bike services, bicycle friendly hotels, workshops, and specialist retailers.”
The electric vehicle boom has not passed Rimini by. A handful of providers have moved in to offer shared micromobility, such as electric-powered hire scooters, which are frequently used by commuters, young people, and tourists. The 1,300-strong fleet of shared e-bikes managed by various operators has racked up 868,000 individual trips in little more than two years.
Hotels too have got in on the act, hiring out pedal bicycles and e-bikes to cash in on the trend. For sure this has helped change the culture among visitors to Rimini.
I have seen that this attitude to move by bicycle is really improving. You can often see tourists going around our city by bicycle.
Locals too are embracing new ways to make use of the excellent infrastructure quite literally on their doorstep. Cargo bikes are proving “very useful for families to bring their children to school and back”.
It’s Not Over Yet…
Few cities seem to have dedicated so much time to implementing active travel infrastructure as Rimini. But maybe that’s the key to its success – a city that gives itself chance to respond to how people use the provision and manoeuvre to changes in micromobility trends and tech.
Maybe that’s a patient mentality that comes with a city that people have been traversing for more than 2,000 years already. Wherever it comes from, it’s a patience that is serving the development of Bicipolitana very well. As visitors to Velo-city will see, while all roads lead to Rome, bike paths lead to Rimini.
Velo-city will be in Rimini, Italy, from 16 to 19 June 2026.