Today, apartheid-era spatial planning and car-centric design continues to shape commuting in Johannesburg, as cycling reemerges as an affordable and sustainable way to move around.
Johannesburg, South Africa’s most populous city, has a long and complex history with bicycles. Today, commuting is a daily struggle shaped by Apartheid, inequality, and inadequate infrastructure – factors which make cycling a difficult option for many.
A 2025 News24 report, citing the World Bank, revealed that “low-income commuters spend more than 50% of their earnings to get to work.” The bicycle is a tool for affordability, sustainability and freedom. However, in a city designed for cars, we need to reimagine urban space, to make it safer for pedestrians and cyclists while integrating public transport.
In the early 1900s, Johannesburg was celebrated as a cycling city. In an article published in the Guardian, Njogu Morgan, a postdoctoral research fellow at Wits University, quoted a 1903 newspaper stating that “nearly every third inhabitant rides a bicycle.” For white residents, cycling was fashionable and modern. However, for black residents, bicycles were often a necessity, but their freedom to ride was restricted and policed.
By the 1930s, rising incomes from the gold economy led to many white residents buying cars, and motoring became a symbol of wealth. Under apartheid, spatial segregation forcedblack workers into distant townships, far from job opportunities. Cycling became associated with black-working class commuters and was stigmatised as a ‘poor man’s mode of transport’.
Since, unsafe roads, long distances and investments in highways pushed bicycles aside completely. By the mid-1990s cycling had almost disappeared from the streets.
Modern Johannesburg was designed around cars instead of people. Urban Planner Phano Liphoto documented his morning journey on TikTok, his story sparked hundreds of responses from people who faced similar situations of waking at 4am and returning home after dark.
Commuter cycling is re-emerging as a cheaper and more environmentally friendly alternative, and it’s becoming increasingly popular among students, including myself. I’m fortunate to live relatively close to Wits University, making cycling a practical option. Many people told me it would be impossible to commute by bike in Johannesburg, warning that, especially as a white woman, it would be far too dangerous. Yet, I have found the city is absolutely cyclable, though it is far from being well supported.
With very few dedicated cycles lanes, and those that do exist are often blocked by taxis and cars. Bike lanes that had been introduced in the 2010s were criticised as “luxuries for the rich”, even though evidence showed lower-income workers were the main cyclists. Many cycle lanes are just painted on the ground, and according to a 13-year-old study “painted bike lanes without physical barriers are often more dangerous than nothing at all.”
On my route to campus, a cycle lane suddenly appears along a busy road, only to disappear in the middle of traffic. But, with some planning and the use of back streets, cycling is manageable and a great option. There are also groups, such as Banditz Bicycle Club and Girls on Bikes, that are advocating for more people to take up commuter cycling, offering affordable bikes and helping to map safer routes. Groups like Young Urbanists have proposed low-cost upgrades and protection, including in their “Stage 01 of Reclaiming Our Cycling Lanes ”briefing for Cape Town.
Transport experts argue that a cycling infrastructure cannot succeed on its own. Stigma also remains a concern. As Morgan explores in the book Anxious Joburg there is a complex relationship between identify and transport and “identities are constructed through transport behaviour.”
As Director of Wits University’s Centre for Diversity Studies, Professor Nicky Falkof, stated in an interview on YouTube, “There also needs to be a significant shift where people stop thinking bicycles are a lower-class form of transport.” This highlights the link between transport and identity and explains why bike lanes often go unused. They were built without broader cultural and systemic support.
Reclaiming the bicycle is not just about transport, it is about ending spatial violence and redesigning cities to prioritise people. While South Africa faces challenges from its past, there is an opportunity to build a more inclusive and connected urban space.
FEATURED IMAGE: Hannah Brown
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