--FILE -- Il popolo cinese ride ciclisti su strada in Cina a Shanghai, 15 novembre 2015. Non è stato così tanto tempo fa che i fiumi della bicicletta pendolari condotto
--FILE--Chinese people ride cyclists on a road in Shanghai, China, 15 November 2015. It wasn't so long ago that rivers of bicycle commuters coursed through Chinese cities. As a means of navigating urban roads, two wheels couldn't be beat. They were cheap (and China was poor), and Chinese cities were compact enough to allow for conveyance by pedal power alone. As recently as 1986, 63 percent of Beijingers used a bike as their primary mode of transportation. By 2013, however, those numbers had plummeted to 14 percent. Nationwide, bicycle usage declined between 2 and 5 percent annually between 1990 and 2010. The reason for the drop-off is no secret. Car ownership has surged in China over the last 30 years as Chinese enjoy their new prosperity and look for more efficient and comfortable ways to navigate their ever-more-sprawling cities. Bicycles -- and in particular, bike-sharing programs, a utopian concept first tried (unsuccessfully) in Amsterdam in 1965 -- have resurfaced as one of the most promising options. According toBloomberg, in just the last few weeks China's two biggest bicycle-sharing services landed $200 million in funding, giving one of them -- two-year-old, Beijing-based ofo -- a $500 million valuation.
