In the CO/ALIGN project, we explore how civil society organisations build alliances to shape urban mobility. One case that vividly illustrates this in Barcelona is the Bike Theft Taskforce, a collaborative effort bringing together cycling advocacy organisations, the public administration, the university and the private sector. This alliance emerged around a shared challenge that none of these actors could have solved alone.
When bike theft slows down sustainable mobility
Consider this: what would you do if your bike were stolen? Would you replace it, rent one or give up cycling altogether? Evidence suggests that one in five victims of bike theft stops cycling. This highlights that bike theft is a mobility issue that can disrupt a more sustainable mobility transition.
Bike theft is a complex issue with many possible entry points, from improving parking infrastructure to enhancing data collection and analysis. Recognising this complexity, both the Bicicleta Club de Catalunya (BACC) and the Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambiental (ICTA) saw the need for a coordinated approach.
This led to the creation of the Bike Theft Taskforce. Over a series of meetings, representatives from metropolitan and municipal administrations, research institutions, civil society organisations, the private sector and local police forces came together to build a shared strategy. The goal was not only to exchange perspectives but to align efforts and ultimately influence political action.
Last week, the taskforce presented its results, including a roadmap to combat bike theft. Central to this roadmap is the recognition that coordinated action across institutions is essential to keep cities moving toward sustainable mobility. One participant from the cycling organisation emphasised this idea during the presentation:
This roadmap is the result of a consensus, because each of these institutions has different perspectives on the problem and different objectives, it must be said. But in the end, the problem is shared, and what we want is to reach this consensus that allows us to have concrete, operational and scalable measures.
What can we learn from this experience?
The bike theft taskforce raises important questions for urban governance and for our ongoing research within the CO/ALIGN project: Could this issue have been effectively addressed without an alliance? What are the gains of forging a shared agenda across sectors? What lessons can other cities draw from this experience? What worked well in this collaboration, and what could be improved in future alliances?
These questions will guide our next phase of investigation. By examining how this alliance was formed, how it functioned and what it achieved, we aim to deepen our understanding of the role of civil society-led partnerships in driving urban mobility transitions. We expect that the insights from this case will resonate with and inform similar alliances across Europe, contributing to a broader dialogue on how collaborative governance can support 15-minute cities.
