Does cycling infrastructure expansion lead to gentrification? Empirical insights from Berlin

Source abstract

Concerns that bicycle infrastructure expansion may contribute to gentrification have been discussed in North American research, but it remains unclear whether these relationships transfer to European cities. This study examines the association between cycling infrastructure expansion and socioeconomic change in Berlin between 2014 and 2021. Using a longitudinal design, we combine annual OpenStreetMap data on cycling infrastructure with socioeconomic and rental-market data at a 1 km 2 grid-cell level. Cycling infrastructure is measured as the bike path to street length ratio (BPSR), distinguishing between on-street, off-street, and total bicycle infrastructure, while socioeconomic change is captured through a socioeconomic index (SEI) and gentrification through a derived indicator. Annual models show a consistent negative association between SEI and both total and off-street BPSR, indicating that lower socioeconomic status in Berlin is associated with higher BPSR. Across the examined time sequences, the models show no association between socioeconomic development and cycling infrastructure expansion. Instead, distance to the city center emerges as the strongest predictor of infrastructure development. Linear probability models likewise show no robust citywide association between gentrification processes and bicycle infrastructure expansion. These findings align with studies showing that cycling–gentrification relationships vary across cities and reveal a differentiated Berlin pattern: lower-status areas show higher bicycle-path coverage, while infrastructure development is shaped more by centrality than by neighborhood upgrading. The study thus adds European evidence to a debate still dominated by North American cases and suggests that cycling investments in Berlin should not be treated as inherently gentrifying at the citywide level.