Berlin has set a legally binding target: carbon neutrality by 2045. To get there, the city needs to transform how 3.7 million people move around. Cycling is not a side note in that plan — it's a central pillar.
In 2018, Berlin passed the Mobilitätsgesetz — Germany's first dedicated mobility law. It mandated the construction of a comprehensive cycling network, including 100km of protected cycle lanes on main roads within 3 years, a network of cycle superhighways connecting outer boroughs to the centre, and cycling infrastructure at every public transport interchange.
The implementation has been slower than planned, but the direction is unambiguous. Berlin is legally committed to being a cycling city.
Berlin currently has over 1,700km of cycling infrastructure — more than any other German city. Cycling's modal share has grown from 13% in 2008 to 18% in 2023, and the trend is consistently upward. On some inner-city corridors, cycling is already the dominant mode of transport.
Berlin is building a network of 12 cycle superhighways — high-capacity, largely car-free routes designed for fast, comfortable cycling. These routes will connect Brandenburg municipalities to Berlin's centre, making cycling viable for commuters who currently live beyond the S-Bahn ring.
When complete, the network will allow someone to cycle from Potsdam to Mitte in under an hour on dedicated infrastructure — no traffic lights, no parked cars, no shared road space.
Infrastructure alone doesn't change behaviour. Amsterdam didn't build its cycling culture purely through cycle lanes — Dutch cycling policy has included financial incentives, employer subsidies, and social norms that make cycling the default choice.
Berlin has the infrastructure. What it's missing is a systematic way to reward people for choosing it. That's the gap PedalPay fills — turning the infrastructure investment into a tangible daily reward for the people who use it.
Transport accounts for approximately 30% of Berlin's greenhouse gas emissions. Shifting even 5% of short car trips to cycling would reduce Berlin's transport emissions by an estimated 180,000 tonnes of CO₂ annually — equivalent to taking 80,000 cars off the road permanently.
PedalPay is one piece of that picture. But we think it's an important one.
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