Journal of the Korean Society of Surveying, Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography Vol. 32, No. 6, 617-623, 2014 http://dx.doi.org/10.7848/ksgpc.2014.32.6.617 Cycling: An Effcient Solution to Rising Transportation Problems in Kathmandu Yang, In Tae 1) · Acharya, Tri Dev 2) · Shin, Moon Seung 3) Abstract The rapid urbanization in developing countries has caused trasportation problems that need to be solved. For that reason, the study evaluates the potential of cycling in the densely populated part of Kathmandu valley. Slopes and existing roads have been applied as the input cost rasters for fnding the shortest cost routes between stations. By taking the average cycling velocity, time to travel from station to destination were compared with the average commuting time in the public transportation. The result comes out as similar time with the public transportation. Although the cycling seems potential replacement for public transportation commuters, in fact, there are some setbacks needed to be supported by the government to make it reality in future. Keywords : Cycling, Urbanization, Kathmandu, GIS 617 ISSN 1598-4850(Print) ISSN 2288-260X(Online) Original article Received 2014. 11. 30, Revised 2014. 12. 14, Accepted 2014. 12. 21 1) Member, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Kangwon National Univ., Korea (E-mail: intae@kangwon.ac.kr) 2) Corresponding Author, Member, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Kangwon National Univ., Korea (E-mail: tridevacharya@kangwon.ac.kr) 3) Member, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Kangwon National Univ., Korea (E-mail: sms6438@kangwon.ac.kr) This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 1. Introduction Urbanization has been processed rapidly in most of developing countries. It has been observed in Nepal from the 1970s onward, showing one of the highest rates in Asia and the Pacifc ( ADB/ICIMOD, 2006). Since the population in Kathmandu valley is growing by 4 percents per year with a population of 2.5 million people, it becomes the most populated city in country, as well as one of the fastest growing metropolitan in South Asia (Muzzini and Aparicio, 2013). Kathmandu valley is nearly round shape with diameters of about 30 km east–west and 25 km north–south. It consists of Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur districts. The reason for rapid and unplanned mushrooming of the city is due to several factors, such as Maoist insurgency and Tarai insecurity, lack of rural educational and health facilities, educational and employment opportunities in the capital. It is the frst region in Nepal to face the unprecedented challenges of rapid urbanization and modernization at a metropolitan scale (Muzzini and Aparicio, 2013). Among many, one of the emerging challenges is transportation development inside the valley. Kathmandu has not yet seen the modern bulk carrier transportation, such as railways. Hence, roads are the only way to travel, which in