Europe

The concept of roads has been around for a long time, much longer than we have had cars. In the past, the space between the houses in our cities has been used for a variety of activities and purposes, including work, entertainment, communication, as a marketplace and for transport. Of course, our streets were also the perfect place for children to develop – to play, to argue, to fraternise, to grow up, and to become better adjusted to society. This has been the case for many centuries, but the situation changed radically over the last 60 years.

Children’s well-being and health, the quality of the environments they are brought up in and the impact of a range of social and technological developments in the lives of children has been the subject of much research, public concern and debate. This report presents new research on one factor that is affected by (and affects) these issues – children’s independent mobility. This can bedefined as ‘the freedom of children to travel around their own neighbourhood or city without adult supervision’ (Tranter and Whitelegg, 1994).

City administrations across Europe and beyond have made real progress in planning and providing for cycling in their cities. Support both for cycling measures and this book has come from the European Commission. Their support has been most valuable, but this was not the start of their involvement. In 1999, the then European Environment Commissioner, Ritt Bjerregard wrote the following foreword to their publication ‘Cycling: The way ahead for towns and cities’:

The potential of bicycle and pedestrian travel in the city has been underestimated in past decades and, as a result, there has been some deterioration of facilities and public space availability for these road users. However, in recent years the value of these transport modes has gained recognition and is being prioritised much more highly in cities’ mobility policies.

Electric bikes proved to be very efficient in dense urban areas where most delivery rounds are short. In many ways they perform better than motorised vehicles, saving money and increasing efficiency.

This leaflet gives advice on the range of traffic environments and circumstances in which various options for permitting cycling in the contraflow direction in one-way streets may be appropriate.

The advice draws together guidance in existing publications from the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) and others. It is supplemented by the results of recent research undertaken by Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) on behalf of the DETR. This is reported fully in TRL Report 358.

Abstract

Background: Ecological models emphasize that cycling for transport is determined by an interplay between individual, physical and social environmental factors. The current study investigated (a) which physical and social environmental factors determine adolescents’ preferences towards cycling for transport and (b) which individual, physical and social environmental factors are associated with their intention to actually cycle for transport.

Perceived, subjective safety of cyclists is not only important as a main factor of cyclist preferences (Heinen et al., 2010), it also influences which route cyclists take (Klobucar and Fricker, 2007; Lawson et al., 2013), or whether they would choose cycling at all (Heinen et al., 2010). Despite this importance, objective and subjective safety are not equally emphasised (Nilsen et al., 2004) and comprehensive knowledge is also lacking (Sørensen and Mosslemi, 2009).