Planners and politicians in many countries seek to increase the proportion of trips made by cycling. However, this is often challenging. In England, a national target to double cycling by 2025 is likely to be missed: between 2001 and 2011 the proportion of commutes made by cycling barely grew. One important contributory factor is continued low investment in cycling infrastructure, by comparison to European leaders.
An alarmingly high proportion of the Australian adult population does not meet national physical activity guidelines (57%). This is concerning because physical inactivity is a risk factor for several chronic diseases. In recent years, an increasing emphasis has been placed on the potential for transport and urban planning to contribute to increased physical activity via greater uptake of active transport (walking, cycling and public transport).
KTH Royal Institute of Technology School of Architecture and the Built Environment
Publication date:
September 2017
Abstract:
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).
There are fewer road deaths per head of the population in Britain than in almost any other country in the world. With minor variations in international rankings, this has been the case consistently for many years. The most recent data (2015) show that Norway and Sweden both have fewer road deaths per head than Britain while Switzerland, Denmark and the Netherlands have more.
The aims of this article are to demonstrate the successes and failures of the £100million London Cycle Network plus project and to discuss the standard of the highway engineering schemes delivered, particularly in relation to their overall effect on ride quality as defined by the cycling level of service assessment set out in the 2014 London cycling design standards. By highlighting areas where changes could have been made to improve the delivery of the project, it is hoped that lessons can be learnt for future projects of this type.
The objectives of this study were to examine the issues regarding road narrowings and to monitor the benefits of measures designed to assist cyclists. The general approach to the study programme was to divide the research into four main elements:
This research posits the question that good design of the bicycle infrastructure in a city will encourage more people to cycle. Research is carried out to compare the cycle infrastructure in selected European cities against an adapted Level of Service concept using accompanied ride-alongs. The literature review on the factors that encourage/dissuade cycle use suggests that it is the potential rider’s perceptions on the safety of cycling in their neighbourhood that is the deciding feature.
Fairness in a Car Dependent Society, finds that vulnerable groups not only travel less than other people, they carry a greater burden of the costs of other people’s travel, including air pollution, noise, traffic danger, injury and crime. Other findings include:
