Bicycle Infrastructure
CROW Design Manual for Bicycle Traffic is a famous publication that captures how Cycling in Netherlands is designed.
Protected Bicycle Lanes Protect the Climate by ITDP and FiA Foundation studies several cities (Bogota, Guangzhou, …) to assess the ROI of protected bicycle infrastructure and climate impact.
Types of infrastructure
Bike lanes
- Seven Bad Arguments Against Bike Lanes
- Protected Bike Lanes & More
- Why protected bike lanes are more valuable than parking spaces by Vox
“painted gutters”
- Paint is not infrastructure
- Beck2019how showed that on-road bicycle lanes reduced passing distance, indicating that painted bike lanes may be even more dangerous than no painted bikelane.
Junctions
This video on junction design is a good example of how to create safe junctions for bikes and pedestrians.
Stop sign
Stop Signs Suck and We Should Get Rid of Them by Not Just Bikes argues that stop signs are inefficient and less safe, and thus we should apply better designs of the roads to eliminate the need for stop signs. The Netherlands does not use stop signs.
Parking
Planning and building
Paris during the COVID 19 pandemic showed that it is possible to bootstrap a massive bike infrastructure within a few years. Some videos: - https://twitter.com/BrentToderian/status/1293309788076441600
Cost-benefit analysis
Studies
Gerike2022network reviews network-level design.
Safety and usage
Safety and usage are closely related. If it feels safe, more people will ride across age and abilities. In that sense, something similar to Place Pulse (Dubey2016deep) can be useful. See also Ito & Biljecki, Assessing bikeability with street view imagery and computer vision.
- Separated Bike Lanes Means Safer Streets, Study Says - Marshall2019why
- Cities with safer bike lanes are safer for everyone including drivers.
- There have been 0 deaths on #Paris’s bike paths so far in 2022. The busiest of them now count 15,000+ riders a day.
Economic impacts on businesses
Volker2020economic reviews the evidence and concludes that active transportation infrastructure has a positive impact.
Business owners consistently overestimate the fraction of customers who arrive by car (see Note to Store Owners: Not All Holiday Shoppers Drive and A survey from Berlin).
https://twitter.com/PVDStreets/status/1777644359111815168 posted by providence streets coalition. Wild Colonial Tavern advocating the positive impact of bike lanes to business.
Scientific studies
- Arancibia2019measuring - “We find no negative economic impacts associated with the bike lanes: Monthly customer spending and number of customers served by merchants both increased”
- https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/08/health-gains-of-low-traffic-schemes-up-to-100-times-greater-than-costs-study-finds
Articles, Tweets, blogs, etc.
- Love them or hate them, research offers financial case for big city bike lanes
- walking & cycling: the economic benefits
- “Sometimes, a shop owner tries to claim business was ruined because city removed 4 parking spaces. But now mayor can point to real figures and say: ‘There are 6,000 more people passing your shop on bikes. Are you sure you’re a good businessperson?’ ”—Jan Gehl,
- central Berlin. +65% visitors
- Want To Make Money? Build A Business On A Bike Lane
- Vancouver’s Downtown Business Association, who were originally AGAINST downtown bike-lanes, have become one of their most vigourous supporters, because of EVIDENCE
- Streets can either move cars quickly or attract social and economic activity. They can’t do both. … The Hague discovered this in 2009, removing all motor traffic from Grote Marktstraat; a four-lane arterial. … It is now one of the most successful shopping streets in all of Benelux
- Strøget in Copenhagen - “no cars means no business” but in fact, no cars mean business.
- NYT: On Car-Free Streets, Many New York Restaurants Thrived
- Business Grew After Controversial Bike Lane Installed, Data Show
- The biz owners say that reducing car access will destroy them. They’re almost certainly wrong.
- Note to Store Owners: Not All Holiday Shoppers Drive
Climate impact
Accessibility
- How do you want your golden years to be when you can no longer drive a car? Do you want to be lonely in a remote suburban retirement home or aging in place on enabling infrastructure within your town or city?
- Not everybody can ride a bike. And that’s why bike lanes are so important!
- In the Netherlands, 21% of ALL trips by non-western women are cycled. 16% by people with disabilities. 27% by seniors (65+). 55% by teenagers
- This visually impaired gentleman illustrates how cycling infra creates not less but MORE equity
- Cycling with two crutches through a busy city center in bad weather. Another strong example of the enabling power of cycling infrastructure for all ages and abilities
- With us, this gentleman would need a car or help to be able to move freely in the city
- Who else benefits from the Dutch cycling infrastructure by BicycleDutch