Bicycle-friendly policies and practices help some people feel more comfortable about traveling by

bicycle A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike, push-bike or cycle, is a human-powered transport, human-powered or motorized bicycle, motor-assisted, bicycle pedal, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, with two bicycle wheel, wheels attached to a ...

with other traffic. The level of bicycle-friendliness of an environment can be influenced by many factors including

town planning Urban planning (also called city planning in some contexts) is the process of developing and designing land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportatio ...

and

cycling infrastructure Cycling, also known as bicycling or biking, is the activity of riding a bicycle or other types of bicycle pedal, pedal-driven human-powered vehicles such as balance bikes, unicycles, tricycles, and quadricycles. Cycling is practised around the ...

decisions. A stigma towards people who ride bicycles and fear of cycling is a social construct that needs to be fully understood when promoting a bicycle friendly culture.

Urban planning

Assuming people prefer to get to their destination quickly,

urban planning Urban planning (also called city planning in some contexts) is the process of developing and designing land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportatio ...

and

zoning In urban planning, zoning is a method in which a municipality or other tier of government divides land into land-use "zones", each of which has a set of regulations for new development that differs from other zones. Zones may be defined for ...

may affect whether schools, shops, public transport interchanges and other destination are within a reasonable cycling distance of the areas where people live. If urban form influences these issues, then compact and circular settlement patterns may promote cycling. In 1990, the Netherlands adopted the "ABC" guidelines, specifically limiting infrastructure developments that are major attractants to locations that are readily accessible by non-car users.Legislative Tools for Preserving Town Centres and Halting the Spread of Hypermarkets and Malls Outside of Cities: Land Use Legislation and Controls of Conflicts of Interest in Land Use Decision Making, by Ken Baar, Ph.D.

Institute for Transportation and Development Policy An institute is an organizational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes c ...

, New York NY 10001, 2002 The manner in which the public roads network is designed, built and managed can have a significant effect on the utility and safety of cycling as transport. Settlements that provide a dense roads network consisting of interconnected streets will tend to encourage cycling. In contrast, other communities may use a

cul-de-sac A dead end, also known as a ''cul-de-sac'' (; , ), a no-through road or a no-exit road, is a street with only one combined inlet and outlet. Dead ends are added to roads in urban planning designs to limit traffic in residential areas. Some d ...

based,

housing estate A housing estate (or sometimes housing complex, housing development, subdivision (land), subdivision or community) is a group of homes and other buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to count ...

/ housing subdivision model where minor roads are disconnected and only feed into a

street hierarchy The street hierarchy is an urban planning technique for laying out road networks that exclude automobile through-traffic from developed areas. It is conceived as a hierarchy of roads that embeds the link importance of each road type in the ne ...

of progressively more "arterial" type roads. Designs that propose to resolve the contradiction between the cul-de-sac and the traditional interconnected network, such as the fused grid, have been proposed and built with varying levels of success. In the UK, the principle of 'filtered permeability' has been proposed in some government guidance to maximise the ease of movement of cyclists and pedestrians, whilst constraining it for motor vehicles, see permeability.

Cycling infrastructure

Cycling infrastructure includes bikeways, maps, signs,

signals A signal is both the process and the result of Signal transmission, transmission of data over some transmission media, media accomplished by embedding some variation. Signals are important in multiple subject fields including signal processin ...

, protected intersections and bicycle parking. Chine vert-partiel

Selection of cycling-friendly infrastructure

Benefits of bicycle-friendly communities

A community's infrastructure can affect its citizens’ health, especially in regard to

obesity Obesity is a medical condition, considered by multiple organizations to be a disease, in which excess Adipose tissue, body fat has accumulated to such an extent that it can potentially have negative effects on health. People are classifi ...

and

physical activity Physical activity is defined as any voluntary movement produced by skeletal muscles that requires energy expenditure.Global Recommendations on Physical Activity for Health, 2009. World Health Organization. Geneva, Switzerland. Accessed 13/07/2018 ...

. Cities that incorporate bicycle routes have a higher percentage of bicycle commuters. Studies have shown that even moderate increases in physical activity can have a substantial effect on health. Bicycling to work has been shown to decrease mortality by as much as 40%. Bicycling is often used as an alternative to travel by car. Automobile travel provides the perception of increased mobility and convenience for travelers, but also has high costs associated with taxes, insurance, fuel, maintenance, road construction and repair, and contributes to

air pollution Air pollution is the presence of substances in the Atmosphere of Earth, air that are harmful to humans, other living beings or the environment. Pollutants can be Gas, gases like Ground-level ozone, ozone or nitrogen oxides or small particles li ...

. When infrastructure is built to allow consumers to choose between automobile and other forms of travel, it reduces a community's

automobile dependency Car dependency is a pattern in urban planning that occurs when infrastructure favors automobiles over other modes of transport, such as public transport, bicycles, and walking. Car dependency is associated with higher transport pollution than tr ...

and allows for more efficient transport choices and land usage.

Recognition

In the U.S., the

League of American Bicyclists League or The League may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Leagues'' (band), an American rock band * ''The League'', an American sitcom broadcast on FX and FXX about fantasy football * ''League of Legends'', a 2009 multiplayer online battle a ...

has formally recognized some cities as bicycle-friendly communities for "providing safe accommodation and facilities for bicyclists and encouraging residents to bike for transportation and recreation."

Tourism

The British tourist board award holiday accommodation providers who are cycle friendly with a "Cycle Friendly" award. The

designated

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

as a Bicycle Friendly City in 2011.

References

External links

Cycling for Everyone: Lessons for Vancouver from the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany
(video of lecture by John Pucher)

(video of lecture by Gil Penalosa of Walk and Bike for Life) *
Livable Communities Resource Guide
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bicycle-Friendly Cycling infrastructure