The right guide to cycling infrastructure
The draft strategy contains a comprehensive guide to what a good cycling offering should look like and states that program designers should try them out on a bike themselves.
Cycling infrastructure must be accessible to everyone aged 8 to 80 and beyond: they must be planned and designed for everyone. The possibility of cycling in our cities should be universal.
Bicycles should be treated as vehicles and not as pedestrians. In urban streets, cyclists should be physically separated from pedestrians and should not share space with pedestrians.
When cycle paths cross sidewalks, a physically separate path should always be provided. At crossings and junctions, cyclists should not share the space used by pedestrians but should have a separate parallel route.
Cyclists must be physically separated and protected from heavy traffic, both at intersections and on the road sections between them.
Secondary roads, if closed to through traffic to avoid rat race, can be an alternative to separate facilities or closures on major roads – but only if they are truly direct.
Cycling infrastructure must be designed for a large number of cyclists and for non-standard cycles. Our goal is for thousands of cyclists to use many of these programs every day.
Essentially cosmetic interventions that bring little or no benefit for cycling or walking will not be funded by any budget dedicated to cycling or walking.
Cycling infrastructure must come together or link other facilities by adopting a holistic and connected network approach that recognizes the importance of nodes, links and areas suitable for cycling.
The parking of bicycles must be included in consequent devices, in particular in city centers, generators of trips and, in all safety, in areas of apartments where people cannot store their bicycles at home.
Sufficient parking should be provided where people actually want to go.
The diagrams must be legible and understandable. Programs should be clearly and completely marked and labeled.
Major ‘iconic’ elements, such as upper decks, need to be part of larger, well-thought-out schemes.
As important as building a route itself is maintaining it properly afterwards. Surfaces should be hard, smooth, level, durable, permeable and safe in all weather.
Testing can help make the change and ensure that a permanent schedule is right the first time. This will avoid spending time, money and effort modifying a program that is not working as expected.
Access control measures, such as baffle barriers and hatches, should not be used. The simplest and cheapest interventions can be the most effective.
Bike paths should flow, feel straightforward and logical.
The circuits should be easy and comfortable to drive.
All designers of cycling facilities must experience the road as a cyclist.
Schemes must be consistent.