Local government should be providing more bike routes to feed into the Melbourne-wide network, according to a new study from RMIT University.
While the state government had planned and was building out a cross-city network with its Strategic Cycling Corridors (SCCs), councils had neglected to provide matching 'feeder' routes.
While the SCCs will increase bike lane coverage by almost a third, the study found trips under 5km still spent half their journeys on roads with no bike lane or other safety features.
Lead researcher and RMIT research fellow Dr Afshin Jafari said the push to increase cycling participation may fail to gain momentum if the safety of the entire cycling journey was not considered.
“A bike ride where only half the journey is on a dedicated cycling lane is still well below the critical point where people feel safe to ride,” he said.
“Local and state governments need to prioritise supporting their cycling strategy by filling in the missing links to feed cyclists from their home safely to the corridors, or it risks failing to budge our low cycling rates.”
Jafari said inadequate cycling infrastructure was a major barrier to cycling. Currently, around two-thirds of the length of inner Melbourne’s roads are without any type of bike lane or cycleway. This rises to over 90% in suburbs further out.
“For every 100km of road in inner Melbourne, a third of that road has some sort of bike lane or cycleway.”
The study, "Understanding the impact of city-wide cycling corridors on cycling mode share among different demographic clusters in Greater Melbourne, Australia”, is published in the journal Transportation.
The researchers developed a city-scale agent-based simulation model for Greater Melbourne to evaluate changes in travel mode share from cycling infrastructure modifications.
Riders were clustered into five demographic groups – Maverick Males, Motivated Adults, Conscientious Commuters, Young Sprinters and Relaxed Cruisers – estimating mode choice parameters for each group.
Using aggregated smartphone application data, the team developed a cycling trip routing methodology to incorporate road infrastructure impacts.
An important finding was that travel time significantly influences mode choice across all groups. Infrastructure and travel cost were also influencers.
Simulations using the calibrated model assessed the potential impact of fully implementing greater Melbourne’s SCCs as an initial 30% increase in cycling use.
“The plan to connect bike paths and cycleways is great because it provides safer, more direct routes to activity or employment areas,” Jafari said.
“But we need to ensure the journey from home to a bike lane is also considered to increase riding safety, which can help encourage more people to cycle.”
The study found about 50% of non-work trips fell within a bikeable distance, showing great potential to shift more people to short bike rides.
Jafari said better cycling infrastructure in residential areas, such as reduced speed limits, could help make traveling to cycling corridors safer, but it required state and local governments to work together.
“From policy and planning perspectives, cycling corridors are mostly on state government roads, while residential roads are usually managed by local government,” he said.
“There needs to be good coordination between the two so that local governments can work with the state government to safely feed cyclists
into these cycling corridors.”
Or become our friend and subscribe to receive our fortnightly newsletter.