An Index for Evaluation for Urban Bicycle Lanes

Abstract

Traditionally, the focus of urban transportation design is on motorized vehicles with less attention to green travel alternatives such as cycling. Public policy makers are now trying to increase cycling as a sustainable travel mode due to increasing concerns with respect to environmental pollution, traffic jams and health problems from today's sedentary way of life. In the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the first bicycle lanes were built in 1991along the urban seafront for leisure and touristic purposes almost exclusively, but today the city counts on a cycling network of more than 150 kilometres under different conditions of conservation and use by the population. The manner in which this network is designed, built and managed can have a significant effect on the utility and safety of cycling. The primary objective of the current study is to develop a methodology and to propose an evaluation index that could be used as a practical instrument by municipal authorities, transportation planners, traffic engineers and others to determine the quality of bicycle lanes under 14 criteria based on social, technical and environmental aspects. The availability of a such comprehensive index is believed to be a key factor guiding cycle-friendly politics to build more sustainable cities.