Effects of a non-motorized transport infrastructure development in the Bucharest metropolitan area

Abstract

1Since 1990, in Romania and especially in Bucharest there has been a constantly growing tendency towards new expensive residential settlements located in the suburbs. Following this, even more cars have increased the road traffic towards the city centre. In the last few years, the need to extend the metropolitan area of Bucharest City has become more accepted as a solution to relocate some socio-economic activities. Bucharest is a historically developed city and there is no available space to increase the street capacity for cars and traffic. In this paper, we propose a bicycle infrastructure project to support the sustainable development of the new metropolitan area of Bucharest, and develop a model to evaluate the impacts of such a transport infrastructure on the spatial accessibility of the city centre. We reveal the importance of bicycle parking locations and their integration with urban public transport (subway and light rail). Taking into consideration a natural, native disposition of the younger population to use bicycles, in this way, we will provide quite an effective means of attracting them to non-motorized transportation as opposed to car use.