The space race: A framework to evaluate the potential travel-time impacts of reallocating road space to bicycle facilities

Charles M. Burke and Darren M. Scott

Journal of Transport Geography, 2016, vol. 56, issue C, 110-119

Abstract: When building a cycling network, planners have the option of constructing bicycle facilities at different design widths. However, increasing the width of bicycle facilities reduces lane space for motor vehicles, in turn impacting a road's level of service. Presently, no framework exists to systematically measure the potential travel time consequences of employing wider bicycle facilities on a road network. In this paper, we demonstrate how the Network Robustness Index (NRI) can be used to identify the bicycle facility design that limits traffic disruption for any road link in an urban network. To demonstrate the utility of the new approach, we use a theoretical, generalizable network and compare it against an approach used in current bike lane planning practice. The results show that if a planner is challenged to build a road network of wider bicycle facilities while at the same time minimizing potential impacts on motor vehicle traffic, their decision-making power improves when using the NRI to support this aim. If widely adopted, this new evaluation framework may lead to the development of better urban cycling networks that consist of wider bicycle facilities.

Keywords: Active travel; Bicycle; Bike lane; Cycling; Network robustness index; Sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966692316301612

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jotrge:v:56:y:2016:i:c:p:110-119

DOI: 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2016.09.004

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Transport Geography is currently edited by Frank Witlox

More articles in Journal of Transport Geography from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().