More than Cycling Infrastructure: Supporting the Development of Policy Packages for Starter Cycling Cities

Abstract

The need to implement sustainable mobility is growing in both urgency and pace. However, in cities where the bicycle is underused and cars are overvalued, trying to change the mobility paradigm comes with many challenges. Planners committed to creating cycling mobility plans have to overcome information and resource barriers in coming up with solutions in their respective contexts. Facilitating access to conceptual and practical information for such cities could provide impetus for more effective decisions. With a view to achieving this goal, the “BooST – Boosting Starter Cycling Cities” research project has developed a planning tool, the Cycling Measures Selector (CMS). The tool facilitates access to specific information on measures promoting bicycle use and provides practical guidelines on how to implement these measures in a comprehensive and effective manner. Through its web-based platform, the CMS presents detailed informational sheets on each measure and provides a structure for testing different combinations. Each combination receives a score and suggestions as to how to increase the efficiency. This paper presents the tool and assesses its utility or usefulness for strategic development. To this end, the inputs of three groups working in the cycling promotion area were taken into consideration: local planners, academics, and activists. A series of workshops provided the space to interact with the tool and explore its potential. Those experiences revealed an apparent disconnect between theory and practice, along with a clear need for detailed and varied information on cycling measures. The findings suggest that the CMS can fulfill that need, as well as aid in the planning process.

Challenges Ahead for Sustainable Cities: An Urban Form and Transport System Review

“…The built environment can impact active mobility in many ways [93][94][95]. Often praised by policymakers and a prominent research topic, active modes are nevertheless still underused while motorized private transport is overused [78,[96][97][98]. In the study on how the built environment can affect physical activity, Handy et al [19] highlight the importance of the former in increasing the number of pedestrians and cyclists on urban trips, with physical exercise as a by-product.…”

Bicycle mobility: planners' attitudes under the influences of institutional functioning

“…In the context of transportation, governments are undergoing processes of change and reflection concerning the mobility management of their cities regarding the low carbon transition, and green transformations (Pamucar et al 2022;Dias, Lopes, and Silva 2021). Climatic factors, urban traffic, noise, use of natural resources and support low carbon mobility transitions (Lee, Feng, and Peng 2022;Wimbadi, Djalante, and Mori 2021) induce the trend towards a decline in automobility consequently policy transitions to new mobilities (Emodi et al 2022).…”

“…As such, the approaches focusing on institutional change have targeted the importance of institutional actors (Beunen and Patterson 2016;Mahoney and Thelen 2010;Lawrence, Suddaby and Leca 2019;Bettini, Brown and de Haan 2015) and to accelerate "implementation of sustainable mobility policies is an urgent concern for rapidly developing cities" ( van Dijk, Samimi, and Zandler 2022). In this way, everyday pro-bicycle discourses can generate disruptions when they are introduced into government systems through institutions, this being the core of the discovery and lack of studies on cities beginning to use the bicycle or sustainable mobility (Dias, Lopes, and Silva 2021;Silva, Lopes, and Dias 2022;Baerenholdt 2013;Doughty and Murray 2014). On the other hand, recent research refers to the decline of the privilege of individualized automobility (Pamucar et al 2022;Wimbadi, Djalante, and Mori 2021;Manderscheid 2014) due to the rise of new regimes of making and experiencing other more sustainable mobilities (Merriman 2014).…”

Digital Bicycling Planning: A Systematic Literature Review of Data-Driven Approaches

“…According to the reviewed studies, accessibility is one of the crucial concepts in decisionmaking in the context of modelling land value and travel behaviour to examine economic development using evaluation tools and methods (e.g., [47,48]). Other concepts are Bicycling Decision Support Systems (DSS) or Planning Support Systems (PSS) that represent the increasing role of digital technology in using data-driven approaches in the decisionmaking and policy-setting process (e.g., [49][50][51][52]). Table 2 outlines a summary of some of these tools and their application (such as estimating future demand, prioritising facility investment, and shared bike planning) in the bicycling planning process.…”