Synopsis
Urban and cultural context
It is an undeniable fact that the transport sector is one of those factors that have a major impact on the environment. However, an efficient transport system is one of the principle elements contributing to the development and liveability of a city. The demand for mobility is constantly on the increase, in particular, the number of vehicles in circulation increases by 20-40% every ten years whereas, in the last 20 years, cities have barely changed, as have their infrastructures, except for work limited to road and traffic conditions outside cities. However, activities and workplaces are still mainly concentrated in city centres and city mobility, which mainly relies on private vehicles, not only causes problems related to pollution (air, noise and visual) but also to the occupation of public property, now a rare economic commodity that can no longer be used for anything else but for parking and road traffic. Public transport offers an alternative to cars, but it is not the only one. Bicycles are faster than cars (and even more so, as traffic congestion increases) for short trips of less than 5 km in the city.
A recent study on short-distance travel, financed by the European Union, showed that a large percentage of daily car trips could be made using other means. In fact: 30% of car trips are less than 3 km and 50% less than 5 km.
In order to increase the use of bicycles as a daily means of transport, it is important to have a system of cycle paths that basically addresses the objective of increasing or maintaining accessibility throughout a city. Such a target can only be reached effectively, if the system is well-integrated within mobility policies and when it is not limited only to the suburbs but encompasses the entire area concerned and the movements of the mobile population. Introducing cycle paths, preferably protected, into current road systems with the aim of reorganising mobility for various categories of users, by separating car traffic from bicycles, offers unquestionable advantages as far as the safety and security of cyclists are concerned and, at the same time, contributes to improving traffic flow.
BICYCLE MOBILITY: development and safety
In order to support bicycle mobility in cities, activities need to be carried out from both the point of view of the supply of measures, structures and infrastructures and that of the demand for mobility.
With reference to the supply of spaces and facilities for bicycles, the following have been carried out:
With reference to the demand for bicycle mobility the following are in progress:
Moreover, this illustrates how the management of the bicycle mobility system goes clearly hand in hand with all the projects concerning sustainable mobility that are in operation or in the pipeline, particularly with regard to the Local Agenda 21 of Parma, part of the Forum on Mobility. Expansion of the cycle path network, since the last three years, has seen the construction of 52 km of paths; another 38 km are planned for in 2003 for its completion and its connection to the Car Parks at Transit Points is foreseen.
Target groups: all citizens
Fields: cycling
This case study is one of 175 projects from the Smile Project Local Experiences Database listed on this website.
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