Designing for Cycle Traffic International Principles and Practice
This book, to quote from its cover ‘compares and evaluates international principles and practices for designing for cycle traffic. It sets design for cycling in the wider context of public realm design, traffic planning, traffic engineering and traffic management’. It is an excellent text book for anyone involved in, or studying, urban design and planning, road design and traffic management.
The author, John Parkin, BSc (Hons), ACGI, MSc, PhD, PGCE CEng, FICE, FCIHT, FCILT, FHEA is Professor of Transport Engineering at the University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom and began his career in highway and traffic engineering. He has experience in both road and rail but has specialised in cycling – as a mode of transport.
Designing for Cycle Traffic does just what it says on the cover; it provides a comprehensive guide to the design of our towns, cities and our countryside to provide for cycling as a mode of transport. It is essential reading for anyone and everyone involved in policy making through to the people designing, constructing and maintaining not only cycle infrastructure but also our public roads and public spaces.
Let us look at the three main words in the title to analyse the book.
Designing. The cycle is a vehicle that is capable of travelling at 3–4 times the speed of a pedestrian but 2–5 times slower than a motor vehicle and thus needs specific design criteria for economic travel. The book compares current design guidance and practice and highlights good practice and what should be done. Alignments and widths of cycle routes are critical, as are roundabouts, which are known to be hazardous for people on bikes and all need attention. The road network, adapted in the twentieth century for the motor vehicle, needs to be adjusted to suit the cycle, with exemption from banned turns and further permeability introduced by allowing cycles to travel both ways on streets that are one-way for motor traffic.
The cycle is not necessarily a narrow vehicle designed for one person. It might be a tricycle, used for carrying children or a disabled person, it might be a tandem, or it might be a cargo bike used for deliveries. The design of cycle infrastructure must allow for these variations.
The cycle is quite definitely traffic; it is used for commuting, getting to school or college, for delivering goods as well as for tootling round the park or the club run. The book analyses policy and strategy from the United Kingdom and elsewhere, highlighting the measures, including government support and funding, that have increased cycle traffic volume.
Two things are taken as read in the book. The first is that cycle traffic should generally be separated from pedestrian traffic and should be separated from motor traffic except where motor speeds are under 20 miles/h. For too long, the easy solution has been to redetermine a footway to allow cycles to use the same space as pedestrians and this must change if we are to get cycle traffic volumes to the levels to which national and local government aspires.
The second is that we wish to reduce the pollution, noise, congestion and risk that come from motor traffic.
In summary, if the provider of infrastructure for cycle traffic follows this book in addition to their design guide, the end user of that infrastructure will be a happier, healthier person.
