Cycles of all sorts

Town planning

Trip length and journey times are argued to be key factors affecting cycle use. Therefore, town planning may have a key impact in deciding whether key destinations, schools, shops, colleges, health clinics, public transport interchanges remain within a reasonable cycling distance of the areas where people live. It is argued that the urban form can influence these issues: compact, circular, settlement patterns tending to promote cycling. Alternatively, the low-density, non-circular (i.e., linear) settlement patterns characteristic of urban sprawl tends to discourage cycling. In 1990, the Dutch adopted the "ABC" guidelines, specifically limiting developments that are major attractants to locations that are readily accessible by non-car users.

Cycling infrastructure

The cycling infrastructure comprises all the public ways that are available to cyclists traveling from one destination to another. This includes the same network of public roads that is used by drivers of motor vehicles minus those roads from which every cyclist has been banned (most freeways) and plus additional routes that are not available to motorised traffic, such as cycle tracks and (in some jurisdictions) sidewalks.

The manner in which the public roads network is designed, built and managed can have a significant effect on the utility and safety of cycling as a form of transport. The key issue is whether the cycling network provides the users with direct, convenient, routes minimising unnecessary delay and effort in reaching key destinations. Here it is argued that settlements that provide a dense roads network consisting of interconnected streets will tend to be viable utility cycling environments.

In contrast, other communities may use a cul-de-sac based, housing estate/housing subdivision model where minor roads are disconnected and only feed into a street hierarchy of progressively more "arterial" type roads. It is arguable that such communities discourage cycling by imposing unnecessary detours and forcing all cyclists onto busy and dangerous arterial roads for all trips regardless of destination or purpose. It is also reported that the extra motor-traffic such communities generate tends to increase overall per-capita traffic casualty rates.

Designs that propose to resolve the contradiction between the cul-de-sac and the traditional interconnected network have been proposed and built, with varying levels of success. Particular issues have arisen with personal security and public order problems in some housing schemes using "back alley" type links. A formalised design approach for the layout of new neighbourhoods, the Fused Grid has been proposed, advocated and applied.

Aspects of the cycling infrastructure may be viewed as either cyclist-hostile or as cyclist-friendly. In general, roads infrastructure based on prioritising motoring and attempting to create a state of constant "flow" for cars will tend to be hostile to non-car users. In 1996, the British Cyclists Touring Club (CTC) and the Institute for Highways and Transportation jointly produced the document "Cycle-friendly infrastructure: Guidelines for planning and design". This defined a hierarchy of measures for cycling promotion in which the goal is to convert a more or less cyclist-hostile roads infrastructure into one which encourages and facilitates cycling.