A Multiscale View on Bikeability of Urban Networks

Although many agree that the use of bicycles improves mobility and quality of life in a city, much less clear is how to assess the progress being made in this direction and how to plan bikeable cities. The bikeability of a city depends on many diverse and interrelated factors such as the land use and transport system, culture and social norms, as well as individuals’ perceptions. Among the many factors influencing bikeability the infrastructure network, made of streets and intersections, is a fundamental component to allow safe and convenient cycling in a city. For this reason, this thesis focuses on infrastructure-related bikeability aspects and how to assess them. Planning for bicycle infrastructure has been piece-wise and location-specific resulting in every city developing its own best practices without contributing to a more general theoretical guidance on how to assess and develop attractive and
convenient bicycle networks. Since a systematic approach to bicycle infrastructure evaluation and planning is lacking we formulate the following research goal:

To gain empirical knowledge on bicycle infrastructure networks and develop methodological tools to assess infrastructure-related bikeability.