Using Cycling to Take Cars Off the Road

Michael Robertson. Urban Ecology Australia. 2005.5

Urban Ecology Australia submission to the Australian Bicycle Council National Cycling Strategy

Introduction

The density of cars on urban roads in Australia has numerous disbenefits. Cycling offers a way of reducing this density of cars, and so reducing the disbenefits. But to encourage urban cycling, we need to address the safety of urban roads, both main roads and local streets.

Goal:

Reduce the disbenefits caused by car use - air and noise pollution, greenhouse emissions, road congestion, resource depletion, injuries and fatalites - with their impacts on health, urban amenity, natural ecosystems, and resource availability for future generations.

Recommendations:

The number of urban freight vehicles, especially light commercial vans and trucks, can be expected to increase significantly on current growth trends. To allow for this, but meet the above target, we should aim to:

This can be accomplished by substituting car use with public transport use, walking and cycling, and by making cities more compact, that is, the reducing distances between homes, jobs and services.

Cycling and Public Transport

Public transport should not be our only means of taking cars off the road. We should encourage cycling as well, especially for peak hour journeys.

Buses, trains and trams have some of the disbenefits of car use (pollution, resource depletion etc), albeit to a lesser degree. Greater use of cycling to replace car journeys minimises these disbenefits.

Increased cycling need not disadvantage public transport. While significant passenger numbers are needed to make an attractive, well serviced public transport system viable, there are many routes, especially during peak hours, where the extra passenger numbers needed to support a good, high-frequency service would be achieved well before 70% of the cars were taken off the road.

Increased cycling can help avoid the problem of peak hour public transport vehicles that are underutilised during the inter-peak. Because passenger volumes are much higher during peak hours than during interpeak or off-peak periods, much of the public transport fleet required to accommodate peak hour passenger demand sits in the depots at other times, which is a waste of capital expenditure. To the extent that cycling can reduce the difference between peak and non-peak public transport demand, then the public transport fleet is more effectively used.

Of course, cycling and public transport are not merely alternatives, they work effectively in combination. Cycling can complement public transport, by taking passengers to and from railway stations and bus stops. Public transport can complement cycling, and by taking cyclists, with or without their bicycle on board, to distant places beyond easy cycling range.

Cycling Safety - Infrastructure

We wish to encourage urban cycling as a replacement for urban car journeys, especially during peak hours. However, many cyclists who use the road system find their safety compromised by conflicts with cars attempting to use the same road space.

Along many main roads in Adelaide (and presumably other Australian cities) the path that the cyclist would follow, if they kept to the edge of the road, weaves unpredictably in and out of the path of motor vehicles coming up from behind. Such frequent, unpredictable, unintended lane changes increase the risk of collision between cyclists and motor vehicles.

A continuous, straight, dedicated on-road cycle path helps alleviate this problem. If the paths of cyclists and motor vehicles do not cross, or cross in a predictable fashion, then both cyclists and drivers find it easier to avoid each other. Especially if the cycle path is wide enough for the cyclist to avoid both the opening doors of parked cars on the left, and the sides of cars passing on the right.

In the absence of a continuous, dedicated, on-road cycle path, the cyclist can stake out their territory on the road by occupying the centre of the kerb-side lane, as if they were a car, compelling drivers coming from behind to change lanes to overtake. However, many motorists do not appreciate this, and may overtake too closely, leaving little room between themselves and the cyclist, in order to express their displeasure at finding a cyclist in their way. Other motorists may not even see the cyclist in front, and crash into the back of them.

Cycling Safety - Speed Limits on Main Roads

Even with good on-road cycle paths a speed limit of 60 km per hour or more puts the cyclist at unnecessary risk.

Well demarcated on-road cycle paths allow alert and considerate drivers to avoid collision with cyclists. However, the design of roads must also make provision to careless, distracted, fatigued or intoxicated drivers (and cyclists). A slower travel speed gives drivers more time to react to cyclists and others appearing in their path. And, while being hit by a motor vehicle is never much fun, the slower the collision speed the more chance a cyclist (or anyone else) has of avoiding serious injury or death.

Driving at a top speed of 60 km per hour rather than 50 km per hour is unnecessary, because it saves little time given typical urban stop-start conditions, but adds significant risk, not only to cyclists, but to all other road users.

A case may be made for dropping the speed limit for main roads still further, to 40 km per hour. The benefits gained - in safety, amenity and fuel savings - are less, and the cost incurred - increased travel time for a given distance - is greater, with a drop from 50 to 40 than with a drop from 60 to 50.

Nevertheless, the gains from the 50 to 40 drop are significant, and arguably still outweigh the costs, which in turn can be reduced by making cities more compact (ie reducing the distances between homes, jobs, services, etc).

Recommendation:

Cycling Safety - Speed Limits on Local Roads

To increase cycling usage, we need to nurture it among the young. Yet many parents do not allow their children to cycle even on local roads because of danger from car traffic.

The speed limit on local roads in Adelaide (and elsewhere) is 50 km per hour. On some local roads that are narrow and winding, travelling at 50 would be considered unsafe by most drivers, who therefore drive slower. But not all drivers are so careful at all times. The 50 speed limit can be misleading. "If it weren't safe to travel down this road at 50 then the government would post a lower limit," some drivers will think.

Meanwhile, even on local roads that are long, straight and wide, with good sight-lines, the 50 limit has the effect of scouring the roads of children, because many parents do not consider such conditions safe for their children to be in the roads.

Cautious parents are justified in their concerns. If more children were allowed to cycle about the neighborhood unsupervised, the crash rate would go up (with more injuries and fatalities). But we wish to encourage children to cycle around their neighborhood unsupervised. Therefore we must make the roads safer for children.

Recommendations:

The increased travel time incurred by adhering to a speed limit of 30 rather than 50 on local roads is small. For example, driving 1 km at 30 km per hour rather than at 50 only incurs an extra 48 seconds. This doesn't seem a great price to pay for making the streets safer for kids.

Conclusion

The benefits of car use - access to a range of jobs and services - comes at a cost to health, the environment, the quality of our cities, and resource availability to future generations. We need to provide the benefits using less costly means. This can be done by replacing car use, with public transport, walking and cycling. But if we are to encourage cycling we must make the road network safer, by reducing speed limits, and by better demarcating on-road cycle paths.

2007.10.6