Why off-road cycling paths

There are two main reasons why off-road cycling paths are needed.

1. To encourage more people to ride.
2. To increase cycling safety.

First of all I will address the issue of encouraging more people to ride.

The current cycling figures are 5.5% for Australians commuting  (I think including one day a week) and 9.5% for Canberrans commuting (same proviso). This is not surprising as Canberra would have the highest percentage of off road cycle paths, though they do have a lot of on road cycle paths as well. Despite a higher proportion of off road cycle paths in Canberra, there is not a lot of cycling by kids, women and older people. For the Canberra figures see this media release from Pedal Power ACT Canberra at the forefront of cycling participation. For more on the Victorian figures you can refer to this fact sheet from the Australian Bicycle Council and Austroads Australian Cycling Participation 2011 – Vic.

One of my favourite bloggers David Hembrow talks about encouraging cycling all the time, but for the purposes of this discussion you might like to read his entry Three types of safety, which might seem a little off topic for my blog entry, essentially it says that people need to feel subjectively and socially safe when they are riding. Off road cycle paths in general provide subjective and social safety. As it happens, the back street plan I have proposed meets most of the criteria listed in David’s blog entry and therefore (if David is right) would be even more successful than the off street cycle paths in Canberra. Canberra’s paths fail because of lighting and isolation issues. I think the issues mentioned by David are more important to women. I believe bicycle lanes (on street cycle paths) are not considered safe by women and families, and these are the next group of riders we have to encourage. For more on this strand of thought you might like to read this report from Scientific American To boost urban bicycling, figure out what women want.

To encourage more people to ride then, we need off street cycle paths. At the very worst we will double the number of cyclists on the road like Canberra has done. My back street cycle path proposal will do even better because it addresses more of the concerns of women and family riders than isolated bicycle paths or bicycle paths carved out of and therefore parallel to main roads.

Secondly off road cycling will improve real safety, not just perceived safety.

A report done by the British Medical Journal on Montreal’s bicycle paths showed a 28% decrease in accidents with off road bicycle paths compared to on road bicycle paths, interestingly it also noted that two and a half more cyclists used the off road cycle paths compared to the on road cycle paths. You can read about this study by reading Risk of injury for bicycling on cycle tracks versus in the street. I don’t know if this study is fair to my back street bike plan, as the Montreal paths seem to follow main roads, I have stated before that one of the virtues of my proposal is the use of back streets. I am convinced that back street bicycle lanes would be safer than off road bicycle lanes along major roads.

Also that report would seem to be at odds with this Australian study done by Monash University Bicycle and Motor Vehicle Crash Characteristics which reports 29%  of accidents occur at intersections. Which would imply that there would be a reduction of near 70% of accidents by separating bicycles from cars. Whether it is a reduction of 30% or 70% or something inbetween, it does seem that rider safety would soar with off-road bicycle paths. This is especially important when you consider that about 30% of bicycle accidents are very serious or fatalities as the Monash report cited states.