From free bikes to steering wheel spikes: how to boost urban cycling

The bicycle in London is increasing - by 56% on some routes since 2014. The construction of several protected cycle paths in the city center a few years ago has undoubtedly contributed to this change, but there are other ways to increase the number of people who ride a bicycle. Let's explore 10 ideas below: bring your ideas into the comments section.

Free bicycles

If the benefits of cycling, both economically and environmentally, outweigh the costs of cycling in general, why not just donate bikes?

Like most cycling initiatives, this idea dates back to the Netherlands, where the Provo anarchist group distributed 10,000 white bicycles in the city of Amsterdam in the 1960s.
These were free for all, assuming that "per kilometer [a bicycle], the municipality would only cost 10% of what it contributed to public transport per person and per kilometer." However, the authorities had not made the same calculations and the white bicycles were quickly removed or stolen.

Since then, variations have appeared around the world. Free daily rental bicycles are available for visitors and residents of Adelaide under the Smart Move strategy of the Australian city. Birmingham, UK, last year reached an agreement that residents with the poorest postal codes could request a free bicycle if agreed. Meanwhile, the government in Gothenburg, Sweden, is making bicycles available for commuters for free that promise to drive less.

Filtered permeability
In 1977 Groningen - a small town in the north of the Netherlands - underwent a rapid transformation. Temporary signs and barriers were erected to get the cars out of the city center until, gradually, for a few months, they were confined to the outside.

Selectively reducing the number of city streets available for vehicles, journeys that were relatively easy with the car became cumbersome and complicated. Residents chose to ride a bike rather than ride a bicycle, even when traveling to a large furniture and household goods store like Ikea, whose specially designed cargo bikes are popular with locals.

The idea, later called "filtered permeability" by Professor Steve Melia in the field of transport planning, applied in a single movement what he calls the three most important principles to increase city bikes: the separation of engine traffic, consistent design, acceleration and ease. bike rides then by car.
Excluding cars completely is not always practical - and can make life difficult for people with disabilities and even prevent access to ambulances, fire brigades and trucks.

The slowing down of cars makes urban centers more comfortable for cyclists - but does setting up speed signals at 20 mph or 30 km / h really have an effect?

The evidence from Portsmouth (where the speed limit was lowered from 30 mph to 20 mph on about 94% of the roads) and Bristol (where 20 mph was introduced on several major roads) suggest that 20-mile zones increase both the perception of road safety and real road safety lead to more people walking and cycling.

But a November Department of Transportation report concluded that, with over 12 regimes in Britain, areas at 20 miles per hour were on average less than 1 mile per hour in median speed.

Urban designer and urban planner John Dales suggests that, whatever the signage, "designing the entire road to reach the desired speed is the most important". Low-speed areas with the best performance include physical designs that make drivers slow down. These include speed bumps, graphs, rough surfaces, tight corners and narrowing lanes.