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How Adelaide could double cycling rates

Nov 26, 2013
A cyclist in Adelaide. Photo: Nat Rogers / InDaily

A cyclist in Adelaide. Photo: Nat Rogers / InDaily

Adelaide’s below-average rate of cycling could be more than doubled in a decade by tightly integrating bikes into the city’s public transport network, says the president of the European Cyclists Federation.

German Manfred Neun and his team are currently here exploring the city ahead of the Velo-city global cycling conference, which will be held in Adelaide next May.

The federation considers Adelaide one of its “starter cities”, because while cycling rates are low compared to the developed-world average, there is a strong strategy, backed by investment, to get people on bikes.

Manfred Neun. Photo courtesy Adelaide City Council

Manfred Neun

That strategy would take time to work, Neun said. If Adelaide wanted to really kick-start things, deep integration of bikes into the public transport network was needed.

“It’s about how encouraged all the different measures will be, how fast all the investments will be done. You can really come up to 10 per cent [of people riding a bike to work]. This is not an illusion; you can realise this within six to eight years.

“It needs a small space of time if it will become a part of a lifestyle. Our experience is that what helps most is when cities are going forward to make public cycling part of public transport.

“This is the fastest trigger.”

Neun acknowledged that cycling would always be a less-efficient mode of transport over long distances compared to buses and trains. But over short distances, for commuters going to a large range of destinations, cycling was highly efficient.

Hence, he said, public transport interchanges needed to encourage cycling by providing services such as bike cages for incoming commuters and bike hire stations for departing passengers.

“It should be directly integrated. It must become part of public transport.”

In Taiwan, one public transport ticket gives access to buses, trains and public hire bikes.

“This gives easy access that everybody enjoys.”

Riders might catch a bus from their house into the city, and then take a hire bike from the bus stop to their work.

In addition to public transport integration, Neun suggested Adelaide could look at reducing speed limits on CBD roads, as Europe is contemplating, from 50km/h to 30km/h.

“The easiest formula is giving cycling and giving cyclists space. Cyclists must be able to have a network of cycle lanes, to be able to come from A to B. It’s not allowed that there are too many bottlenecks.”

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