WP4.1 Policy formulation and strategy building Final version. Cities & Regions of Bicycles.

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1 Cities & Regions of Bicycles WP4.1 Policy formulation and strategy building Final version Responsible partner: Municipality of Velenje Report prepared by: Špela Šeliga, Municipality of Velenje Edited by: Joerg Schweizer, University of Bologna-DICAM Abstract This document summarizes the content of the bicycle policies of the project partners which were developed or improved during the BICY project. Common strategies and potentials for trans-national learning are identified. In addition, the current implementation status of the policies will be assessed and compared.. This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

2 Table of contents TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 1. OVERVIEW 4 2. METHODOLOGY Strategy building 5 Strategies for late runners 7 Strategies for front runners 7 The trans-national strategies Classification of bicycle Policies Policy formulation development process 9 Prerequisites 9 Suggested contents of a bicycle policy 10 Practical steps to create a bicycle policy Bicycle plan development and monitoring based on BYPAD 13 Policy formulation tasks 14 Policy formulation missions 15 Task and mission quantification of accomplishment BICYCLE POLICIES: CONTENTS AND PROGRESS Province of Ferrara Short summary Key strategies and policies Policy formulation accomplishment levels Province of Ravenna Short summary Key strategies and policies Policy formulation accomplishment levels Graz Short summary Key strategies and policies Policy formulation accomplishment levels Erfurt-Thuringia Short summary Key strategies and policies Policy formulation accomplishment levels Region of Košice Short summary 28 Page 2 of 51

3 Key strategies and policies Policy formulation accomplishment levels Prague Short summary Key strategies and policies Policy formulation accomplishment levels Koper Short summary Key strategies and policies Policy formulation accomplishment levels Velenje Short summary Key strategies and policies Policy formulation accomplishment levels Budaörs Short summary Key strategies and policies Policy formulation accomplishment levels COMPARISON OF STRATEGIES, POLICIES AND PROGRESS Common strategies, policies and convergence Trans-national learning Level of accomplishment of policy formulations CONCLUSIONS PRACTICAL RECOMMENDATIONS 49 SOURCES 51 Page 3 of 51

4 1. Overview Within the BICY project, the project partners representing cities, provinces or regions have performed a detailed status analyses of bicycle activities and bicycle infrastructure on their own territory. Thereafter, a Transnational Strategy (TNS) has been developed where the results of the single status analyse have been compared and classified, common elements and potential for transnational benefits have been identified and suggestions for a transnational strategy has been recommended. In parallel, each of the partners has started to develop policy papers based on the status analyses. Partners who had already developed bicycle policies in the past, have continued to improve them. The present document explains how the results and strategies of the TNS can be used to guide the policy formulation process in a specific city or region. Thereafter the drafted policy papers are summarized, classified and compared. Finally it is identified how the strategies from the TNS has influenced the local bicycle policies. In addition, the document assesses how much specific tasks and missions of the bicycle policies have been accomplished by each project partner. This assessment, based on the BYPAD process, allows a comparison of the progress made among the project partners. In the following Section 2, the main findings and strategies from the TNS are summarized, a classification scheme for policy measures is defined, the policy content and policy formulation procedure is suggested and the method for the task- and mission accomplishment assessment is explained. In section 3 summarizes and compares the bicycle policy papers drafted by the project partners, using the methodological approaches from Section 0. For each project partner city (or region) key figures, main problems and key policies are summarized, the single polices are classified and the level of accomplishment is assessed. Thereafter common policy elements and transnational learning opportunities are identified. Section 4 summarizes and compares the different bicycle policies from their content. Common elements in the policy formulation are identified and elements from the transnational strategy TNS are emphasized. In particular, specific potentials for trans-national learning are explained. In addition the accomplishment of policy implementation are shown for all partners. The conclusions are summarized in section 5 and some practical recommendations are given in section 6. Page 4 of 51

5 2. Methodology In this section the main findings and strategies from the previously elaborate transnational strategy TNS are summarized, a classification scheme for policy measures is defined, the policy content and policy formulation procedure is suggested and the method for the task- and mission accomplishment assessment is explained Strategy building The cities and regions participating in the BICY project have the opportunity to define strategic goals which are well adapted to their current cycling realities and local resources. An in depth assessment of the current situation and the development of common strategic goals for front and late runners are the result of Work Package WP3. In particular the aforementioned Transnational Strategy TNS (WP3.4.3) lays down well founded and motivated strategies for different groups of project partners. Furthermore, the various other core-outputs of WP3 allow a targeted strategy building: The Best Practices Report (WP3.2.1) shows how cities and regions outside the Central Europe area managed to achieve high levels of bicycle usage. Furthermore sophisticated assessment methods are described in this document. The Interviews with Stakeholders Report (WP3.2.2) has been used to find out how different actors would like to assess the level of bicycle usage and infrastructure in their city or region. A main finding has been that the top priority for them to extend existing and implement new bicycle infrastructure The SWOT Transnational Analysis Report (WP3.1.10) identifies the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for each participating city or region. These qualitative results give a first hint on future strategic options. The main weaknesses is the lack of bicycle environments and the main threat is the lack of funding. Frequently cited were sociopolitical barriers, and a lack of cooperation between different departments within the same administration. The Final Identification of Common Indicators Report (WP3.2.3) quantifies the current bicycle situation, based on an extensive collection of bicycle infrastructure data as well as a street surveys conducted in each partner city or region. This survey with approximately 9000 valid questionnaires, each with 100 questions, constitutes a rich database on the current mobility situation. One of the most important indicators that emerged from the street survey is the share of persons who use the bike regularly (or current bike mode share) as well as the share of people who could go by bike because their destination is less than 5km away (called the potential bike mode share), both shown in Figure 1. Another important result of this report is the almost linear relationship between bike mode share and the bikeway length per inhabitant (or cycling index) as shown in Figure 2. This gives a quantitative evidence for the importance of bicycle infrastructure. Page 5 of 51

6 Figure 1: For each of the surveyed cities it is shown the current bike mode share (the share of persons who use predominantly the bike within a typical work day)and potential bike mode share cities (the share of persons who could use predominantly the bike because their trip distance is less than 5km). Note that the bike share for Erfurt is elevated because surveys were only collected in the city centre which is car-restricted. Figure 2: Plotting the bike mode share (share of trips by bike) over the cycling index (meters of bikeway per inhabitant) results in an almost linear relation, indicating that the reserved bikeway length is important for an increase in bicycle usage. Page 6 of 51

7 From the current mode share for bikes shown in Figure 1, one can clearly identify the cities with elevated bicycle usage, called the front-runners (Ferrara, Comacchio, Ravenna, Cervia, Graz, Erfurt) and cities with low bicycle usage, called the late-runners (Kosice, Michalovce, SNV, Prague5, Koper, Velenje, Budaors). The Transnational Strategy TNS summarized the results of all previous WP3 outputs, and formulates generic strategies for front-runners and late-runners. The strategies for the late-runners could take advantage of the positive and negative experiences made by the frontrunners. Apart from the bicycle usage, also the presence of public transport networks and the economic situation has been taken into account. Furthermore some transnational strategies have been put forward which cannot be solved at a local level alone, but need to be integrated in a Central European strategy. Below is a brief summary of the identified strategies by the TNS. Strategies for late runners Strategies for late runners are predominantly aimed at building up a bikeway network and promoting the acceptance of cycling and cyclists as valid transport alternative. The following strategic moves have been identified in the TNS: 1. Rapid institutionalization. This means official support for cycling by appointing a bicycle responsible who organizes funding, planning, promotional campaigns and, most important, keeps contact with citizens and activist groups. A bicycle office would also catalyze the various activities within different departments. 2. Rapid expansion of safe bikeway network: Most important are protected bikeways at most dangerous points in the city, as well as safe places to park and lock bicycles. If no funding is available, one can convert street or parking space. Low cost measures that create little conflicts between stakeholders have been proposed. 3. Bike sharing and intermodal solutions: Bike sharing is an effective measure to enable cycling where the availability of bikes or bike ownership is low. If light rail public transport is available then this should be used to attract more bike users. Urban bus is less adapted. 4. Promotion in form of awareness raising: promotional campaigns should target car-drivers and raise their awareness of cyclists. Being aware of the benefits of cycling, more car drivers are likely to accept complementary measures like converting road lanes in bicycle lanes. In addition they may be more aware of cyclists on the road and pay more attention, which is an important safety issue. 5. Education: Focus training programs on children or people without car access. 6. Electric bikes: there is the challenge to replace the popular motor scooters among the young generation by powerful electric bikes, which would have a significant potential to reduce local emissions and noise. Strategies for front runners Front runners have already a good cycling infrastructure and bike services in place. For front runners it is important to improve the quality of cycling and to make it more competitive with respect to motorized modes. It is also important to enlarge the user base, to actively search for more social groups. The strategies can be summarized as follows: Page 7 of 51

8 1. Mobility management for new target groups. For example training programmes for immigrants or incentive schemes within companies. 2. Bicycle highways: fast bike links can better compete with other modes and attract new cyclists. 3. Refining the bikeway network, using also complementary measures to reduce car traffic. 4. Bike sharing and intermodal solutions: For front-runner cities with a well developed rail network it make sense to focus on Bike sharing at rail stations, and to increase the fleet of trains where bikes are allowed. 5. Land-use interventions: extension of concepts such as mixed land use, living streets and green corridors. The trans-national strategies The trans-national strategies can be summarized as follows: Due to the importance of cycling to achieve EU s objective, the general increase of bicycle usage should become an integral part in Europe s transport policies. Targets of 30% bike mode share in cities is feasible. One important element of the integration could be a support for bicycle mobility as last mile solution in a multi-modal trans-european mobility concept. Standards for bike rental and ticketing could be included in this concept. A convergence of the bike mode share between regions could be achieved by, actively encourage late runners to build up a bikeway network. For example: as a requirement access ERDF funding, cities or regions could be requested to present binding bicycle policies policies adapted to their current situation, see local policies below. To build up a competitive bicycle route network in Central Europe, a master plan for cycling should be elaborates, including guidelines and strong encouragement for regions and cities to participate. Research and development in bike - related technologies could be better supported in European research frameworks. Applications like affordable ultra-light, foldable bikes or better batteries for E-bikes would be generally useful to make the bike as mode more competitive in particular with respect to the motor scooter Classification of bicycle Policies The previously listed strategic considerations are useful to guide the policy formulation. The TNS document suggests a number of policy options from which project partners may choose, according to their individual strategies and resources. The policy options have been classified as follows: 1. Bicycle Infrastructure: construction of grade separated bike ways, bike lanes on the road, bike tunnels, bike crossings, bicycle parking and intermodal train/tram stations. The expansion of the bike infrastructure emerged as a top priority from the Common Indicator report, the SWOT report as well as the stakeholder interviews. Safe bike infrastructure has been most Page 8 of 51

9 desired by non-bike users. Furthermore, a linear relation has been found between bikeways per person (=bicycle index) and bicycle usage. 2. Bike sharing and bike rental schemes. 3. Signalling and signposting: bicycle traffic can become safer by an appropriate signalling. Signalling is also a powerful tool to privilege cycling by giving the bike a better access than cars. For example bikes are allowed to pass in the contrary sense of a one-way road or access is granted to bikes in parks and in other central places. 4. Mobility management: targeted information of citizens, companies and institutions on how to encourage employees to use the city s bicycle network, bike sharing and intermodal bike facilities; creation and implementation of incentive schemes. 5. Promotion: these measures have the objective to improve the image of the bike and trigger a cultural change towards more sustainable mobility solutions. Actions include parades; promotion of bike-based services such as bike taxi, bike parades and exhibition; bike days, ciclovia (closing car-access of a major road during a day, allowing only bicycles and pedestrians), etc. 6. Education: bike repair workshops; safety training; bicycle training for children; training to lock, identify and recover stolen bikes; training for car-drivers etc. 7. Complementary measures: these are measures that deliberately panelise car traffic in favour of bicycle circulation. Examples are the restriction of car parking or the increase in parking costs in order to free space for bike ways and parking. 8. Monitoring and public engagement: the progress made in implementing bicycle friendly policies is constantly monitored. This can be accomplished either by regular mobility surveys, bicycle counting or by giving citizen the possibility to express their opinion, give feedback and make suggestions for possible improvements. 9. Institutionalization: To make cycling part of the institutional processes, decision making, planning and financing. In practice this can be a bicycle office, bicycle coordinator or a bicycle responsible; the office could have its own budget and could be fully integrated into the city s planning, implementation and maintenance processes Policy formulation development process The formulation of realistic bicycle policies is a difficult process and requires usually the involvement and consensus of many stakeholders. For this reason the following ideal policy formulation process has been suggested to all BICY partners. There are further suggestions on how to initiate, maintain and monitor the bicycle policy in a city or region, based on the BYPAD process. Prerequisites It should be made clear from the beginning that the here formulated cycling policy will be published and will be available on the city s or region s official Internet site and easily accessible. This is a prerequisite in order to establish confidence between cyclists and cycling policy of governmental institutions. It may be better to make weaker statements but insist on the published policy, otherwise there is the risk that pro-cycling finishes after the end of the BICY project. Page 9 of 51

10 The role of the politicians is particularly useful as it builds important support for the process of a continuous refinement of cycling policies. The political commitment to cycling can be (and should be) part of the cycling policies. Another general advice is that the statements in the policy formulation should be as clear and unambiguous as possible. Unclear statements do not contribute to build confidence between cyclists and decision makers. It is better to make fewer or less ambitious statements than a long text with ambiguous promises. In particular the cyclist representatives in the policy formulation group should pay attention to clear statements. Provided that the policy formulations foreseen by the project BICY are not a cycling mobility plan but rather a policy document of intents, the suggestions by the experts are: to highlight the strategic importance of a close link between the territorial-spatial planning, energy-environmental and mobility planning (a key issue everywhere in the world) the importance of the preliminary analysis on the attractive poles of traffic in a determined area as well as of the transport demand and the use of the different transport modes; the importance of the establishment of a bike office as instrument to ensure a crosscutting character, within the public administration concerned, to the cycling policies; the relevance of having indicators, quantitative and not, to appraise the policies implemented (this is one of the main goal of the WP3 of BICY) Once the drafted cycling mobility plan is ready (as future consequence of the intended policy formulation concerned), it must be discussed with stakeholders and citizens, amended, agreed and then approved. The contents of a bicycle policy document and the development steps are detailed further below. Suggested contents of a bicycle policy This section is an exhaustive list of important elements that should constitute a bicycle policy document. Part 1: Goal-definition Quantify your goals here in terms of cycling share and time. The goal of a cycling policy cannot be identical for all partners. In general we can formulate absolute targets (for example a modal share of 20% cycling) or a relative target (for example to increase cycling share by 50%). We can also restrict the improvement to a certain group of bicyclers, for example tourists or children going to school. Additional goals can be: reduction in bicycle accidents. A basis for the goal definition is the data obtained from WP3.2. Part 2: What needs to be done, what can be done in order to achieve this goal? List here the most effective actions to be implemented as identified by the transnational strategy, based on the SWOT analyses and indicators from WP3. The strategy should be summarized in two sections: Page 10 of 51

11 1. A section with a generic description of long term goals regarding the increase/improvement of cycling network, increasing connectivity, safety, raising awareness, etc. 2. A section with the description of concrete, key infrastructure projects (building a safe cycling path at a critical location, bicycle parking) or awareness raising campaigns (field trips, media events, etc). It should also be explained how the concrete actions fit into the long term strategy. Part 3: How to implement long term strategies? The implementation of long term strategies is the most delicate subject as it often competes with other strategies followed by the government and other decision makers. The commitment and the implementation of long term strategies could be formulated along the following issues: 1. Who will guarantee the implementation of long term cycling strategies? a. Temporary task force to solve the most urgent cycling related problems (this is not institutionalizing cycling friendly policy) b. By part-time employees or permanent task staff members of the transport department with special training and responsibilities? c. An office or sub-division of the transport office is created. Are there two competences dividing tasks for infrastructure and mobility management? 2. What will be the competences of the person/office that will take care of the implementation of long term cycling strategies? a. Supervision of the implementation (and operation) of key projects to improve cycling (singular infrastructure such as bike parking, regular promotion, bike rental, etc) b. Submission of proposals to the city council c. Reviewing and right to modify all new street-marking and street resurfacing interventions d. Reviewing and right to modify past street-marking and street resurfacing interventions at strategic locations e. Reviewing and approving all new transport infrastructure regarding bike permeability and the right to add modifications to the city s or region s infrastructure plan. f. Reviewing of strategic locations regarding bike permeability and right add modifications to the city s or region s infrastructure plan. 3. When and how should the person/office that will take care of the implementation of long term cycling strategies start to act? a. When cyclists complain b. By revision of the cities entire road network and identifying all strategic important locations for infrastructure improvement. Page 11 of 51

12 c. By devising a short-term and long-term infrastructure plan for cycling and related transport infrastructure. 4. How can cyclists communicate to person/office that will take care of the implementation of long term cycling strategies? a. Phone/address is published and findable on the official cities home page. b. There are office hours. c. Cyclists can communicate safety problems on an interactive web-site. d. Cyclists can see on a constantly updated internet-site what and when bicycle infrastructure will be improved 5. What priority has cycling infrastructure modifications? Part 4: Assessment a. What priority has the space for a bike lane in a street s profile? There cannot be a generic answer, a distinction by street width, traffic speed, traffic flow, functionality and urban location may be necessary. In particular there should be a clear statement on whether to priory s parked cars or a bicycle lane. b. What priority has cycling infrastructure modifications; including street marking in budged the city s or region s infrastructure plan? How will be the sequence of project execution decided with respect to other modes? Describe a procedure of a regular (annual or bi-annual) assessment that verifies whether the above mentioned policies have lead or will lead to the achievement of the goals set forth in Part 1. The assessment may be 1. A mobility survey as performed in the BICY project WP Bicycle flow measurements at key roads of the city. This allows measuring effectively the increase in cycling usage, but not the absolute bike share. Practical steps to create a bicycle policy Step 1: Composition of a group to set up and negotiate the policies Composition of the local/regional POLICY FORMULATION analysis group for bicycle mobility in the respective region, representatives of the following groups will be present: Politicians in charge of cycling policies Administrators like bicycle representatives of towns and cities Cycle lobby groups or, if not available selected citizen that are cyclists And one moderator a Bypad auditor that could be contracted from the budget of the respective partners (see external subcontractors policy formulation) Suggestion: could be the group already established for the SWOT analyses. Step 2: Execution Policy formulation Page 12 of 51

13 1. Commission a moderator 2. Choose participants of analysis group-target groups and actors 3. Review of existing development programmes / documents, policies, strategies, set of recommendations- for development of cycling friendly city 4. Carry out first meeting Policy formulation based on the above guidelines and policy papers from Ferrara, Graz and Prague - some of you will only revise existing policies; some of you will develop your strategies as a part of a sustainable transportation plan. In any case an English version is required that addresses all of the issues in the guideline section. 5. Carry out a second meeting make the policies more concrete, define strategic goals, tactical goals and operational goals (Quality plan, staff training, action plans (Who? What? When?) 6. Additional activities Bicycle traffic concept, Bicycle plan, Intervention measures, Interviews, Survey Bicycle plan development and monitoring based on BYPAD In addition to the previous step, one can consider the development of a bicycle policy as a development cycle, consistent of planning, monitoring and implementation actions. This concept is known as BYPAD process, for details see This development cycle is illustrated in Figure 3. Figure 3: The BYPAD development cycle. Regarding the development and monitoring of the bicycle plans for the BICY project, the following procedure has been suggested, which is based BYPAD. The procedures below have been developed according to instructions from two manuals, dealing with development of bicycle (BYPAD, 2008) and sustainable urban transport policies (Pilot, 2007). It outlines the key elements of the cycling policy development process. Page 13 of 51

14 The essential policy development tools consists in a number of tasks and missions. The monitoring activity consists in quantifying how much the different tasks and missions have been accomplished in a city or region. The remaining section explains the different task and missions and how their accomplishment is quantified. Policy formulation tasks Task 1: Status Analysis First of all, a systematic overview of existing plans and policies relevant for cycling needs to be created. Second, the present status of cycling in the urban agglomeration has to be assessed to obtain a baseline against which progress can be measured. In addition different scenarios can be developed to examine and illustrate the future impacts of proposed policies and measures. This task has been already fulfilled for all partners by means of the various analyses activities within WP3. Task 2: Vision, Objectives and Targets To start with, an overall vision for the urban agglomeration needs to be elaborated, addressing cycling as well as other sectoral developments. This rather qualitative and general picture then has to become specified through the definition of concrete objectives, indicating the type of changes desired. Finally, these changes should become measurable by selecting a limited number of outcome indicators for which concrete target values can be defined. This task has been partially accomplished by the Transnational Strategy TNS document WP However, general strategies need to be coined into a more specific local vision. Task 3: Action and Budget Plan The cycling policy process leads to agreements of a wide array of measures for which various resources are required. To account for effectiveness and efficiency, as well as to ensure practical feasibility, an easy to understand synopsis of all measures is needed. Drawing up an action and budget plan means breaking down activities, establishing implementation priorities and schedules. The following areas can be considered: recognizing user needs, infrastructure, safety, information, education, promotion and partnerships. Task 4: Assigning Responsibilities and Resources A careful selection, assessment and description of measures do not yet mean that these will also be implemented. To make actors accountable and to ensure that all resources (human, knowledge, funds) will be available in a timely manner, a clear assignment should be undertaken. Task 5: Monitoring and Evaluation In order to enable local policy learning, both the cycling policy process and the implementation of the action and budget plan need to be assessed. This implies to monitoring of the different planning steps as well as measuring policy outcomes and impacts. The results of the evaluation should then feed back into the process regularly, for improving planning, for deliberation procedures or for reviewing the adopted measures. Page 14 of 51

15 Policy formulation missions Parallel to the tasks described above, following missions could be considered before and during the policy development process: Mission 1: Timing of the planning process Defining a realistic schedule for the process and harmonising the timing of different technical and political decision-making processes and identifying windows for coordination. Mission 2: Strategic coordination and actor relations Assessing all relevant stakeholder positions and creating a sound basis for co-operation and legitimacy. Broadening the resource basis and fostering the steering capacity in planning and implementation. Mission 3: Responsibility and geographical coverage Defining an adequate territorial delimitation, ensuring coverage of actual travel habits. Assigning suitable body/bodies for driving the process and obtaining political approval. Mission 4: Citizen Participation Encouraging citizens to take part in collective decision-making. Ensuring maximum transparency, strengthening local political culture and creating broad public ownership of the strategy. Mission 5: Stakeholder involvement Ensuring a well-structured involvement of public and private stakeholders in all stages of the process. Improving the quality, effectiveness, efficiency, acceptance and legitimacy of the strategy. Mission 6: Integration of policies Establishing the planning of cycling as a shared policy domain, truly serving the different needs of society. Defining concrete axes and issues of integration between cycling and other sectoral policies. Mission 7: Social inclusion and gender equality Understanding and addressing the role of gender and social status in cycling. Create awareness, balance participation and developing targeted measures for specific group of cyclists. Mission 8: Information and public relations Managing relationships with the local media and encouraging regular reporting. Managing the information release and dissemination channels to create public awareness. Mission 9: Skill management Ensuring that the necessary range of skills for managing and driving the planning and implementation process are available in local authorities and among stakeholders to efficiently drive forward Tasks and Missions. Mission 10: Management and organisation Clarifying and formalising actor relations. Ensuring accountability and transparency of the planning process. Page 15 of 51

16 Task and mission quantification of accomplishment The accomplishment of various tasks and missions have been quantified for each BICY partner in a comparative study during the policy formulation activities from 2010 to 2013 (see Section 3). The scale adopted consists of four accomplishment levels, associated with four colours (see Error! Reference source not found.): - None (not yet regulated-weak level, marked in red) - Limited (medium weak level, marked in orange) - Fair (moderately good level, marked in yellow) - Full (the best possible level, marked in green) The evaluation have been performed by the partners themselves (auto-validation). Table 1: Legend with colour coded accomplishment levels. Page 16 of 51

17 3. Bicycle policies: contents and progress This section summarizes and compares the bicycle policy papers drafted by the PPS, using the methodological approaches from Section 0. For each project partner city (or region) key figures, main problems and key policies are summarized, the single polices are classified (based on Section 2.2) and the level of accomplishment is assessed (based on Section 2.3) Province of Ferrara Short summary The province of Ferrara, Italy, is represented by two cities, Ferrara the provincial capital, and Comacchio a much smaller town near the coast. Both cities have already an elevated level of bike usage, as shown in Table 2. Table 2: Key figures for Ferrara and Comacchio Ferrara Comacchio Population Present bikeway length [km] Bike mode share [%] Potential bike mode share [%] Cycling index [m/inhabitants] Ferrara has the higher bike-share (24%), despite the lower cycling index with respect to Comacchio, but both cities have the potential to further increase cycling as more than 50% of all trips are below 5km distance (potential bike mode share). Ferrara s bicycle policy has a diversified approach, based on providing safe bicycle infrastructure and traffic calmed zones combined with a large variety of promotional campaigns and incentive systems (as listed below). Ferrara s historic centre is considered as a unique urban element able to simplify cycling mobility (open cycling area). At the same time, to reach the peripheral areas and villages, protected cycle paths have been realised. It is worth to mention that Ferrara has a long history of bicycle culture on which it can built future initiatives. Ferrara s bicycle policies has started already in 1996 with the opening of a bicycle office and has thus been institutionalized from the beginning in the municipal government. This helped to achieve major strategic objectives like the removal of potential collision points on the road network. The bicycle policies and actions have been funded by a mixture of regional- EU and national funding schemes. Comacchio is different as it is predominantly a tourist oriented place with a large natural reserve on its doorsteps. Most of its bicycle network is inside this natural reserve and is used by tourists (This explains the high cycling index while the share of regular cyclist is lower compared to Ferrara). In any case much of the historic center has a narrow street network which is already car-restricted and thus very accessible for bikes. Making cycling attractive for tourists is thus the main issue in Comacchio s cycling policy. Page 17 of 51

18 Key strategies and policies The following strategies and policies refer to the city of Ferrara. The key strategy of Ferrara has been make cycling as an environmentally friendly and healthy mode of transport more safe and attractive. Quantitative targets have not been specified. The bicycle policies applied during the past 15 have been constantly expanded. Using the classification from section 2.2 the adopted, and partially implemented, cycling policies can be summarized as follows. 1. Bicycle Infrastructure: Planning/ improving of cycle tracks; bike parking with repair tools and near park&bike places, station and bus-stops, supervised where needed; bicycle tunnel at critical points; red color and ramps at crossings; make bike parking compulsory for house building 2. Bike sharing and bike rental : Yes, at strategic bike rental points 3. Signalling and signposting: Bike lane separation; both ways for bikes in one way street; bicycle priority traffic lights; separation of flows at crossings; no through-road open to bicycles; bikes allowed on reserved lanes and in pedestrian zones; speed limit and traffic calming ; signs for tourists 4. Mobility management: Bicycle card with free access to events; special tourist offers for bikers; bicycle transport allowed on public transport. 5. Promotion: various awareness and promotional plans to use the bike; post delivery, police and mayor on bike; bicycle friendly shops; bicycle museum; cycling to work,library on bike and bike taxi promotion 6. Education: anti theft training, mobility week, recycle and repair workshop; mobility educational park; 7. Complementary measures: bicycle parking facilities compulsory for all new settlements; car access restriction enforced in center; parking restrictions; congestion charge: toll roads for specific zone of the city. 8. Monitoring and public engagement: Installation of bicycle counters; annual report on the progress of the cycle network; more statistical data on cycling needed; collection of accident data to identify black spots; Involvement of citizen and associations in the development process. 9. Institutionalization: Bicycle office within the Environmental Policies Department; Other local institutions with competences (Province of Ferrara, AMI, University); funding from parking fines; regional, national and EU funds. In an effort to improve the current policies with the help of the BICY project, the following actions have been suggested in order to respond to specific measures: Resolution of collision Points: Plan for car reduction, congestion charge, integration of bicycle plans for new development areas. New bicycle lanes: More visibility to existing and future bicycle lanes. Page 18 of 51

19 Low speed areas: A traffic plan where two ways circulation, while cyclers drive on opposite direction is allowed; Traffic-restrain measures ( 30 km / h) zones applied in all critical areas (e.g. near schools) and mostly in the entire city centre. Renting point: Program the existing bicycle parking (both bicycle racks, and attended parking) to meet the real needs of users for what may concern capacity, location, technical standards, and convenience; Adapting the building code so that bicycle parking may be provided in public and private buildings, those will respect minimum standards of quality and capacity. Bicycle transportation on public transport: Achieve formal agreements public transportation operators to allow bicycles on board trains, local and regional buses. Annual activity report: Be ready to provide a methodical counting data of the entire network (fixed dates, schedule and places to be counted), and used to improve the network, particularly to differentiate the paths at the neighbourhood level; the impact on cycling performed before and after implementation of larger projects; Installation of methodical counting stations (automatic) to allow permanent; counting and to obtain data for the entire network all year round; Regular inquiry about mobility on families and special analysis of the bike trips. Are extracted profiles of bicycle users (demographic, functional, recreational, etc..). The bike counters, as implemented during the BICY project are an implementation of these improvements. Other measures: Support teachers organising school trip with bicycles; Promote parents giving up cars to take their children to school also with; discount on subscriptions to season tickets for public transport; Promote young using bicycles to go to school also with discounts for sports facilities; Promote at INAIL (National Security Agency worker) that the injury while travelling is recognized when the employee uses the bicycle for commuting to work, even if the route is covered by the public service; Create signs for cyclists. Community involvement: Involved groups of users in decision-making process from the beginning; Discuss whether problems and needs of men and women are different; Develop new ways to verify user s needs. Eg. teachers ask students to fill out questionnaires on their school trips, data are saved in a school database published on their website and directly available to the municipal officers in charge of traffic planning; Experiment, study and pilot projects in order to obtain valuable information on user needs in specific areas. Eg. in collaboration with universities or research institutes; Improve relationships with regional and national institutions regarding technical cooperation, specific legislation and financial support to cycling ; Interact with adjacent municipalities to ensure uniformity of cycle lanes for; adjacent territories Policy formulation accomplishment levels Data for 2010 were not submitted as partner city Ferrara is considered as a front runner within BICY project, thus provided its exiting cycling policy to starter cities as a basis for elaboration of their own policy papers. Thus the comparative analysis of Ferrara was done for Tasks and Missions in As shown in Table 3, the task accomplishment (see Section 2.4) in Ferrara is fairly well. Tasks 1 and 2 have the best possible level of accomplishment which is FULL, whereas ACTION AND BUDGET Page 19 of 51

20 Ferrara 2013 Ferrara 2013 PLAN was marked with level of accomplishment FAIR. Level of accomplishment for task 4 is LIMITED. The level of accomplishment for Task 5 was marked as NONE, therefore some action for improvement should be undertaken within this task. Table 3: Current level of accomplishment of Ferrara within TASKS Task 1: Status Analysis Task 2: Vision, Objectives and Targets Task 3: Action and Budget Plan Task 4: Assigning Responsibilities and Resources Task 5: Monitoring and Evaluation The accomplishment level of missions as defined in Section 2.4 are shown in Table 4. Missions 1, 8, 10 have level of accomplishment NONE which is the lowest possible degree and some action for improvement are proposed within those three missions. As regards missions 2, 4, 5, 9 level of accomplishment is LIMITED. Regarding the mission 3 Responsibility and geographical coverage mission (defining an adequate territorial delimitation, ensuring coverage of actual travel habits, signing suitable body/bodies for driving the process and obtaining political approval), level of accomplishment is FAIR. Within mission 6 Integration of policies level of accomplishment is FAIR as regards establishing the planning of cycling as a shared policy domain. Table 4: Current level of accomplishment of Ferrara within MISSIONS Mission 1: Timing of the planning process Mission 2: Strategic coordination and actor relations Mission 3: Responsibility and geographical coverage Mission 4: Citizen Participation Mission 5: Stakeholder involvement Mission 6: Integration of policies Mission 7: Social inclusion and gender equality Mission 8: Information and public relations Mission 9: Skill management Mission 10: Management and organisation Page 20 of 51

21 3.2. Province of Ravenna Short summary The province of Ravenna is represented by two cities, Ravenna the provincial capital, and Cervia a much smaller town. Both cities have already an elevated level of bike usage, as shown in Table 5. Table 5: Key figures for Ravenna and Cervia Ravenna Cervia Population Present bikeway length [km] Bike mode share [%] Potential bike mode share [%] Cycling index [m/inhabitants] Both Ravenna and Cervia have bike shares far above the national average. Cervia has, according to the street survey, almost a 28% bike share and a high cycling index of 1.22m/inhabitant. The potential bike share to be reached for both cities is approximately 45%, corresponding to the trips below 5km. With the BICY project, Ravenna and Cervia developed a bicycle policy paper for the first time. After the status analysis based on the results from WP3, the objectives were suggested and a consultation between stakeholders has taken place to define an action and budget plan. Apart from the different length in bikeways, Ravenna and Cervia show very similar problems which are: the insufficient connectivity of the bicycle network and a very high fear of getting caught in an accident or to get the bike stolen. In addition the lack of funding for bike infrastructure has been cited in SWOT analyses and stakeholder meetings. Therefore the focus of the policies are on closing gaps in the bikeway-network, providing more save bicycle parking with promotional and educational measures for car drivers. Both cities have also interest to promote cycling for tourists. The bike rental scheme, as implemented during the BICY project, is located at the railway connecting Ravenna and Cervia, does perfectly fit into this strategy Key strategies and policies The ambitious goal of both cities is to reach their potential bike mode share of 45%. In order to reach this goal, it is estimated that the bikeways must be extended considerably (almost doubled). In order to achieve this goal, and considering the specific problems that emerged from the status analyses, the following set of measures have been included in the cycling policy. Using the classification from section 2.2 the measures can be summarized as follows: 1. Bicycle Infrastructure: Double the bikeways network to attain target cycling levels; improve connectivity; high quality and safety; safe, secure and accessible bicycle parking; everywhere; bike racks for buses. 2. Bike sharing and bike rental : yes, at intermodal stations. Page 21 of 51

22 Ravenna & Cervia Signalling and signposting: expansion of 30 zones, save signalling and signposting of all bike ways 4. Mobility management: offer bike in public transport. 5. Promotion: A program for businesses to support increasing cycling, including street fairs or promotions with bicycle themes, discounts for cyclists. 6. Education: traffic education in education system, starting with the youngest children; educating drivers. 7. Complementary measures: Expansion of pedestrian zones; close roads to enter by cars but allow bikes. 8. Monitoring and public engagement: BYPAD audit every 2-3 years; maintain records of cycleways and bicycle parking; Counting of bicyclists every year; mobility survey each 5 years; geo-referenced Injury/Fatality/Collision data; Regular consultation with the traveling public; publish feedback on web-site. 9. Institutionalization: Create bicycle office, make a mobility plan; ensure adequate funding. By the end of the BICY project, the allocation of funding remained to be a major problem Policy formulation accomplishment levels Data for 2010 were not submitted as partner city Ravenna is considered as a front runner within BICY project, thus provided its exiting cycling policy to starter cities as a basis for elaboration of their own policy papers. Thus the comparative analysis of Ravenna & Cervia was done for Tasks and Missions in As shown in Table 6, the task accomplishment (see Section 2.4) All of the Tasks in 2013 of Ravenna & Cervia have FULL accomplishment level. Table 6: Current level of accomplishment of Ravenna & Cervia within TASKS Task 1: Status Analysis Task 2: Vision, Objectives and Targets Task 3: Action and Budget Plan Task 4: Assigning Responsibilities and Resources Task 5: Monitoring and Evaluation The accomplishment level of missions as defined in Section 2.4 are shown in Table 7. Level of accomplishment within MISSIONS in 2013 of Ravenna and Cervia was FULL within all ten points, except Missions 7 and 8 where the level of accomplishment was FAIR. Those data shows particularly high level of accomplishment which is a truly positive aspect for the creation of adequate, comprehensive and innovative cycling infrastructure in the cities of Ravenna and Cervia, given the question of the funding opportunities can be resolved. Page 22 of 51

23 Ravenna & Cervia 2013 Table 7: PP Ravenna & Cervia Missions 2013 Mission 1: Timing of the planning process Mission 2: Strategic coordination and actor relations Mission 3: Responsibility and geographical coverage Mission 4: Citizen Participation Mission 5: Stakeholder involvement Mission 6: Integration of policies Mission 7: Social inclusion and gender equality Mission 8: Information and public relations Mission 9: Skill management Mission 10: Management and organisation 3.3. Graz Short summary The medium size Austrian city of Graz has good cycling conditions as most of its terrain is relatively flat. The street survey reviled a bike share of 14% (see Table 8), but the last representative household survey resulted in a slightly higher bike share of 16%. Table 8: Key figures for Graz Graz Population Present bikeway length [km] 120 Bike mode share [%] Potential bike mode share [%] 46 Cycling index [m/inhabitants] 0.46 The bikeway length per inhabitant (cycling index) is not elevated, but the city-wide speed limit of 30km/h has helped to make cycling safe in the city of Graz. The potential bike share in Graz is with 46% of trips below 5km rather typical. Graz has practiced pro-cycling policies since the 80 th and introduced as first city in Austria a city-wide 30km/h speed limit as well as the BYPAD process to ensure the quality of cycling policy implementation and its continuous improvement. Page 23 of 51