Transport Strategy refresh Background paper Increasing the Use of Bicycles for Transport May 2018 Phillip Boyle & Associates Page 1 of 60 Contents Executive Summary .............................................................................................................................................. 3 1. How everyone can benefit from increased bicycle riding ........................................................................... 4 2. What is happening today? .......................................................................................................................... 8 2.1 Two types of bicycle trips .......................................................................................................................... 8 Extended walking ..................................................................................................................................... 10 Congestion cutting .................................................................................................................................... 10 2.2 The number of people who ride bicycles for transport ............................................................................ 13 Travel within the municipality (Bicycles as Extended Walking) ................................................................ 13 Travel to the municipality (Bicycles as Congestion Cutters) .................................................................... 14 2.3 Why people do not ride bicycles for transport ......................................................................................... 19 Risk ........................................................................................................................................................... 19 Other barriers ........................................................................................................................................... 22 3. How the City of Melbourne can increase the level of bicycle use ............................................................ 24 Direction One: Shrink motor vehicle ownership and use and grow the alternatives ..................................... 25 3.1 Remove the requirement for private off-street car spaces ................................................................. 26 3.2 Reduce access and lower the priority provided to people in cars ...................................................... 26 3.2 Develop more high mobility streets in the City centre ........................................................................ 27 3.3 Develop high mobility corridors leading to the Centre........................................................................ 31 Direction Two: Improve bicycle facilities ........................................................................................................ 35 3.4 Implement regular upgrades of existing facilities that are successful ................................................ 35 3.5 Increase protection from turning motor vehicles & introduce protected ‘Dutch-style’ intersections ... 39 3.6 Include ‘movement’ in the design of places and open spaces ........................................................... 43 3.7 Require more bicycle parking in the planning scheme....................................................................... 51 3.8 Move bicycle parking from the footpath to kerb-extensions to underground ..................................... 53 3.9 Increase investment in bicycle infrastructure and provide incentives ................................................ 55 4. Summary of the discussion ...................................................................................................................... 57 Page 2 of 60 Executive Summary The current and forecast surge in population and jobs presents the City of Melbourne a transport strategy challenge. The new Transport Strategy must show how an ever-increasing number of people can move in a fixed space. This apparent paradox can be overcome by increasing the use of the space efficient modes. One of the space-saving solutions, alongside walking and transit, is bicycle riding. Space saving bicycle trips are both useful and necessary. Useful because they are more space efficient than car trips and necessary because bicycle trips complement the other alternatives. Bicycles allow trips that are further than people like to walk and provide a cost-effective complement for longer transit-based trips. The benefits from an increased number of bicycle trips will be felt by everyone. The transport system will expand to cope with the greater load and people will be able to flow in, around and through the municipality without the delays and frustration caused by congestion. By reducing the number and proportion of motor vehicle trips, space can be released from the transport system and reallocated to expand cramped footpaths and bicycle facilities as well as providing car-free transit corridors. Surplus space can be moved out of the transport system to increase the space available for sitting, standing and meeting people as well for trees and open space. As the urbanist Jan Gehl says ‘if you have people walk and bicycle more, you have a more lively, more liveable, more attractive, more safe, more sustainable and more healthy city.’ This discussion paper considers the two main types of bicycle transport trips: short local trips in and around the municipality described as ‘extended walking’ and longer ‘congestion cutter’ trips to and from the municipality. Data suggests that there are many local bicycle trips of both types. The short trips are declining in number. The longer trips are increasing in line with the increase in population but not enough to increase the bicycle’s overall share of the transport task. The paper outlines how the City of Melbourne can expand the level of bicycle riding for transport. An increase in bicycle trips is suppressed by several factors, the most significant of which is risk. For cautious riders to use their bicycles for transport, they will need the confidence provided by facilities that feel safe to ride on because are separated from motor vehicles. When the bicycle route is on the road, the separation will need to be provided not only in the midblock but also at intersections. The paper highlights the importance of reducing motor vehicle ownership and use as well as increasing alternatives. To increase bicycle use the paper reaffirms the concept of high mobility streets in the 2012 Transport Strategy. These high-mobility streets can be extended into high-mobility corridors that reach to the boundaries of the municipality. These streets and corridors would provide an integrated transport solution combining all alternative transport modes. Along these streets and corridors bicycle riders would be protected (and encouraged) by fully separated bicycle facilities. Increased bicycle use needs to be supported by revisions to the planning scheme which increase the space in buildings where bicycles can be parked and stored. Out on the street increased bicycle use will put pressure on footpath parking. Bicycles will need to be parked on kerb outstands and eventually moved underground to allow other uses of public space. The City of Melbourne will also need to provide for the flow of people and people on bicycles in the ‘places’ and open spaces it creates. The paper concludes by discussing capital investments and other financial incentives that help establish higher levels of riding. Substantial and regular investment in facilities is the necessary condition to establish the targets set by the City of Melbourne that bicycle trips should account initially for 7% and then 10% of all trips. Page 3 of 60 1. How everyone can benefit from increased bicycle riding An increase in bicycle riding along with walking and transit will allow us to reshape our transport system so that it moves more people and releases space for purposes that will benefit everyone. Population, visitation and employment in the City of Melbourne are growing strongly. This growth means that an increasing number of people are trying to move around. This movement is increasingly difficult because the roads and the road network do not (and will not) expand in response to the growth. Although our roads are often full and congested, the flow of people on our roads – what VicRoads calls ‘person lane occupancy’1 – is relatively weak. The people flow is weak because most road space is used for storing, parking and moving motor vehicles. Of all the modes, motor vehicles occupy the most space and provide the lowest flow-of-people rate. Flows of people in motor vehicles thicken into congestion under small amounts of growth. Figure 1: The chart shows the maximum people flow and space required for various modes Source: Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan Malmö 2016 We cannot know when all the imagined technological advances of motor vehicles will be in operation. What we do know is that a road full of electric vehicles with robot drivers and multiple passengers will still have the lowest rate of people-flow of any road transport. In areas where a high intensity of residents, visitors and jobs generate significant economic benefits, the cars of the future will not be appropriate. On the other hand, walking and transit both have low space requirements and allow for high people-flows. Bicycles are not as space efficient as walking and transit but are more efficient than cars.2 To cope with growth these space-efficient modes must become more important