How infrastructure can promote cycling in cities: Lessons from Seville

The development of a fully segregated network of cycle paths in the period 2006-2011 is analysed, with particular emphasis on its consequences for mobility in Seville. We show that this effort, in such a short period of time, has been a valuable tool for the promotion of bicycle mobility in a city without a tradition for cycling. Apart from the obvious aim of achieving segregation from motorized traffic, the Seville network considered connectivity, continuity, visibility, uniformity, bi-directionality and comfort as criteria for the design of the infrastructure. All these criteria aim to make cycling not just safe, but also easy and comfortable for everybody. Our analysis also suggests that the fast building of this type of infrastructure provides solid grounds for the development of utilitarian cycling, with high cost effectiveness, even in a city without a previous tradition in this sense. However the strategy also has certain limitations, which are analysed in the paper.

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