Abstract Manager

Creating a network of safe, comfortable, and connected cycling infrastructure is critical to increasing non-motorized travel. The health, environmental, and transportation benefits from cycling infrastructure, when designed for comfort and safety, are well-documented. Further, improving access to cycling infrastructure for a diversity of demographic groups supports equity. The term "All Ages and Abilities" (AAA) has become widely used in bicycle research and planning to describe infrastructure that ensures safety and comfort for everyone. Many plans now emphasize the importance of building networks of AAA facilities yet lack specificity when describing or defining cycling ‘networks’.

CapaCITY/É research program’s overarching goal is to catalyze the implementation of sustainable transportation interventions to support health, mobility, and equity in cities. We aim to understand how, why, and for whom sustainable transportation interventions are successful and when they are not. Our pan-Canadian research team includes partnerships with nine municipalities and four organizations supporting sustainable transportation.

Our research focuses on two types of interventions: AAA bicycle networks and speed management interventions. One of the first tasks was to create operational definitions of these interventions that would guide our work. Together with our city partners, we defined cycling facility types that were AAA. However, we hit an impasse when it came to defining ‘network’. Consistent operational definitions for cycling networks do not seem to exist!

Our team undertook a policy scan of 35 Canadian municipal and regional policy documents to understand the language around AAA cycling networks. While most plans (32/35) had some mention of the concept of cycling networks, six of the plans only had very brief attention, using the words ‘network’ or ‘connection’ with no further explanation. The other 26 plans expanded on the concept, most often defining networks in terms of connectivity to opportunities and/or as a minimum grid of separation between bicycle facilities.

At workshops, we’ve heard from practitioners that critical elements of a cycling network include connectivity, safety, consistency, and accessibility. Turning these elements into indicators or measures is clearly a challenge. The lack of network metrics may limit our ability to measure the progress of implementation across Canada.

In this presentation, we share what we’ve learned from policy scans, deeper dives into academic research, and from workshops with our city partners and transportation professionals around the topic of defining a cycling network.