A free digital tool commissioned by the Department for Transport (DfT) has been made available to help local authorities plan cycling routes.
Named the Rapid Cycleway Prioritisation Tool, it has been built by a team at the University of Leeds’ Institute of Transport Studies and co-commissioned by the cycling activists’ charity Sustrans.
The move reflects the movement within many local authorities to get more people cycling rather than using motorised vehicles around their areas.
The tool identifies priority locations for new cycleways, ranking roads by their ‘cycling potential’ estimated using the Propensity to Cycle Tool. This represents the estimated number of cycling trips along this road travelling to or from work or school assuming the Government’s aim to double cycling by 2025 is met
It highlights top ranked cycleways – the roads with the highest cycling potential that also have spare space – and can identify what a ‘cohesive network’ for cycling might look like if an authority were to consider a wider range of measures such as closing roads to motorised traffic and creating one-way systems.
Results for each can be accessed by clicking on the relevant area from the map or search the authority’s name from a list.
Image by Tejvan Pettinger, CC BY 2.0 through flickr
