Gothenburg as a Bicycle Friendly City

Abstract

Cycling is an attractive transportation alternative with benefits including improved health and increased social interactions. Additionally, cycling is a transportation mode with low environmental impacts and occupies a limited space in traffic. A vision of the municipality of Gothenburg is that 75 % of the citizens should perceive the city as bicycle friendly. However, studies have shown that only 41 % have this opinion. To reach the goal of increasing the perception of Gothenburg as a bicycle friendly city, the aim of this study is to identify necessary factors for a city to be perceived as bicycle friendly. Further, critical factors for specific stretches within Gothenburg will be investigated. This master thesis consists of several parts and methods. Firstly, a literature review and interviews are conducted to create an overview of important factors for a bicycle friendly city in general. These results are used to identify characteristics which in turn form a basis to create a structured interview in terms of a survey. The aim of the survey is to highlight lacking factors within the bicycle network of Gothenburg from a user perspective. The result of the questionnaire is analyzed to identify the most critical factors of the city, which are assigned to specific routes. In turn, the critical factors are simulated in a spatial analysis using assumptions including route choices from origins to destinations. Lastly, an observation is conducted to verify the results of the spatial analysis. Further, the aim of the observation is to study possible improvement measures for specific stretches of the routes. The result of the literature review and interviews with experts, showed that high priority of cycle infrastructure and traffic safety, including orientability and passability, are important for a city to be perceived as bicycle friendly. The interview with the public sector verified that this also applies to Gothenburg. According to respondents of the survey, representing users, the bicycle network of Gothenburg is lacking in several aspects. Some examples of lacking factors are connectivity and continuity along the network, segregation from motor vehicles and pedestrians, proper lane width, and generally, the priority of cycle passability compared to other transportation modes. Further, the main critical factors associated with specific routes are connectivity and continuity, existence of cycle paths, and segregation from pedestrians. The spatial analysis shows that these factors are related to stretches gathered around the inner city of Gothenburg where various road users have to interact. Observation of selected routes verified that critical factors and associated stretches identified by users, coincide.