Cycling is a major contributor to shifting mobility from polluting and passive modes of transport to cleaner, emissions free, active modes. At the moment, the number one barrier to increasing cycling and getting more people to cycle is road safety. Designing safer and more comfortable road infrastructure for cyclists is today a top climate priority.

Our colleagues at the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) issued a report on cycling and pedestrian safety, revealing that cyclist fatalities have decreased by only 0.4% between 2010-2018 while motor occupants fatalities have decreased by around 20%. At the end of 2019, the European Commission launched its European Green Deal and the European Parliament declared climate emergency together with another 1330 public authorities. So, what’s the link?

Cutting emissions with cycling infrastructure

Although more and more people cycle around Europe these days, cyclist fatalities have been decreasing eight times more slowly than deaths of motor vehicle occupants.

In the framework of the Safer Cycling Advocate Program (SCAP), the European Cyclists’ Federation collected the most effective measures to improve road safety and comfort through cycling infrastructures with examples from Denmark and the Netherlands. We think that those interested in improving infrastructure will find useful the principles, models and ideas that the Dutch and Danish bring to the design and implementation of their cycling network.

A proper infrastructure is the keystone for countries with a strong cycling culture. Cycling infrastructure design must be comfortable, attractive, coherent… but most importantly, safer.

Cyclists can be especially vulnerable if they move into a space with motorized traffic, which causes differences in mass and speed. The report from ETSC also says 83% of cyclist deaths recorded in the European Union are a consequence of an impact with a motor vehicle. Making it essential to get the right balance between building separate infrastructure when needed and improving safety within mixed traffic at the same time.

The Danes and Dutch provide requirements for understanding when to separate cyclists from motorised traffic. These assessments are mainly based around speed and traffic volumes and have been collected, among many other measures, in the SCAP Best Practice Guide.

This is mostly valid for urban cycling, but there have been great developments in extra-urban infrastructure as well. Last year the EU agreed on a revised version of the Road Infrastructure Safety Management (RISM) Directive, recognising the need to pay more attention to the safety of cyclists and pedestrians in all TEN-T, EU funded and primary roads. ECF lobbied hard for those in the past two years, and are very proud of our work.

So what’s the link between cycling safety and the Green Deal? Well if we make cycling more comfortable and safer then more people will do it. And if more people do it we will reduce our CO2 emissions. Win-win; as well as improve our public health, reducing congestion, improving air quality; creating more liveable cities etc.etc…!

Save lives, spread the knowledge

We will take our SCAP Best Practice Guide on a Balkan tour this year visiting Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia. We want to see what we can learn from those countries and what they can learn from the guide. Hopefully, we will also manage to persuade some politicians along the way to invest in better and safer infrastructure in their urban areas. We will also be working on the implementation stage of the RISM where the European Commission will have to develop a guide for all extra-rural cycling infrastructure.

Its an exciting time in the infrastructure world and we will keep you up to date over the next few months how it is all going.

Keep an eye on the work of ECF, our member in your country, and the Safer Cycling Advocate Program for more.