ECF Infrastructure Officer Aleksander Buczyński presented expectations of cyclists and the concept of cycle highways to representatives of road administrations and road industry sector on the international Pavement Preservation and Recycling Summit in Nice.
850 delegates of road infrastructure sector, both from public administrations and road industry, gathered on the second Pavement Preservation and Recycling Summit in Nice, 26-28th March 2018. ECF was invited here to present the cycling point of view in the session “From infrastructure to service: a new paradigm for roads.” The purpose of the session was to exchange visions from different stakeholders on the future mobility, better understand their expectations from the road infrastructure sector and identify potential cooperation areas between the respective sectors.
ECF Infrastructure Officer Aleksander Buczyński focused his presentation on often overlooked rural and suburban areas. With dispersed settlement patterns found in many parts of the world, growing popularity of cycle tourism and the development of electrically assisted bicycles, cycling infrastructure is needed also outside cities and towns. Adding cycle and pedestrian paths to legacy roads, following the historical trace, with settlements developed along them, is a very low hanging fruit in road safety in many countries. But selected elements of cycling infrastructure need to be integrated in nearly all road investments, including motorways and expressways, as explained in the ECF Position on the EU Regulatory Framework for Road Infrastructure Safety Management.
In parallel, a concept of cycle highway as a new mobility product is gaining in popularity. As a backbone of a cycle network, cycle highway can connect different cities, or cities with major workplaces. In the frame of CHIPS (Cycle Highways Innovation for smarter People Transport and Spatial Planning) project ECF together with partners from several regional authorities, research centres and cycling industry is working on common understanding and development of the cycle highway concept.
Cycle highways require a new, higher standard of design, build and maintenance. They also require cooperation across traditional hierarchy of road network, as well as integrated approach to different aspects – from planning through infrastructure, services, promotion to monitoring. In return they extend the range of cycling from city-wide to region-wide, create new opportunities for active mobility and help ease congestion.