Area Specific Bicycle Planning

Abstract

A recent challenge for the majority of Brazilian cities is to cope with the growth of car mobility and to maintain and improve the use and quality of public transport and active transport like cycling. One of the challenges is combining public transport with active transport, as a feeder mode, to provide an intermodal door-to-door alternative for the private car. However, these cities do not have experience with this kind of planning and their urban planners and technicians lack the know-how to start the process. To overcome this lack of experience, I-CE (Interface for Cycling Expertise) a Dutch NGO developed a methodology, called Area Specific Participative Planning (ASPP), for planning non-motorized transport modes and its articulation with public transport. The main focus of this work is to gather technical and area-specific knowledge of both I-CE consultants and the people living and working in cities in order to develop a bicycle network and an intervention plan, using a step by step approach. After the workshops and technical visits, the participating planners, which include bicycle users and other stakeholders, become the main supporters of the plans and incorporate the lessons in their work routine. The use of the methodology is in progress since 2006 in Resende and since 2007 in Rio de Janeiro, both cities in the state of Rio de Janeiro. The main innovation of the methodology is that it capacitates and involves the target city's technicians and civil society, in making decisions based on local habits, instead of only presenting foreign plans and standards without local participation.