Prioriterat snabbcykelstråk

In pursuit of a sustainable society, the bike possesses a central importance. It is important that the bike lanes meet the needs in terms of accessibility and safety. In the Netherlands, the UK and Denmark already exists so-called super cycle routes, which have proven to be very successful, as they contributed to the increased cycling, and at same time improved accessibility and comfort for the cyclists. Currently there are no official super cycle routes in Sweden, but a prioritized quick-cycle route between Lund and Malmö has been in focus lately, and therefore improvements have been made on the cycle route in Malmö. These improvements are made in four intersections connected to the cycle route, which are presented below: 1. Lundavägen / Ågatan: Traffic Signal system that gives priority to cyclists using sensors. The crossing has also been drawn diagonally across the intersection, therefore the bikers no longer have to cross the road in two places to continue their journey on the cycle route. 2. Lundavägen / Segemöllegatan: The bicycle route has been elevated. 3. Lundavägen / Östra Fäladsgatan: The bicycle route has been elevated, and the obligation to give way has been moved. 4. Lundavägen / Vattenverksvägen: Broadening of the bicycle route across the intersection. All improvements except the one at Vattenverksvägen have been to promote accessibility and road safety for cyclists. The widening of the crossing at Lundavägen/ Vattenverksvägen has the aim of promoting accessibility. This report is mostly devoted to investigate what effect these improvements have had on road safety and accessibility. At first, extracts from STRADA have been done to investigate the accident statistics. What should be observed during the studying of STRADA extracts is the short time duration since the implementation of the improvements, and therefore it is not possible to draw any statistically based conclusions whether the modifications of the intersections have had the desired effect or not. In conjunction with other field studies, motorist´s and cyclist´s behavior has been observed to see if accident trends could be identified. Furthermore, traffic security has been investigated in terms of the velocity of the motor vehicles in the intersections where motorists must give priority to cyclists and pedestrians. This study has also been used to study the accessibility for the cyclists. The accessibility has been studied by measuring the delay of the cyclists. The delay is the difference in the time it takes for cyclists to cross the intersection compared to if there was no intersection. The delay was 20,6 seconds in intersection 1, 0,3 seconds in intersection 2, 0,4 seconds in intersection 3 and 8,8 seconds in intersection 4. A behavioral study has also been implemented, where a measurement is made of the number of vehicles that swerve from passing cyclists. This study has been implemented only in the intersections without traffic signals. In intersection 2 and 3 the percentage of swerving motor vehicles was 85-86%. The cycle flow was also measured during the field studies. It is considered to exist a connection between cycle flow and accessibility. The flow is measured in cycles per hour, c/h. In intersection 1 the flow was 70 c/h, in intersection 2 it was 118 c/h, in intersection 3 it was 145 c/h and in intersection 4 it was 160 c/h