Improving Vancouver’s Bikeways: Safety, Accessibility, and Connectivity
Part of Vancouver’s local governmental policies in the fight against climate change involve increasing the percentage of trips made by cycling. Literature reviews have suggested that to increase the population able-and-willing to cycle, the safety, accessibility, and connectivity of bikeways are key improvements that need to be made. This project focuses on the analysis of those three factors. Collision data from ICBC, as well as crowdsourced data for collisions and near-misses inform a hot spot and outlier analysis, bounded by an intersection buffer. Results indicate that outlier intersections tend to occur along major streets, bikeways, or where they intersect. These intersections can serve as sites for future improvements and observational studies.
Multiple Criteria Evaluations (MCEs) were conducted that propose areas and street segments for the expansion of the current All Ages and Abilities (AAA) Bikeway networks. With the goal of increasing commuting for school-aged and working-age commuters, two approaches to the MCEs were taken. Firstly, to increase the accessibility of the AAA Bikeway network, and secondly, to increase the connectivity of the AAA Bikeway network. Our results indicate that eastern and southern neighbourhoods in the City of Vancouver are under-served for these purposes.
Project by Wesley Chenne for GEOS 370: Advanced Issues in GIScience.
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Cover image: Vancouver, Canada by Planet Labs. CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons