University of Twente Student Theses
Curitiba bikeways quality mapping index.
Schilte, P.G. (2016) Curitiba bikeways quality mapping index.
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| Abstract: | The name of the research is ‘Curitiba bike quality mapping index’. The research took place in Curitiba, a city of circa 2 million inhabitants and located in Southern Brazil. The city wants to improve the bicycle use among the residents. This research is a part of this project and focuses mainly on the quality of the existing bicycle infrastructure. The following research questions are answered in the report 1. How bicycle friendly are the bicycle paths in Curitiba? 2. How much inhabitants of Curitiba have access to the bicycle network and what is their position in the society? 3. What kinds of places have facilities to store bicycles and how are these facilities distributed throughout the city? To answer the first research question a score per bicycle path was calculated. To achieve this, four criteria were obtained. First of all, the presence of obstacles on the bicycle path was noted. Secondly, it was checked whether an intersection with a bicycle path and a general road has sufficient painting to make the driver aware of the fact that they could expect a cyclist. Thirdly, the overall quality of the surface was marked. Lastly, the percentage of the bicycle that is shared with pedestrians, which can be seen as moving obstacles, is calculated. After each of these criteria received a weight, the final score per bicycle path was calculated. The result is a map of the city with the bicycle paths and their scores classified as colours. The low scoring paths got a red colour and the high scoring paths got a green colour. In research question two, a 200 meter buffer area around the bicycle paths is compared to the area of the whole city. Two things are compared, the income and the population density. The average income in the buffer area is higher and the T-Test resulted into a significant statistical difference. The comparison of the population density showed no significant statistical difference. In research question three, the location of the bicycle storage facilities (paraciclos) is analysed. The main conclusion is that 53% of these paraciclos are located within 30 meters of a bicycle path. In the city centre itself, 17 paraciclos are located outside the buffer area and 2 inside. The conclusions after answering these three questions are as follows: Curitiba has potential to become one of the leading bicycle cities of Latin America, but some things have to improve. Most of the bicycle paths with a higher score were initially roads. The lower scoring bicycle paths were initially sidewalks, these paths have to cope with obstacles and softer surfaces. The average income of inhabitants who live within 200 meters of a bicycle path is higher than the average income of the total city. The locations of the paraciclos, especially in the city centre, are far away from the bicycle paths and therefore harder to find. These conclusions let to recommendations. The most important one concerning the quality of the bicycle paths is to construct new paths on the same surface as the general road instead using a part of the sidewalk. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Bachelor) |
| Faculty: | ET: Engineering Technology |
| Subject: | 56 civil engineering |
| Programme: | Civil Engineering BSc (56952) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/71060 |
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