Are there safe cycleways for school travel? Where are more cycleways needed?

Abstract

The study aims to develop an analytical framework for assessing cycling infrastructure from adolescents' safety perspectives, facilitating the prioritisation of areas based on effectiveness and existing conditions. Through an online survey (n = 323), we explored the perceived safety of Australian adolescents with different types of cycling lanes. The majority of survey participants prefer physically separated or protected cycleways. However, only 8.8% of the adolescent population in Greater Sydney has continuous cycleways to their catchment high-schools through these types of cycleways. Our study found a larger number of adolescents (28.1%) have access to nearby parks via safe cycleways. Although this difference appears to be due to the greater number of parks available, it could potentially contribute to significantly higher rates of recreational cycling participation in Sydney. This study also introduces an evaluation metric that combines the composite cycleway connectivity index, adolescent population density, and home-to-school distances to assist high-level selection and prioritisation of future infrastructure projects aimed at promoting active school travel.