Aalborg Universitet Bike Infrastructures Report Silva, Victor ... - VBN

projects. (See also the organization chart below.) The decision
making on the project implementation was at the
municipal level.
3.3.1 Tilburg
In reality the (urban part of the) bicycle route in Tilburg
was implemented between March 1976 and November
1977 (Ministerie van Verkeer en Waterstaat, 1977)
after approval of the plans by the municipal council on
1 December 1975. The extensions to the neighbouring
municipalities Berkel-Enschot and Oisterwijk were only
decided in 1977, and these parts of the route are outside
the scope of the evaluation studies.
Given the pressure of time there was limited room for
information to and consultation of the population. Information
and consultations sessions were organised per
neighbourhood and with some stakeholder groups like
the Chamber of Commerce and the association of shop
owners. Comments made could only be taken into account
as far as they were within the boundary conditions
of the project. This wasn’t always to the satisfaction of the
people involved in this consultation process.
The technical preparation and supervision on the implementation
was commissioned to some consultancies,
with the final responsibility at Tilburg Public Works department.
Project group
design
The Hague
Project group
design
Tilburg
Ministry of
Transport, Public
Works and Water
Management
Project
implementation
Bicycle
use
Steering
group
The Hague
Steering
group
Tilburg
Cyclists’
perceptions
Road
safety
5 thematic research groups
Municipality of
The Hague
Municipality of
Tilburg
Plenary
Research
Group
Design
aspects
Accompanying
research
Shop
sales
3.3 Organisation and
implementation
Both demonstration projects stem from the desire of the
national government to demonstrate the feasibility of well
designed urban cycling infrastructure. As explained in
paragraph 3.1 the Multi Annual Plan for Persons Transport
1976-1980 had (for the first time) a budget line to
subsidize urban cycling facilities. But as municipalities
obviously found it difficult to qualify for these subsidies,
these demonstration routes had to show them the way.
Because of the time frame of the multi-annual plan the
ministry wanted the projects to be implemented rather
quickly. The original idea was that the implementation of
both routes would be finalized in 1976.
For both projects there was a steering group of municipal
officials and the (national) Department of Waterways
and Public Works. Thereupon there was a ‘plenary study
group’ with 5 subgroups for a proper evaluation of the
3.3.2 The Hague
In The Hague the implementation process was less
straight forward than in Tilburg. The original idea was that
the municipal council would approve the plans for the entire
bicycle route in one decision. But because of the opposition
(mainly coming from shop keepers) the council
decided to take separate decisions for 5 different route
sections. For each route section ‘information evenings’
were organised, and the plans for some sections raised
substantial opposition, which resulted in serious delays
for these sections. The route section in the historic city
centre got only approved in 1983 after the evaluation
studies were finished, and the north east section was ultimately
cancelled altogether.
The technical preparation was in the hands of the Department
of Public Works of The Hague whereas the political
management of the project was a shared responsibility
of the town clerk’s office and the department of Public
Works.
3.4 The costs
Figure 3.8: Chart of organisation and implementation of the two projects (Van den Broecke and
Rijkswaterstaat, 1981)
It doesn’t seem very worthwhile to go very deep into the
costs of projects that were implemented more than 30
years ago. The reporting on this issue (Instituut voor Zintuigfysiologie,
TNO and Rijkswaterstaat 1982) concludes
that cost estimates were reasonably in line with the real
costs, that it was difficult to establish a general applicable
unit price for sections and intersections, that larger constructions
such as bridges and underpasses do have a
large impact on the total costs of such a project, and that
costs are relatively low when the bicycle facilities can be
implemented between the existing curbs of the carriageway.
Reconstruction of the cross section ‘from façade to
façade’ is obviously and understandably more expensive.
This was also the main explanation why the bicycle route
in The Hague was cheaper than the route in Tilburg: the
route in The Hague could be implemented between the
existing curbs, whereas in Tilburg the entire cross section
was reconstructed. In the case of the two projects preparation
and supervision of the construction of the bicycle
routes took a substantial part of the budget.
3.5 Set-up of the
evaluation studies
The demonstration projects were not only intended to
show the feasibility of the implementation of cycling facilities,
but also to get a better understanding of the effects of
such facilities. For this reason the project was accompanied
by a number of studies to evaluate the bicycle routes
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