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

4 The Delft Bicycle Plan
Delft is a medium-sized city in the highly urbanised western
part of the Netherlands. It is located between the conurbations
of Rotterdam and The Hague and on cycling
distance to these two cities (Figure 4.1).
The main infrastructure routes (railway, canal, and motorway)
run north-south through or along the city. In the
Middle Ages Delft was one of the largest cities in Holland.
It has still a large medieval inner city. The city houses a
technical university and a large technical research institute
(TNO). It promotes itself as ‘knowledge city’.
The historic city centre with a low accessibility for cars
as well as the large share of student population gives
Delft a high potential for the bicycle. In 1979 the Delft
Bicycle Plan was launched that aimed at realising a coherent
bicycle network all over the city. At that time, the
city had 85,000 inhabitants. The plan was implemented
in the 1980s and evaluated elaborately. The evaluation
regarded both the whole network and some larger single
projects. In the next sections the plan and the evaluation
of both the network and one single project (the Plantagebrug)
will be discussed.
4.1 Political context
In Section 2 is described that in the 1970s the Dutch national
policy started to give high priority to promote cycling
and improve cycling conditions. Besides, there was need
for more knowledge on the impacts of interventions in bicycle
infrastructure.
The demonstration projects in Tilburg and The Hague
were results of this policy. After these projects were finished,
the national policy continued to promote cycling by
providing subsidies for specific projects, and there was
still demand for more knowledge. The demonstration
projects proved that investments in single bicycle routes
could enhance (the perception of) safety, but that the impacts
on bicycle use are rather small. One assumed that
improvement of a complete network would have a more
significant impact on bicycle use (Ministry of Transport
and Public Works, 1987; Wilmink, 1987).
Figure 4.1: Location of Delft
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