Elevated Bicycle Lane

Abstract: Stockholm has great potential of being a bicycle city, but in the present situation it is not. 5 per cent of the daily transportation in Stockholm 2015 was made by bicycle while Copenhagen had a corresponding 36 percent 2008-2010. Safety is the prominent reason to why not more people cycle. Studies have shown that separating the bicycle lane from other modes of transportation is the best measure in increasing safety. The task at hand was to design an elevated infrastructure for bicycles in Stockholm, in other words, a bicycle path above street level. The aim is to ease traffic congestion, as well as safety. The goal was to find a modular system that could be adapted to different places throughout Stockholm. If there were no such solution, it would be a lane specifically designed for a certain location. The first step was to investigate the cycling situation in Stockholm and this resulted in the choice of three different locations that differ from each other; Sveavägen, Stadsgården, and Södertäljvägen. If a solution could be fitted in all of these locations the goal of the project would have been achieved. When designing an elevated bicycle path there are a few main factors to consider. It has to fit into the cityscape, interoperate with existing infrastructure, be profitable for society to invest in, but foremost, it has to ease bicyclist enough to be worth their while to get up to. Combining these would prove to be a challenge. ' After investigation it was shown that accessing the bicycle lane would be the prominent bottleneck of the project, and the conclusion was that not every location in Stockholm would be suitable for this type of solution. Some locations are however well suited. Stadsgården was established as a location where an elevated bicycle lane design would be a good solution to its problems. The problem with Stadsgården is that the bicycle lane is not wide enough and that it coexists with pedestrians. The solution was to create an elevated bicycle path above the existing one, which is two directional. This would allow for the existing lane to be remade into one directional, thus making it wide enough.