Non-Motorized Transportation Planning

Identifying Ways to Improve Pedestrian and Bicycle Transport

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TDM Encyclopedia
Victoria Transport Policy Institute
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Updated 23 April 2018
This chapter describes planning activities that can improve walking and cycling conditions, and
encourage use of non-motorized modes.

Description
Non-motorized Transportation (also known as Active Transportation and Human Powered
Transportation) includes Walking and Bicycling, and variants such as Small-Wheeled Transport
(skates, skateboards, push scooters and hand carts) and Wheelchair travel. These modes provide
both recreation (they are an end in themselves) and transportation (they provide access to goods
and activities), although users may consider a particular trip to serve both objectives. For
example, some people will choose to walk or bicycle rather than drive because they enjoy the
activity, although it takes longer.

There are many specific ways to improve non-motorized transportation:

· Improve sidewalks, crosswalks, paths and bikelanes.

· Correct specific roadway hazards to non-motorized transport (sometimes called “spot

improvement” programs).

· Improve Non-motorized Facility Management and Maintenance, including reducing

conflicts between users, and maintaining cleanliness.

· Universal Design (transportation systems that accommodate people with disabilities and
other special needs).

· Develop pedestrian oriented land use and building design (New Urbanism).

· Increase road and path Connectivity, with special non-motorized shortcuts, such as paths
between cul-de-sac heads and mid-block pedestrian links.

· Street furniture (e.g., benches) and design features (e.g., human-scale street lights).

· Traffic Calming, Streetscape Improvements, Traffic Speed Reductions, Vehicle Restrictions

and Road Space Reallocation.

· Plan and design roadways to increase walking and cycling safety.

· Safety education, law enforcement and encouragement programs.

· Integrate with transit (Bike/Transit Integration and Transit Oriented Development).

· Bicycle Parking.

· Address Security Concerns of pedestrians and cyclists.

· Public Bike Systems (PBS), which are automated bicycle rental systems designed to provide
efficient mobility for short, utilitarian urban trips.

· Pedways, which are indoor urban walking networks that connect buildings and
transportation terminals.

· Create a Multi-Modal Access Guide, which includes maps and other information on how to
walk and cycle to a particular destination.

Wit and Humor

“I number it among my blessings that my father had no car, while most of my friends had, and
sometimes took me for a drive. This meant that all these distant objects could be visited just
enough to clothe them with memories, and not impossible desires, while yet they remained
ordinarily as inaccessible as the Moon. The deadly power of rushing about wherever I pleased
had not been given me. I measured distances by the standard of man, man walking on his two
feet, not by the standard of the internal combustion engine. I had not been allowed to deflower
the very idea of distance; in return I possessed 'infinite riches' in what would have been to a
motorist
‘a little room.’ The truest and most horrible claim made for modern transport is that it
‘annihilates space.’ It does. It annihilates one of the most glorious gifts we have been given. It is a
vile inflation which lowers the value of distance, so that a modern boy travels a hundred miles
with less sense of liberation and pilgrimage and adventure than his grandfather got from
travelling ten. Of course, if a man hates space and wants it to be annihilated, that is another
matter. Why not creep into his coffin at once? There is little enough space there.”
- C.S. Lewis, “Surprised by Joy”

How it is Implement