Canberra has been rated as Australia’s most bike-accessible city using a new tool that local government can apply to making riding easier.
The tool was developed by the Bicycle Transport Analysis (BTA) project – and uses open-source, publicly available data.
Peter Bourke, who led the BTA project for We Ride Australia, says the tool can be used by local governments to analyse their local community networks and to create stress maps that help pinpoint where and how they can invest to make riding easier.
“Our objective is to enable cities and towns of all sizes to carry out a BTA and encourage them to build connected, safe bicycle networks that we know encourage more short daily trips by bicycle,” he said.
“This has never been more important as many Australians have chosen to ride a bike during the Covid-19 pandemic because they felt safer with so little traffic on the roads.”
The Bicycle Transport Analysis will be extended in 2021, and local governments wishing to take part in the program should contact We Ride Australia.