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Evaluation of Bicycling Environment for Urban Mobility: A Case of Selected Roads in Khulna Metropolitan City

Received: 20 November 2016     Accepted: 12 December 2016     Published: 5 January 2017
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Abstract

Bicycle is considered as one of the sustainable, and active modes of transportation. However, in the urban milieu bicycling has not been prioritized yet, and not been integrated with the other forms of transportation modes. This scenario is more ubiquities for a developing country like Bangladesh. Khulna is the third largest city, and with industrial setup has noticeable number of bicycle users. Unfortunately, the bicycling environment for this particular group of travelers in the city is not up to the standard. From this realization, this study has been conducted to explore the bicycling environment of selected roads on the basis of fourteen established criteria of evaluating bicycling environment. Six roads have been studied for this purpose. It has been found that all of the roads are not up to the standard for bicycling, though numbers of bicyclists have been observed in all of the roads. Each of the roads has been critically assessed by conducting physical, and user opinion survey. Scores have been compared of the selected six roads to give the ranks of the roads. The results from user perspective, and evaluation criteria slightly differ in outcomes. According to the assessment of evaluation criteria Ahsan Ahmed Road is only providing 17% suitable environment to the bicyclists. On the other hand, according to user opinion Municipal road is providing better services than the rest five roads. Evaluation of bicycling environment has given a detail scenario of how different roads are serving to bicyclists. It has been cleared that none of the roads (studied roads) has been giving optimum services to the bicycle user. To promote, and improve the situation for bicycling planned intervention is mandatory according to the situational analysis. This study is providing an insight to think about the bicycling planning at city level.

Published in Social Sciences (Volume 5, Issue 6)
DOI 10.11648/j.ss.20160506.11
Page(s) 77-85
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2017. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Bicycling Environment, Evaluation Criteria, User Perspective, Bicycling Planning

References
[1] Grava, S., “Urban transportation systems choices for communities”, McGraw-Hill Companies, 2004.
[2] European Commission (EC), “How to increase bicycle use: key policies identified. Science for Environmental Policy”, DG Environmental news alert, 2010.
[3] Mitanoska, A., Dimoska, A., Sandeva, V., Despot, K., “Evaluation and improvement on bicycle-friendly environment in the urban city center in a developed country (the case of Sapporo, Japan).” 2007.
[4] Rahman, M. A., Ali, S. A., Hossain, Q. S., “Socioeconomic characteristics of travel behavior in Khulna metropolitan city, Bangladesh”, International journal of Advance Structures and Geotechnical Engineering, ISSN 2319-5347, Vol. 3, 2004.
[5] Siddique, A. B., “Public transit for lower and middle income-people in Khulna city of Bangladesh: Balancing efficiency and equity”, 2010.
[6] Khulna Development Authority (KDA), “Preparation of Structure Plan, Master Plan and Detail Area Plan for Khulna City", Vol. 2, 2002.
[7] Gold, S. M., “Recreation planning and design”, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1980.
[8] Holmes, T. P., Healy, D. J., Boettger, K. M., Korths, N., and Schuett, M. A. “Bicycle master plan for the Adirondack North Country region of New York State”, Adirondack North Country Association, Saranac Lake, NY, 1994.
[9] Glens Falls Transportation Council (GFTC), “A/GFTC bicycle and pedestrian plan”, Adirondack/Glens Falls Transportation Council, Glen Falls, NY, 2001.
[10] Meenar, M. R., “Developing a GIS-based model and an interactive web site for a city-wide recreational bikeway network: An application for Buffalo”, User Conference Proc. (Redlands: ESRI), Temple Univ. Ambler College, New York, 2001.
[11] Boulter, R., “Into the mainstream”, New Zealand Cycling Strategy Foundation Document Main Report, 2002. Available at (last accessed 15 March, 2015) (http://archive.can.org.nz/research/CSNZ-Into_the_mainstream.pdf).
[12] Durham, W. M., and Gallagher, S., “Bozeman bicycle network plan”, Proc. 10th National Conf. on Transportation Planning for Small-Sized Communities, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC, 2006.
[13] San Fransisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH), “Bicycle Environmental Quality Index (BEQI)”, Draft Report. Available at (last accessed 20 march, 2015) http://asap.fehrandpeers.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/BEQI_Report_2009.pdf.
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  • APA Style

    Md. Sohel Rana, Muhammad Salaha Uddin, Md. Abu Saeed Al Azad. (2017). Evaluation of Bicycling Environment for Urban Mobility: A Case of Selected Roads in Khulna Metropolitan City. Social Sciences, 5(6), 77-85. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20160506.11

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    ACS Style

    Md. Sohel Rana; Muhammad Salaha Uddin; Md. Abu Saeed Al Azad. Evaluation of Bicycling Environment for Urban Mobility: A Case of Selected Roads in Khulna Metropolitan City. Soc. Sci. 2017, 5(6), 77-85. doi: 10.11648/j.ss.20160506.11

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    AMA Style

    Md. Sohel Rana, Muhammad Salaha Uddin, Md. Abu Saeed Al Azad. Evaluation of Bicycling Environment for Urban Mobility: A Case of Selected Roads in Khulna Metropolitan City. Soc Sci. 2017;5(6):77-85. doi: 10.11648/j.ss.20160506.11

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ss.20160506.11,
      author = {Md. Sohel Rana and Muhammad Salaha Uddin and Md. Abu Saeed Al Azad},
      title = {Evaluation of Bicycling Environment for Urban Mobility: A Case of Selected Roads in Khulna Metropolitan City},
      journal = {Social Sciences},
      volume = {5},
      number = {6},
      pages = {77-85},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ss.20160506.11},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20160506.11},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ss.20160506.11},
      abstract = {Bicycle is considered as one of the sustainable, and active modes of transportation. However, in the urban milieu bicycling has not been prioritized yet, and not been integrated with the other forms of transportation modes. This scenario is more ubiquities for a developing country like Bangladesh. Khulna is the third largest city, and with industrial setup has noticeable number of bicycle users. Unfortunately, the bicycling environment for this particular group of travelers in the city is not up to the standard. From this realization, this study has been conducted to explore the bicycling environment of selected roads on the basis of fourteen established criteria of evaluating bicycling environment. Six roads have been studied for this purpose. It has been found that all of the roads are not up to the standard for bicycling, though numbers of bicyclists have been observed in all of the roads. Each of the roads has been critically assessed by conducting physical, and user opinion survey. Scores have been compared of the selected six roads to give the ranks of the roads. The results from user perspective, and evaluation criteria slightly differ in outcomes. According to the assessment of evaluation criteria Ahsan Ahmed Road is only providing 17% suitable environment to the bicyclists. On the other hand, according to user opinion Municipal road is providing better services than the rest five roads. Evaluation of bicycling environment has given a detail scenario of how different roads are serving to bicyclists. It has been cleared that none of the roads (studied roads) has been giving optimum services to the bicycle user. To promote, and improve the situation for bicycling planned intervention is mandatory according to the situational analysis. This study is providing an insight to think about the bicycling planning at city level.},
     year = {2017}
    }
    

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  • TY  - JOUR
    T1  - Evaluation of Bicycling Environment for Urban Mobility: A Case of Selected Roads in Khulna Metropolitan City
    AU  - Md. Sohel Rana
    AU  - Muhammad Salaha Uddin
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    N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20160506.11
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    T2  - Social Sciences
    JF  - Social Sciences
    JO  - Social Sciences
    SP  - 77
    EP  - 85
    PB  - Science Publishing Group
    SN  - 2326-988X
    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20160506.11
    AB  - Bicycle is considered as one of the sustainable, and active modes of transportation. However, in the urban milieu bicycling has not been prioritized yet, and not been integrated with the other forms of transportation modes. This scenario is more ubiquities for a developing country like Bangladesh. Khulna is the third largest city, and with industrial setup has noticeable number of bicycle users. Unfortunately, the bicycling environment for this particular group of travelers in the city is not up to the standard. From this realization, this study has been conducted to explore the bicycling environment of selected roads on the basis of fourteen established criteria of evaluating bicycling environment. Six roads have been studied for this purpose. It has been found that all of the roads are not up to the standard for bicycling, though numbers of bicyclists have been observed in all of the roads. Each of the roads has been critically assessed by conducting physical, and user opinion survey. Scores have been compared of the selected six roads to give the ranks of the roads. The results from user perspective, and evaluation criteria slightly differ in outcomes. According to the assessment of evaluation criteria Ahsan Ahmed Road is only providing 17% suitable environment to the bicyclists. On the other hand, according to user opinion Municipal road is providing better services than the rest five roads. Evaluation of bicycling environment has given a detail scenario of how different roads are serving to bicyclists. It has been cleared that none of the roads (studied roads) has been giving optimum services to the bicycle user. To promote, and improve the situation for bicycling planned intervention is mandatory according to the situational analysis. This study is providing an insight to think about the bicycling planning at city level.
    VL  - 5
    IS  - 6
    ER  - 

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Author Information
  • Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Pabna University of Science and Technology, Pabna, Bangladesh

  • Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Khulna University of Engineering and Technology, Khulna, Bangladesh

  • Global Survey Consultants (GSC), Dhaka, Bangladesh

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