Developing sustainable strategies to enhance cycling in residential neighborhoods : a case study in Kerman, Iran

Abstract

Nowadays, global warming has become one of the main concerns of our world. The role of transportation is significant as it emits 15% of the total emission of CO2. As an environmental friendly mode of transportation, cycling is considered as an alternative for cars and other motorised vehicles, especially for short journeys. In this research, a survey was conducted on cycling in Kerman (Iran) to assess the possibility of developing cycling as a sustainable transportation, particularly in residential areas. In order to gather information besides literature review, a structured questionnaire was used to collect data about the three main objectives of this research: namely: attitudes of people towards cycling, obstacles of cycling, and demand of the people for cycling in Kerman. After gathering the data, a descriptive analysis was performed with the help of SPSS (version 19) in finding ‘mean’ values and their significance level (a = 0.05) for each questions. From the results, five main factors were identified as the main findings, which were: necessity to propagate cycling culture; needs for high quality road surfaces; lack of control of vehicle speed; lack of bicycle parking spaces; and needs for exclusive continuous bikeways. Based on these findings, some solutions were proposed to improve the attitude, solve the obstacles, and meet the demands to promote cycling in residential areas of Kerman so that a high level of sustainability can be achieved.