What kind of cycle highway to plan?
Introduction to the Cycle Highway Assessment Tool
Throughout Europe different standards of cycle highways are being targeted. As has become clear from guidelines to plan a cycle highway, professionals are differently using cycle highway standards or discussions on this topic to frame the development of this mobility product. Moreover, in the design chapter you will recognise a range of different design solutions and perspectives on design. Being a consequence of contrasting views of what a cycle highway should be.
To create a common understanding of cycle highways among Cycle Highway professionals, the Cycle Highway Maturity Assessment Tool has been introduced. It assesses the degree of development on 22 different user-focused criteria. Each criterium contains 4 different levels where level 1 is the threshold (minimum) level and level 4 stands for the highest level of maturity and can be considered as the European benchmark level.
The tool has the following goals:
- Assess existing Cycle Highways and future Cycle Highways
- Benchmark Cycle Highways in other regions
- Comparing and accomplishing improvement of Cycle Highway plans based on CH Assessment
- Develop a common language for Cycle Highway Experts and Cycle Highway Alumni
- Cycle Highway Assessment contains FUTURE VISION >2020 (in LEVEL 3 & 4):
- Inspire & stimulate innovation
The final result of the Maturity Assessment Tool is a spider diagram where the actual maturity status is visualized by 2 pictures containing each level for each criterium: