I have been fascinated by bike paths since I came to Sweden. There are designated roads and traffic lights for bikes in towns. Many people commute to school or work by bike.
In addition, there are bike paths between towns that you can go on for leisure cycling or use for a long-distance commute. I see many people biking from Lund to Malmö (circa 20 km) in the done and dusk even during wintertime. I once biked from Malmö to Ystad, which is 80 km, but never needed to share roads with cars almost all the way!
Improving infrastructures to promote biking is one of the goals of the National Plan for Transport Infrastructure (1). The plan is made for 12 years ahead and updated every four years. In alignment with the National Plan, every 21 Regions have their own Regional Transport Infrastructure Plan. For example, in Region Skåne, the southern part of Sweden where the third largest city Malmö is located, there is a plan to build “Super-cycle roads (Bicycle highways)” (2).
The super-cycle road project aims to improve already existing bike paths rather than building new ones and to encourage people in Skåne to use bikes to commute to school or work more. They aim to become a place where cycling is an easy mode of transportation for both short and slightly long trips for the residents (3).
Active transport, walking, biking, and public transport instead of driving, is beneficial for our health and planet. A lot of research suggests that building bike paths would make more people bike for leisure and commuting (4). In Sweden as a whole, around 60 % of the trips are still made by car and 15 % are by bike (5). The aim is to reduce car trips to 30 % by increasing the trips by walking, bike, and public transport by 2050.
Meanwhile in Skåne, in contrast to my impression, only 10 % of people are commuting by bike to work or school (3). It would be interesting to see if the super-cycle road project in Skåne will attract more people to bike.
References
1. Trafikverket. Proposal national plan for transport infrastructure 2022-2033_Summary. 2022.
2. Region Skåne. Regional transportinfrastrukturplan för Skåne 2022-2033 – Utveckling Skåne [Internet]. 2023 [cited 2023 Jul 21]. Available from: https://utveckling.skane.se/regional-utveckling/verksamhetsomraden/infrastruktur-och-transporter/transportinfrastrukturplanering/regional-transportinfrastrukturplan-for-skane-2022-2033/
3. Region Skåne. Supercykelvägar i Skåne – Ta den gula vägen – Utveckling Skåne [Internet]. 2023 [cited 2023 Jul 21]. Available from: https://utveckling.skane.se/regional-utveckling/verksamhetsomraden/infrastruktur-och-transporter/cykling/supercykelvagar/
4. Smith M, Hosking J, Woodward A, Witten K, MacMillan A, Field A, et al. Systematic literature review of built environment effects on physical activity and active transport – an update and new findings on health equity. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2017 Nov 16;14(1):158.
5. Transport Analysis. Travel survey [Internet]. 2023 [cited 2023 Jul 21]. Available from: https://www.trafa.se/en/travel-survey/travel-survey/#
