Edinburgh may be another interesting case, with its mixture of flat
(primarily east-west) and hilly (primarily north-south). In particular,
between the city centre (Princes Street) and the large coastal
residential area to the north (Leith, Granton, etc) there is a
big height differential. For many journeys there is a choice of using
quite steep but direct roads, or a much longer but very enjoyable and
high quality disused rail route with a gentle gradient and no at-grade
road crossings. Both options seem to be fairly well used, but it has
never been researched as far as I know.
Dave
On Thu, 13 Sep 2007, Dave Horton wrote:
> Following on from John's comment about CDTs (below), the Lancaster and
> Morecambe district is interesting in this regard. As you probably know, we're
> a cycling demo town, and although that status is district wide I think it's
> fair to say that the project is centred on Lancaster much more than
> Morecambe. Lancashire County Council is also engaged in a bit of a campaign
> to label Lancaster as the north-west's cycling city. There are relatively
> high hopes for getting 'good' levels of cycling here. But Lancaster is hilly,
> Morecambe is flat. I don't have figures for the respective towns to hand, and
> a great deal of local cycling is between them (the best used bit of local
> cycling infrastructure is the disused rail line linking Morecambe and
> Lancaster town centres), but my *guess* is there's more cycling in Lancaster
> than in Morecambe. So this district might make a fascinating case study,
> examining whether 'easy' topography (favouring Morecambe) or favourable
> cultural sensibilities (favouring Lancaster) are of greatest importance in
> producing cycling.
>
> Dave
>
> The issue of influence of gradients is something that a detailed examination
> of the cycling demonstration towns might explore, Brighton being an obvious
> candidate (with Guildford, a town with similar topography and (up to a
> point) demography s a reference base). CTC would be interested in helping
> out with that one.
>
> Regards
>
> John Meudell
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