After analysing the streets of the city of Campo Largo, we took notice of the lack of cycle paths, which hinders the mobility of cyclists in everyday situations such as going to work, school, leisure, among others. From the observation carried out internally at the Sesi Campo Largo school it was possible to detect the low rate of students who use the bicycle as a means of transportation together with other residents, and we used this information with the intention of optimizing the urban space by means of cycle paths that help in the traffic and safety of the population.
The ideas
The proposal of this project is trying to introduce specific routes for cyclists that prove to be safety efficient and to include them in the most strategic points of the city, where there is an intensive traffic of cars, providing a better traffic performance and incentive to sustainable practices and those favorable to health.
According to a survey carried out in the school context with 96 respondents, graph 1 demonstrates the students' opinion regarding the improvement of traffic if cycle paths were inserted. 66.7% agree that the use of bicycles at peak times would benefit the Traffic.
Graph 2 shows that 61.5% of students say that bicycle is faster than conventional transportation, such as cars, buses, among others. However, 38.5% of 96 responses are opposed to this statement.
When it comes to questions concerning the cyclist's safety in figure 3, 80.2% of people do not feel safe using their bicycles to ride in the streets of the city. This implies the lack of people practicing physical activities or using the bicycle as a means of transportation.
When dealing with safety, it is clear that it can not be seen from a single perspective, since it is necessary to analyze the entire context of the population. In view of the 96 responses collected, 94.8% of people agree that the condition of the streets makes cycling difficult (figure 4).
Graph 5 refers to the awareness of the rights and duties of the cyclist in traffic, seeking to reflect on the contrast of information. Only 62.5% of people claim to have knowledge about the cyclist's situation and 37.5% say they are unaware.
The sixth graph tells us about the motivation of pedestrians to use the bicycle if there was a cycle course, which 91.7% of the people answered yes. If there was a cycle course this would be a great incentive for the use of bike and only 8.3 % answered no.
In short, it is noticeable that the lack of cycle paths largely prevents the use of bicycles within the city, consequently generating more traffic, because a person instead of using a bicycle that takes up little space, uses a car that takes up a bigger space than a bicycle, causing a more drowned traffic, as already seen in graphs 1 and 6. Also, it is the feeling of insecurity of the people when using the bicycle, shown in graph 3, which is usually linked to the fear of being run over, which cycle-band would reduce or decrease the chances of occurring. Therefore, the bicycle path would be a great help for the population, because it would reduce the traffic of cars and for those who use bicycle it would be healthier, because they would be exercising. It would also be advantageous for the environment, as it would have less gas emission pollutants in the atmosphere.
The initiatives
Our initiative is to present the data and information we collected in our research to the City Hall of Campo Largo to determine the possibility of building a workable and strategic work agenda regarding the implementation of safe cycle routes. We believe that not only the students, but the whole community would be benefit from it. The project will be presented to the City Council on May 19, 2019.
