Measure the ability of cities to be biked via weighted parameters, using GIS tools. The case study of Zografou in Greece

During the past decades, unlike other countries of the European community, Greek society excluded bicycle from its everyday life, both as a solution for sports and recreation, as well as a transport mode. However, in the last few years, maybe due to the economic crisis, people in Greece began to consider cycling, again, in their daily routine. In this context, the present paper endeavours to examine and evaluate the ability to cycle in the complex urban environment of Greek cities. Therefore, this study develops a method for assessing bikeability, based on international literature and related walkability evaluation methods. Initially, a literature review was conducted to identify those parameters that positively affect the suitability of a cycling route. Afterwards, we developed linear scales to transform the quantitative data into scores ranging from 0 to 10, in order to be comparable. In the next step we used participative Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) in order to weight each parameter and identify its significance. Lastly, we formulated the final bikeability index. The chosen case study is the Municipality of Zografou, which constitutes one of the most significant municipalities in Athens, combining all aspects of a modern city: a liveable central area, university campuses, high residential density and traffic congestion problems. The results indicate that the overall bikeabilty index of Zografou is quite low, specifically it equals to 3,7/10 meaning that most of the road sections are not suitable or attractive for cycling. This paper provides fruitful insights about the issue of bikeability in urban areas and mostly its spatial dimension and it could be used as decision making tool for stakeholders and planners.