10 times more cyclists in Budapest than 20 years ago

According to index.hu, Fomterv made a comprehensive survey on the cyclists’ main routes, habits, types for BKK (Budapest Transport Center). The material compares the most recent 2014 data with the last twenty years’ data which reveals: bike has become an everyday transport mean from a leisure vehicle in recent year, index.hu said.

In twenty years, bicycle traffic in Budapest increased tenfold.

A lot more people use bikes on weekdays than at weekend, bicycle has become a mean to work from a leisure one.

11^th and 13^th districts are the busiest, as well as the axis between the 13^th and the 3^rd districts.

Most trips are 5 km long, 90% of the bike trips are less than 10 km.

Bicycle accidents are increasing significantly less than bicycle traffic.

The most dangerous place is the Heroes’ Square – Dozsa Gyorgy Road, there were 13 accidents in 4 years.

The study notes that, based on the daily traffic average of six downtown places, bicycle traffic increased more than tenfold in 20 years. The volume of the bicycle traffic increased by leaps and bounds in the interior areas and a lesser extent in the outlying areas.

From 2006, the process reversed, and weekday traffic has been dominating compared to the weekend traffic in the 2010s. This is especially true for the autumn measures.

According to index.hu, it can be observed that the increase of the traffic is the most pronounced during the late autumn, early spring periods, which are not explicitly cyclist-friendly. It shows that bike is more and more becoming an everyday mean of transport

Based on the measurements, the size of the bicycle traffic is strongly dependent on the daily average temperature. It has been observed that the massive use of bicycles is typical for a daily average temperature above 10 °C. But there are more and more bikers during lower temperatures (eg. 5, 10 °C) over the years.

The busiest districts are the 11^th and the 13^th districts and the axis between the 13^th and the 3^rd districts. There is strong bicycle traffic between the neighboring districts, the 3^rd and the 4^th and the 14^th and the 16^th districts as well.

The bikers, where they could, used the designated route (bicycle trail, bike lane). Such obvious locations are eg. Andrassy Avenue, Muegyetem wharf, Arpad Bridge, Vaci Road,  Szeremi Road, Pazmany Peter wharf, Ujpest wharf, Veres Peter Road, Gubacsi Bridge or Bem wharf.

The number of the bicycle accidents is growing significantly less than the traffic, so the accident rate is declining. Most accidents are on Thursday. It is possible that it can be traced back to the general fatigue in the second half of the week or the “routine traffic”, index.hu said.

According to the survey, most people choose bike because of it is cheap (45%) followed by the trend-followers (34%), the dynamic residents, who use bicycle for its quickness, are much fewer (13%), and the smaller group is the hobby bikers (8%).

In the internal areas, the share of public bikes called Bubi is 4-6%, this rate is 1-2% in the area bounded by the bike stations.

More than half of the bikers could also use a car. 35% of the bikers wear helmet, 65% do not. Only 40% of the cyclists have a BKK pass. The most popular bicycle types are city and terrain bikes. The former is obviously not surprising, while terrain bike may be popular due to the potholes and the curbs.

based on the article of index.hu
translated by BA

Source: http://index.hu