Bicycle Network Analysis Tool

National

Project Summary

City leaders have many demands on their time and resources. Evaluating their city’s bike network, and deciding where to focus precious funds, should be simple. To that end, Toole Design developed an innovative and user-friendly Bicycle Network Analysis Tool  to help communities measure and communicate the effectiveness of their low-stress bicycle network.

To encourage and support bicycling for people of all ages and abilities, we need a bicycle network that is well connected and poses low-stress to bicyclists. The BNA generates a score based on the connectivity of a city’s bicycling network to community destinations, such as healthcare, job, education, transit etc., and the functionality of the network for people of all ages, abilities, and confidence levels.

The BNA tool can be completely customized to suit the needs of a project. Toole Design has customized and applied the BNA in over 150 projects to help develop effective bike networks.

PeopleForBikes used the BNA to evaluate over 500 communities across the world as part of their Places for Bikes program, whose results can be accessed on a public website (bna.peopleforbikes.org). This tool helps cities decide where to focus funds, evaluates the effectiveness of their bicycle infrastructure, and tracks their improvements over time.

Expertise Applied

We needed a tool that uses data that is publicly available and globally comparable. Not only does the BNA meet those specifications, it goes above and beyond to address the needs of both researchers and potential product users.
Jennifer Boldry, PhD
Director of Research, PeopleForBikes
PeopleForBikes, a national nonprofit advocating for better bicycling conditions in communities across the U.S., wanted to develop an easy-to-use tool based on publicly available data that would help people understand the value of low-stress networks for bicycling.
We developed an innovative tool to measure the connectivity of a community’s low-stress bicycle network. Our methodology identifies areas of low connectivity, finds gaps in the existing network, estimates connectivity improvements for specific projects, and measures progress in building a comfortable and complete bicycle network.
PeopleForBikes made the BNA the cornerstone of it's Places for Bikes program, where it has been used to rank over 500 communities across the nation for low-stress network connectivity.

See how your community ranks for low-stress bicycle network connectivity:

Visit BNA.peopleforbikes.org

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