Towards a safer and effective bicycle lane implementation in Sri Lankan highways

Abstract

Bicycle lanes are in cooperated into the new road projects carried out by the Road Development Authority. This is a step to encourage the non-motorized transport of this country. But it is observed that these bicycle lanes are not used for its intended purpose. Especially in Colombo area, there are very few bicyclists on the roads and bicycle lanes are always empty. So it is seen that the bicycle lanes are used to overtake vehicles in wrong side, for illegal roadside parking etc. While the situation is such, Road Development Authority is planning to extend its new policy to all the roads in Hambanthota hub development projects by in cooperating bicycle lanes. A natural question any highway and traffic engineer would have in this situation is; have the bicycle lanes failed in these projects around Colombo? If so, what are the recommendations that can be drawn to avoid such an ill fate to fall in the proposed bicycle lane facilities in Hambanthota hub development projects? In this research, many design guidelines in various countries were studied. Then the drawbacks experienced in local projects were analyzed. So it was learnt that the reason for failure of bicycle facilities in our country must be due to the non-adherence to such a guideline and also the local climate, social stigma etc. Recommendations are therefore made to avoid these problems in the future projects.