Bicycle and environment in the city. Quantification of some environmental effects of a bicycle oriented traffic policy in Groningen.

The object of this study was to investigate the quantitative environmental effects of an increased use of the bicycle in urban traffic linked to a decreased use of motorized traffic.For this purpose two traffic situations were compared. The environmental effects of the "actual situation" with 50% cyclists and 31% car commuters in the Groningen resident commuter traffic were compared to the "modal situation" with 5% cyclists and 76% car commuters. The decrease of the bicycle traffic would result in a increase of the total volume of car traffic in Groningen by 10%.