Nowadays, pollution is one of the great challenges cities must combat, even more knowing that by 2050 it is estimated that 70% of the world’s population will live in urban areas. That is why cities like Barcelona, Los Angeles, Santiago de Chile, etc. are changing both the urban mobility strategy and the design of its streets towards more sustainable models, including infrastructures such as bike lanes or improving the availability and accessibility of public transportation.
In this note we will talk about the importance of the bike lane in the cities, but this time we will do it focusing on the LIFE + Respira project, that offers shocking and unconventional data.
Project LIFE + Respira.
LIFE+ Respira is an initiative funded by the European Union and developed at the University of Navarra. It has a clear objective, which is to reduce the exposure to urban air pollution for people cycling throughout the city.
205 volunteers have participated in the research process. To investigate this, they have installed air pollution detectors on their bicycles. Thanks to these, it has been possible to observe that the presence of these compounds, varies depending on the route and urban planning of the city.
Importance of bike lanes.
A cyclist who moves 1.5 meters away from a vehicle (distance that can be provided by a bike lane) breathes 30% less soot than the one that circulates along the same path.
A segregated cycle lane reduces the presence of major pollutants by 6%.
A paved bike lane with a Photocatalytic concrete pavement can reduce the most common urban pollutants by 60%.
Zicla and bike lanes.
At Zicla we have been working for more than ten years to transform waste into new materials for the industry, developing these into urban and traffic elements for the cities. Conscious about the importance of bike lane for sustainable mobility, we have developed two product lines to segregate these routes. On the one hand, we have the Zebra system, that guarantees safe driving for cyclists and for other road users. On the other hand, the Zipper system, which is a modular system intended to segregate traffic flows, formed by two pieces of high visibility thanks to its retroreflective strips.
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