As part of the Tel Aviv pilot applying a structured approach to resolving conflicts between the needs of different road users, the city of Tel-Aviv conducted an online survey to solicit public input on the design of the city’s streets.
The survey included 400 different road users and detected stated preferences of 200 cyclists and 200 pedestrians. Participants were presented with different streetscape designs and asked to choose the configurations providing: (a) better sense of safety and (b) a more pleasant option for either walking or cycling.
The survey was designed based on the outcomes of focus groups conducted in earlier stages of the project and interviews with planning experts. Based on the earlier stages’ outcomes, the attributes presented in the survey included various configurations for resolving conflicts between pedestrians, cyclists, and public transport users. These included different sidewalk and bicycle lanes width, one-way or two-way bicycle lanes, bicycle lanes that pass in front or behind transit shelters, different separation means between bicycle lane and sidewalk, leisure facilities such as pedestrian seats, and bicycles parking.
The survey results revealed interesting preferences for both pedestrians and cyclists. The survey findings showed, inter alia, that looking at the trade-off between sidewalk width and separation, the separation width is a more significant factor for pedestrians’ sense of safety and livability compared to sidewalk width; that trees are the most preferred means of separation between bicycle lanes and sidewalks, for both pedestrians and cyclists; and that benches detract from pedestrians’ sense of safety.
The inputs from the survey will be incorporated into the “House of Quality” (HoQ), an analysis tool that incorporates customers/road users’ needs into the planning process, and will allow for an in-depth evaluation of the interrelations among road users’ needs and preferences, as stated in the survey, with different design attributes, alongside the relative importance policy makers grant to each of the road users’ needs.