A growing demand for active mobility infrastructure is expected across Europe, but planning and delivery come with growing challenges for local authorities.

EU SUMPs, Green Deal directives, and various national programmes across Europe are all signalling the same: cycling and pedestrian infrastructure is now policy-backed and requires scaling in the coming decade.

Several European countries have already implemented ambitious goals and funding to expand active mobility:

• Germany: The "Radschnellweg" programs are supported by a 500 billion euro fund to improve cycling mobility.

• Switzerland: The "Veloweggesetz" requires cantons to establish proper planning of cycling networks by the end of 2027.

• France: The "Plan Velo et Marche" features a 2 billion euro investment between 2023 and 2027.

• The Netherlands: Plans include creating 2,550 km of connected cycling routes by 2040.

• Belgium: A new "Bicycle Masterplan" for Flanders is in development, featuring additional annual budgets.

• Austria: Aims to double the cycling traffic share by 2029 through infrastructure coordination.

Municipal challenges

Yet, most cycling- and pedestrian bridges and elevated bike paths are still procured as completely bespoke projects. Custom design. Custom cost. Custom timeline. This is not necessarily wrong, but it will slow down the execution of the ambitions set by national governments and the related cascaded goals at municipal and regional level. What can we learn from the challenges faced by municipalities and cities?

In urb-x's view, cities and municipalities face four significant obstacles:

• Spatial constraints: closing route gaps often requires complex planning in the third (elevated) dimension.

• Urbanization demands: rising traffic requires the development of safe, uninterrupted, and high-quality infrastructure.

• Renovation backlog: there is urgent pressure to modernise existing infrastructure through efficient and rapid execution that will lead to tensions between new assets and renovating existing ones.

• Resource scarcity: despite available funding, budgets remain under pressure, necessitating difficult trade-offs.

Modular approaches

To address these challenges, we propose moving away from bespoke, costly landmark projects toward standardised, modular systems. Modular infrastructure can be built off-site, installed rapidly, and offers lower life-cycle costs while maintaining design quality and safety.

At urb-x we believe, that structural commitments require structural approaches to delivery. That is where standardisation and modular construction enters the game. Not as a limitation in design, but as an enabler of an optimal active mobility experience at affordable lifecycle costs and reduced planning effort as well as carbon footprint.

You can find a summary of our findings here: Growing infrastructure demand for active mobility

If you want to understand better how urb-x can help you plan and realise bridge projects more efficiently, please reach out to us.

Author: Karel van Eechoud
Photo by: Norali Nayla on Unsplash