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The Preparation of a Cycling Plan (Biciplan) for the Municipality of Ascoli Piceno
Basic References for the Plan. The BiciPlan or Cycling Mobility Plan is a tool provided by the regulations. Article 3 of DM 557/99 states that “Local authorities must have a plan for the network of cycling routes, in which the interventions to be carried out and a justified priority scale are provided.” This primarily refers to the BiciPlan Guidelines Article 6 Law 2/2018. Additionally, the General Plan for Cycling Mobility 2022-2024 details objectives and strategies for the reference biennium, as well as introduces tools and regulatory devices useful for the Plan’s actions.
The BiciPlan as a system. The conception and design of the BiciPlan occurred in parallel, for formal reasons of service assignment, with the drafting of a Project for Ministerial Cycle Routes and a project for Cyclostations. The investigations, both social and technical, along with the plan project, are designed in synergy with the Sustainable Mobility and Quality of Living Observatory established in 2021 by the Municipality of Ascoli.
Method and Outcomes of the Plan. The entire document develops according to the strategic planning chain: Criticalities-Objectives-Strategies-Actions. The ministerial guidelines do not foresee the possibility within the cycling plan to regulate and spatially design the interventions, but to remain at a strategic level and still carry out a technical-economic feasibility assessment of the interventions.
Criticalities and Potentialities. The completion of the knowledge framework and technical investigations highlighted the criticalities and potentialities of the Ascoli mobility system, from which the SWOT evaluation matrix derives. This is useful primarily for recognizing criticalities and secondly for determining the plan’s objectives and strategies.
Shared Objectives and Strategies. The process of building the objectives, also deriving from ministerial directives, as well as the strategies shared with both the Administration and Stakeholders through participation meetings, was a logical and shared process. This theme is inseparable from the participation and communication process.
Proposed Actions. Here is the final piece of the chain, the actions, the real core business of the plan. The construction of these is a distillation of the previous phases, a condensation of all internal and external inputs to the Administration. The implementation of the interventions refers to subsequent projects, programs, and implementation plans. The actions, the final outcome of the plan, therefore contain indications of technical-economic pre-feasibility, performance design indications, and the purposes/objectives of the individual interventions.
The Plan between PRG and PUMS. The BiciPlan and the PediPlan, according to current regulations, can be understood as implementation plans of the more general PUMS. This study is configured as an integrative contribution to the current PRG in force.
Prospects for Integration with Further Sustainable Mobility Planning Tools. The tools and devices typical of PUMS analyses can detail, integrate, and validate the design solutions proposed in the actions of the two plans. For example, the reorganization of the road space, within the scope of the present BiciPlan, cannot extend to the modification of traffic directions or the precise relocation of parking spaces. These latter are the result of estimates and evaluations derived from modeling and simulations on the road system, which are not feasible or required at the regulatory level in the BiciPlan tool. The BiciPlan does not foresee the use of the SEA (Strategic Environmental Assessment) procedure given its nature. To define optimal design solutions, the latter is indispensable, so it is again useful to resort to the PUMS tool, which is legally required.
Attached smartbook in Italian language.