About Bikeability Index

The City-Parish Planning Commission created an online interactive mapping tool, BikeBR, to help determine which areas in Baton Rouge are easily accessible by bicycle. The “bikeability index” was developed to measure how safe, easy, and desirable it is to bike instead of drive on the City-Parish road network. These assessments were based on the physical and built environment. BikeBR is an interactive component of our Bicycle/Pedestrian Initiative’s primary goal to encourage you to bike on our streets.

Assessing Bicycle Compatibility

In an effort to assess bicycle compatibility within the built environment; surveys were prepared and distributed to the local bicycling community. Some of the neighborhood characteristics that were assessed in the survey were:

Streets

  • Buffers
  • Connectivity
  • Crosswalks
  • Number of lanes
  • Street Conditions
  • Width of streets

Land Use

  • Commercial/Office
  • Industrial
  • Public
  • Residential

Biking Facilities

  • Bike paths
  • Bike lanes
  • Bike racks

Urban Design

  • Lighting
  • Trees

Survey Responses

One 132 responses were returned and variables, based on common variance, were extracted from the data. Bicycle facilities, street connectivity, and residential density were determined to be the top 3 factors. Each group was classified for use in the analysis process.

Census block group data was added to the analysis and assessed and mapped with ancillary spatial data. The data was normalized then a color gradient was applied to provide user friendly visual interpretation. Green represents the most desirable bikeable areas while red represents less desirable. The areas that are most desirable have a higher concentration of the core factors (bicycle facilities, street connectivity, and residential density).

Additional Data

Besides the bikeability index, additional spatial data is available including bike-friendly amenities and destinations. BikeBR allows users to select unique layers of interests specific to their needs. Website users also have the option of displaying customized directions by clicking origin and destination points on the map (a total of nine destination points).This display of spatial data is accessible through the use of Google Maps™ and Google Directions™ API.