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What is the role of cycling in dispersed cities under Peak Oil? This research sought to appraise the bicycle's mitigating potential in an oil crisis, and to identify the specific ways planners may respond to maximise these effects. An overview of cycling in dispersed cities, focused on US and Australian cities, highlights low bicycle mode shares and low participation rates for women, children and seniors at present. Yet cycling can flourish in suburban settings, with low-density, outer-suburban communities in many European cities having very high bicycle mode shares, and strong participation across all demographic groups. Under a variety of Peak Oil scenarios, the bicycle is shown to play specific roles in supplying local mobility and access to and from mass public transport for longer distance trips. In conjunction with minor urban restructuring and public transport networking, many suburban areas could still function without reliance on large quantities of oil for access and mobility. Planning ...

This paper outlines what are the likely global ‘events’ that peak oil could induce in our highly globalised world including supply disruption, volatility in prices and progressive price rises. All these will impact on our cities. We then pose three indicative development scenarios and assess them as a risk management exercise to examine the relative vulnerability of urban development scenarios and what pattern of development will provide the greatest opportunity for responding to this challenge. Finally a ‘glimpse of the future in 2040’ is presented to show how the combination of new technology and good urban planning can enable us to make better cities in the future.