How easy it is to get around Canberra depends upon from where you start the trip. In some places the infrastructure is better than others. One way to study this is with isochrone plots.
How far can you ride on a normal bike in Canberra in 60 minutes?
The distance depends a great deal on the infrastructure and how direct and good it is. It has less to do with the type of bike you ride. Road and electric bikes are a bit better than a “normal” bike, and an MTB is slightly worse, but there are more paths to choose from.
Isochrone plot generated with OpenRouteService
One way to study this question is with isochrone plots using data from OpenStreetMap.
An isochrone plot shows you travel times from a central point. The data is from OpenStreetMaps and the isochrone plot generated with the software on the website OpenRouteService. In this first plot for Civic (map 1), the coloured rings show the distance travelled in consecutive 10 minute intervals.
All isochrone plots below are are from OpenRouteService with a background map from OpenStreetMap.
Table 1: ACT population living within 60 min ride from civic
Conclusions: 371,000 people live within a 1 hour ride from civic
Map 1: 60 minute ride from Civic – 10 min intervals
- distance travelled with a “normal bike”
- journey times in 10 minute intervals
- green inner ring – 10 minutes journeyred
- outer ring – 60 minutes journey
Map 2: How far can you get on a bike in 30 minutes?
- ebike – red layer (back layer)
- road bike – pink layer
- mountain bike – purple layer
- normal bike – blue layer (front layer)
Comparison between town centres
The situation may be better from some town centres as others. Below are isochrone plots comparing the distance travel by a cyclist on a “normal bike” from the town centres of Gungahlin, Gordon, Queanbeyan, Woden, Tuggeranong, Civic, Belconnen.
For the purpose of the comparison all other things are kept constant. The colours show the distance travelled in 10 minute intervals.
- 10 min journey – green
- 20 min journey – yellow
- 30 min journey – red
Woden has two plots because Woden centre was not mapped well in OpenStreetMap in 2019 but was dramatically improved over the Christmas period. So now there is the original plot from 3/11/2019 and another with much better data from 26/1/2020.
