Beijing, a city with more than 10 million residents and nearly 8.4 million registered bicycles, has the highest bicycle ownership in China. In addition, Beijing has more than half a million motor vehicles, and that number is increasing at a rapid rate. To cope with this nonmotorized and motorized traffic, more than 50 interchanges with special facilities to accommodate bicycle traffic were built in Beijing during the last decade-more than half of all the interchanges in China are in Beijing. The operational experience of these bicycle interchanges is presented. The study indicates that a three-level cloverleaf interchange design with an exclusive bicycle facility can accommodate more than 28,000 bicycles per hour. A less sophisticated two-level rotary interchange can accommodate up to 21,500 bicycles per hour. Different adjustment factors were developed after an extensive study of existing bicycle operations in Beijing and other major Chinese cities. It is believed that the operational experience of these high-volume interchanges for nonmotorized transport will be useful to transportation engineers in other countries who are contemplating similar plans.

An interchange is a system of interconnecting roadways in conjunction with one or more grade separations that provides for the movement of traffic between two or more roadways or highways on different levels (1). In the United States, most if not all interchanges are designed to accommodate motorized vehides such as cars or trucks. However, in China, where automobile ownership is not as high and bicycles are relied on heavily for passenger transportation, bicycle traffic is an important consideration in interchange design. During the last decade, as a result of the economic reform policy in China, the Chinese economy grew rapidly at a twodigit annual rate-nearly twice the international average. The economic boom in China brought more disposable income to its people, and the standard of living increased significantly. In the United States, people buy more and better cars when they have more disposable income; in China, people buy more and better bicycles. For instance, Beijing, the capital, has. more than 10 million residents, and nearly 8.4 million bicycles were registered in 1990. Across the urban areas in China, bicycle ownership increased from one bicycle for every three persons in 1982 to one bicycle for every two persons in 1990. With the bicycle dominating as the single most important mode of transportation for most Chinese urban residents, the ability to accommodate high volumes of bicycle traffic safely and efficiently through intersections becomes a difficult task for Chinese traffic engineers. The greatest efficiency, safety,