In the first place, if the title is not properly describing my question, please edit it.
The fact is: the bike advocacy groups of my city are slowly getting some attention from City Hall, and bicycle culture is slowly growing, with some cycle paths and education campaigns. The growing of bikers, in the other hand, is much faster, and there are a lot of people prone to advocacy and putting pressure on the politicians.
We are beginning to think about asking to build a public velodrome (track), nothing fancy, but something that would allow regular folks, respecting some rules of course, to train in a controlled environment instead of in traffic.
The problem is (and now come the questions):
- How can city hall perceive any positive effects of having a velodrome, so as to justify investment? Should we mention racing events, and such?
- Normally, the cities which have velodromes allow non-track bikes to train there? What are the common restrictions for use of a public velodrome?
- What should we care about, in terms of size, surface type and other norms, in order not to end up building a track that could not be used in official events?
Thanks very much for reading and for any advice!