Stupid bike lanes.

I recently posted some resources about possibilities for bike lanes in Dallas, TX. Ironically, one NYTimes blog’s post yesterday is titled “How Stupid Is Your Bike Lane?”

Some of the stories seem patently stupid. Why on earth would you paint a bike lane superimposed on a (not widened) car lane? Because the cars can drive through the bikers, I suppose. Or stripe a bike lane that crosses several lanes of traffic? Is it just me, or does that make no sense? Then there are the problems that non-bikers don’t seem to realize, like getting pushed off the road by busses and cars (not to mention having the joy of riding through the curbside potholes and muck anyhow) and getting slammed by opening doors when bike lanes run next to parallel parked cars.

Mark O. in the second comment on the post says it best: “The problem is that bike lanes, at least in the United States, are planned and laid out by people who don’t bicycle through the streets and who have no clue and don’t really care about the challenges that cyclists face.” Sure, cities look greener, but that’s time and money and manpower wasted if the bike lanes turn out to be unusable. Why aren’t the planners getting in touch with local bike groups to get their (expert) opinions and input?

Safe urban bike commuting?

I was recently travelling in Bristol, England with a friend, where we took advantageous of the beautiful bike paths in the city and surrounding land. Turns out Bristol is home to SusTrans, a registered charity that wants to make sustainable, healthy transportation a reality. While here in America we’re still debating the merits of biodiesel over electric, SusTrans operates on the belief that sustainable transportation has been around for years already: bicycling.

They have several projects going, the most visible of which is the National Cycle Network, containing over 10,000 miles of path quite literally connecting the nation (pdf) and providing safe corridors through the city on “a mixture of traffic-calmed streets, quiet roads and traffic-free routes”. The traffic-free routes are often along unused railway tracks, which are away from city traffic, usually with low-grade or zero slope so that they’re easily accessible by many people, and easily convertable into a paved path.

In Dallas, TX the popular Katy trail for bikers and pedestrians was also converted from an abandoned track. Three and a half miles of the former Missourri-Kansas-Texas (MKT or “Katy” for short), once an eye-sore in a beautiful Dallas neighborhood, is now a 12-foot-wide path featuring beautiful landscaping and native flora that draws people from across the city. Friends of Katy Trail tells the history and explains the future plan: a 17-mile path that will connect two major recreation centers in Dallas, White Rock Lake and the Trinity River. With such support from both the non-profit organization and the community at large, I’m sure similar projects would be able to find funding, even from the Texas Department of Transportation.

Streetsblog highlights Boston’s solution to the problem of introducing bike paths: Google. Nicole Freedman and crew created a Google map that allows users to trace their favorite routes, giving her a clue where bike routes are most desired.

Dallas in recent years has shown an excellent capability to survey citizens, plan major undertakings, and involve the community in their implementation, especially in grand projects like forwardDallas!, the Trinity River Project, and DART’s 25-year plan). All three of these projects would interact with a project to create protected bike paths in Dallas. Under the Transportation Module, one of the goals of forwardDallas! is “GOAL 4.2 PROMOTE A VARIETY OF TRANSPORTATION OPTIONS: The City should promote a variety of safe, efficient and sustainable multi-modal transportation options to meet a diverse range of needs in Dallas.” The plan calls for the following policies, among others:

• Policy 4.2.1 Support expansion of Dallas’ public transit system.
• Policy 4.2.2 Promote a network of on-street and offstreet walking and biking paths.

More specific than the over-arching grand plans of forwardDallas!, the Trinity River Project will incorporate several recreational bike paths. And DART, the local public transit provider, is considering many ways of encouraging biking, including easy bike access and storage at stations, new rules concerning bikes on public transit, and (pending funding) a fleet overhaul to equip all the busses with external bike racks. An organization with the goal of promoting bike paths in Dallas would need to work with these projects and build on their existing research.

A few extra ideas:
–Dallas has an online interactive bike trail map (last updated 2005). Why aren’t these used more often? To take into account: advertising/informing the public, destinations (do they travel to bikable shopping centers, etc?), where they’re located (major streets? do sidewalks exist?)
–The map includes Veloweb candidate and recommended trails. Apparently the NCTCOG is planning a “Regional Veloweb” that will consist of 644 miles of off-street trails. Main page info, including a Mobility 2030 map. Contains research on existing, funded, and suggested trails in the metroplex, as well as funding opportunities, rail access, and more.
–Has Veloweb looked into abandoned tracks that could be converted?
–Could an interactive map like the Google map for Boston be used? It could either map out routes people actually use, or destinations they would like to get to (work, supermarket, nearby park, etc.)
–DART is considering having (in some areas) separate bus lanes. If these are for busses only, could they be a combined bike/bus lane? Will there be dedicated bus lanes that are off-street, and could the Veloweb use these?
–Besides off-street paths, where can we put in striped lanes on existing streets, and where can we build extended sidewalks (one half for bikers, one half for pedestrians)?
–In Yorkshire at every stop light there’s a short bike lane striped onto the pavement before the curb which then expands out in front of the cars in the curbside lane, effectively allowing bikers to be the first to cross the intersection when the light turns green. This would also provide a buffer between cars and crosswalks.

Something to think on.