Streetsblog New York City

For decades, dueling camps of cycling advocates have feuded about how to best accommodate riders. Some have pushed for the construction of Dutch-style cycle tracks, arguing that separated lanes make bicycling safer and less intimidating, while others have insisted such infrastructure isolates riders and makes cycling more dangerous than simply remaining within the flow of traffic.

Why is Montreal outshining every U.S. city on cycle tracks? Photo: Richard Layman/RPUS

Though the debate has grown bitter at times, neither group has had much in the way of rigorous peer-reviewed research to argue their case through the years. However, in the last decade a small but energetic group of academics has started to publish regularly on the topic.

The latest salvo, published online in February and in the current edition of Injury Prevention, comes from Harvard University researcher Anne Lusk. Her study compares crash rates at six cycle tracks in Montreal to nearby streets that had no bicycle facilities, and bolsters the argument that cycle tracks are safer. Lusk found that relative risk of injury was 28 percent lower on cycle tracks compared to the on-street routes.

In addition, she found that about 2.5 times as many cyclists used the cycle tracks than the on-street routes. The finding agrees with the conclusions of a number of other recent studies that show protected bicycle lanes improve safety and help attract new riders.

While cycle tracks are common in European countries, they remain rare in America due to institutional inertia. That inertia was not countered effectively enough by a bicycling movement divided over anti-cycle track arguments made by vehicular cycling advocate John Forester, author of Effective Cycling, in the 1970s and 1980s.

As Jeff Mapes recounts in Pedaling Revolution, Forester helped codify and popularize the idea that cyclists fare best when they are treated as “drivers” of vehicles. He encouraged riders to take the full lane when needed, avoid riding on sidewalks, and move with the flow of traffic.

He also vigorously opposed bike infrastructure, fearing that bike lanes and cycle tracks would give authorities an excuse to ban recreational riders from the road. And he argued cycle tracks and other types of bike infrastructure were more dangerous than on-road riding.

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The block of the bike path directly to the east of the Queensboro entrance has been paved. Photo: Clarence Eckerson

Clarence sends along a few more shots from the beginning of construction season. These come from Queens Plaza, where the two-way bike approach to the Queensboro Bridge is extending eastward.

The bike approach, part of a package of public space improvements to Queens Plaza, will eventually connect Vernon Boulevard and Northern Boulevard. The segment between the bridge entrance and Northern Boulevard is well on its way to completion.

Looking east toward Northern Boulevard, one block of the path has yet to be paved. Photo: Clarence Eckerson

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New and expanded pedestrian islands and sidewalks on the north side of GAP will create safer and more direct connections to walk to the central plaza area. (This image comes from DOT's 2010 presentation on GAP and may not include minor changes to this part of the plan.)

Construction on a slate of pedestrian and bike improvements for Grand Army Plaza is scheduled to move forward this summer, NYC DOT announced this Saturday. The redesign includes a major expansion of the pedestrian islands at the north side of GAP and the addition of a two-way, protected bicycle connection linking Union Street to Eastern Parkway on the southern side. It does not include the two-way, protected bike lane on Plaza Street shown in DOT’s 2010 presentation on this same project, which Community Boards 6 and 8 both approved last year.

DOT made its revised presentation Saturday at the Grand Army Plaza Coalition‘s annual meeting. It was an anniversary of sorts for GAPCO, a partnership between the area’s major cultural institutions and neighborhood residents, which formed in 2006 to make Grand Army Plaza a welcoming public space instead of a traffic vortex. Since then GAPCO has put together several public workshops and site visits, producing a conceptual blueprint for city agencies to work from [PDF].

Image: Google Maps

The big difference between last year’s DOT plan and this year’s is that the two-way, protected bike lane on Plaza Street has been set aside until an unspecified date in the future. Plaza Street encircles most of GAP, and a two-way path would create a safe hub for cyclists to take the most convenient routes to and through the space. But after last year’s CB votes, some Plaza Street residents contacted the city saying the parking-protected bikeway would cause traffic back-ups, even though Plaza Street receives little traffic and is already just one lane wide.

So call it the NBBL effect: Despite the multi-year community-based planning process that informed last year’s presentation, and despite the community board votes in favor of it, DOT seems unwilling, for now, to stir the pot so close to the litigious and well-connected NIMBYs of Prospect Park West, who happen to have  U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer on their side.

The improvements scheduled for this summer are still significant, and they represent a major milestone in the campaign to make GAP more accessible to pedestrians and cyclists. Starting in June and wrapping up in August, the city plans to build out these improvements, which Streetsblog reported on last April:

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What’s a road diet? Quite simply, traffic-calming expert Dan Burden told Streetfilms, “A road diet is anytime you take any lane out of a road.”

The first time people hear about a road diet, their initial reaction likely goes something like this: “How can removing lanes improve my neighborhood and not cause traffic backups?” It seems counterintuitive, but taking away lanes can actually help traffic flow smoother while improving safety for everyone.

Road diets are good for pedestrians: They reduce speeding and make vehicle movements more predictable while shortening crossing distances, usually through curb extensions or center median islands. They’re good for cyclists: Many road diets shift space from car lanes to create bike lanes. They’re good for drivers: Less speeding improves safety for motorists and passengers, and providing left-turn pockets allows through traffic to proceed without shifting lanes or waiting behind turning vehicles.

And here’s something to keep in mind during this era of lean budgets: Road diets are a highly-effective infrastructure improvement that can be implemented quickly and at low cost.

Streetfilms would like to thank The Fund for the Environment & Urban Life for making this series possible.

For years, state DOTs have exploited a loophole of federal government policy that allowed them to build massive, publicly funded projects without accommodating non-motorized users as long as they could show that “due consideration” had been given to bicyclists and pedestrians.

But last year, US DOT gave that requirement some teeth, issuing a directive specifying that “due consideration” should include “the presumption that bicyclists and pedestrians will be accommodated” in project designs paid for with federal government dollars.

AASHTO's John Horsley has complained that a new US DOT directive would make it too hard for state DOTs to ignore the needs of cyclists and pedestrians. Photo: Flickr, Commission for Environmental Cooperation

Well, surprise! State DOTs aren’t happy about it. In a supplement [PDF] to a letter [PDF] to US DOT yesterday, John Horsley, executive director of the Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, urged federal officials to reconsider the requirement. “This regulation presents an undue burden on states to justify exceptional circumstances when not including provisions for bicyclists and pedestrians in a project,” he said.

Someone should tell Horsley — that was sort of the point. US DOT is trying to make it hard for state DOTs — using money from both taxpayers who drive and those who don’t — to completely ignore the needs of non-drivers.

In its directive, USDOT states that walking and bicycling should be considered equal to other modes.

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Better bicycling infrastructure could be coming to a city near you thanks to an initiative of the National Association of City Transportation Officials. NACTO’s Cities for Cycling committee today released its anticipated Bikeway Design Guide, a comprehensive overview of the latest developments in bicycle infrastructure that is intended to advance state and national policy. Created for a profession that prizes design standards, the document has the potential to spur widespread adoption of bike infrastructure that makes many more people feel safe riding on the street, leading to big increases in cycling for transportation, as well as gains in pedestrian safety.

This bike box in New York gives cyclists more visibility at intersections -- a design treatment recommended by NACTO's new Bikeway Design Guide. Photo: Cities for Cycling

The guide is the result of months of study by engineers, planners and academics from fifteen major U.S. cities. It offers comprehensive design instruction on the latest in cycling infrastructure innovations from Europe and stateside, such as bike boxes, bike signals and separated cycle tracks.

“NACTO’s Urban Bikeway Design Guide gives American planners and designers the tools they need to make cycling accessible to more people,” said Janette Sadik-Khan, New York City transportation commissioner and president of NACTO. “These guidelines represent the state of the art and should be adopted as the new standards around the country.”

Planners hope their recommendations will be incorporated into the Federal Highway Administration’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices and the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials’ design guidelines. Design manuals by these standard-bearing organizations thus far ignore some of the cutting-edge bike treatments that have been adopted in cities like Portland and New York, as well as European cities. As we reported earlier this week, this makes funding and planning for these potentially life-saving projects difficult and time consuming, particularly for smaller cities, NACTO officials said.

In the meantime, Cities for Cycling is encouraging local communities to adopt its recommendations. Already, the states of Washington and Texas are looking to make NACTO’s standards official, sources say.

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The National Bike Summit begins tomorrow, bringing together an estimated 750 cycling advocates. They’ll hear from NYCDOT Chief Janette Sadik-Khan, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, and they’ll descend on Congress in droves, plastic bike pins fastened to their lapels, to deliver a message about safe cycling access.

Don’t look to AASHTO’s manual for advice about bike boxes. The organization’s guide, which often dictates whether projects get federal funding, does not incorporate the latest developments in cycling infrastructure. Photo: World Changing

We’ll be covering the Bike Summit like other Washington reporters cover the State of the Union. For people who care about sustainable transportation, this event is a high point of the year.

As bicycling infrastructure improves, advocates refine their demands. These days, the call is not just for bike lanes, but separated bike lanes. Bike Summit attendees are sure to be talking about it. Yesterday, Streetfilms released a new video about floating parking and separated cycletracks. And last month, Harvard’s School of Public Health released a study about the superior safety of separated bike tracks.

So why does the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials still advise against cycle tracks on safety grounds? AASHTO’s design manual is the “bible” used by traffic engineers and planners around the country, and it can be hard for localities to get approval — or funding — for projects that deviate from AASHTO’s prescriptions.

A group of urban transportation officials, called Cities for Cycling, has been working to update AASHTO’s bikeway design standards for years. Eric Gilliland, executive director of the National Association of City Transportation Officials, the sponsoring organization for Cities for Cycling, says the Harvard study confirms the benefits of separated bike lanes. “The trend, it seems, in bikeway planning is to provide more of a buffer between bicycle traffic and main street traffic, from a safety standpoint but also from an encouragement standpoint,” Gilliland said.

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“We need to take care of this sooner than later,” Sen. Barbara Boxer said this morning in reference to a surface transportation reauthorization. “We can’t keep doing extension after extension.”

Photo from Zagasi

Before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee even has all its members named (that should happen in the next day or so, according to Sen. Boxer), it held a hearing to get the ball rolling on a new transportation bill.

“China is building railroads that will be going hundreds of miles an hour,” said Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), “while America retreats more towards the rickshaw.”

Top committee Republican James Inhofe is all in favor of a big infrastructure bill, but his brand of support includes limiting the scope of the bill. “Our problem in getting the bill we need to get is really not as much the Democrats as it is the Republicans,” he acknowledged. “‘Cause I can hear it right now. They will get it to the floor and say, wait a minute, we’ve got museums in here and these other things.”

Later he clarified that “these other things” are “state capitol domes and bike trails,” which let loose a flurry of trash-talking about bike trails. “I wasn’t aware there were things in the infrastructure bill that aren’t real infrastructure,” said Raymond Poupore of the National Construction Alliance, who was testifying before the committee. “I always thought it was just highways.” And Bill Dorey of the Associated General Contractors of America added, “It’s hard for me to defend a bike path.”

Inhofe suggested that getting back to a meat-and-potatoes highway bill was the key to Republican support. “The best way I can get the full cooperation of the Republicans is if we took this back to the way it was originally, when we had the highway trust fund and the people who paid to use our highways would confine it to maintenance, new construction, bridges, highways then that would be sellable to the conservative community,” he said.

Some Democrats did rush to cyclists’ defense. Boxer herself let it be known that “to me, a bike path is a way of transport; a lot of my people use it to get to work.”

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Yesterday the Post came out with another attack on the ongoing evolution of New York into a city where transit works better, streets are safer, and people have better options for getting around. Using a Post-manufactured squabble over the city’s Christmas blizzard response as their set-up, the editorialists launched into a screed against Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, and basically called for her head.

Normally, one angry editorial in the city’s News Corp. tabloid wouldn’t be cause for concern. But this one came complete with a companion news piece, in which City Council members, including Transportation Committee Chair James Vacca, piled on. And it’s also the latest and loudest salvo in what can only be described as a multi-pronged assault waged by local media and politicians on the city’s bicycle program.

John del Signore at Gothamist ran a good piece exposing the Post’s shoddy case against Sadik-Khan, calling the paper’s focus on one city official a “disingenuous” attempt to “score cheap political points.”

I’d like to focus on one particular rhetorical tactic favored by the Post’s editorial staff: the name-calling.

The Post refers to Sadik-Khan as “Deputy Mayor for Bicycles” and, a few paragraphs later, “Bicycle Lady.” As astute observers will know, if the writers had been paying attention the past three years, they would have come up with a more accurate nickname, like “Pedestrian, Bicycle, and Bus Lady.” Or, to really cover the full extent of what’s been going on, “Safer, More Efficient Transportation Lady.”

We’re living in a golden age for improvements to bus corridors, expansions of public space, engineering that prioritizes pedestrian safety, and yes, more efficient streets for motorists. The recent progress of the city’s bicycle program has been stupendous too, opening the door for many more New Yorkers to feel safe riding on city streets. But with so much else going on in NYC DOT’s transportation modernization effort, it’s telling that the Post singled out bike policy for derision.

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Hundreds of cyclists and pedestrians — and more than a few elected officials — turned out on Friday afternoon last week to cut the ribbon on an impressive piece of infrastructure for human-powered travel — the long-awaited Cal Park Tunnel in Marin County, California.

The project has been talked about since the late 1970s and in active development for the last 12 years. For Marin cyclists, the 1.2 mile path/tunnel combo adds a critical, safe link to the north-south bikeway that will eventually run from the Golden Gate Bridge to Cloverdale in Sonoma County.  It is expected to shave nearly 15 minutes off of trips and serve up to 800,000 riders a year. And just as important: The rail right-of-way has been maintained so that in the future, SMART light rail vehicles can use the tunnel too.

The Cal Park Tunnel has some top-notch features: ample lighting, cell phone reception, emergency phone call boxes, a ventilation system and smooth pavement.  To read up on loads more history of the tunnel and information, check out Streetsblog SF’s great recap from last week.