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BUFFERED BIKE LANES, TWO-WAY CONVERSION COMING TO DETROIT'S SECOND AVENUE

Detroit’s cycling community may be celebrating new lanes on the city’s East Side right now, but an upcoming development in Midtown promises to up the ante for bicycle-friendly infrastructure even further.

The city’s first buffered bike lanes are scheduled to appear next year on Second Avenue between Temple and Warren. They’re part of a city council-approved project that will also involve converting the road from a one-way to a two-way street.

Construction for the lanes and street conversion carries an estimated price tag of about $200,000, a figure that doesn’t include inspection fees. The Michigan Department of Transportation will be overseeing the project, as part of that funding is coming from the federal government’s coffers.

“Second Avenue[’s] existing paved width is quite large,” Midtown Detroit Inc. Greenway & Non-Motorized Planner Jereen Rice told Mode Shift. “This street was a prime candidate for a ‘road diet.’ Providing a buffer lane was the perfect use of available width.”

The lanes will run a mile along both sides of the street with a diagonally striped buffer between the parking lane and travel lanes. The typical cross section will feature an 8-foot parking area, 5-foot bike lane, 3.5-foot buffer and 11-foot drive lane on each side of an 11-foot center turn lane.

http://wearemodeshift.org/buffered-b...-second-avenue


DETROIT'S EAST SIDE GETS NEW BIKE LANES

DETROIT—Cyclists on Detroit's East Side have a reason to celebrate this month. Right now, the city's Department of Public Works is in the process of laying down a bike lanes on Kercheval that will ultimately stretch from Grand Boulevard to St. Jean.

Part of the route has already been set down and the rest is expected to be completed by the end of construction season. The Kercheval bike lanes are pretty basic, consisting of pavement markings and associated signage. When completed, they'll cover about four miles total, two on each side of the road.

Prasad Nannapaneni, a traffic engineer with the City of Detroit, says the new Kercheval bicycle route is intended for both transportation and recreation, adding that it's a segment of a larger undertaking.

Currently Detroit has 68 miles of bike projects. This includes 38 miles of bike lanes on city streets and five miles of bike lanes on MDOT streets, 10 miles of signed routes, and 15 miles of off road paths, according to Nannapaneni.

Altogether his department is planning to add about 50 new miles of bike lanes this year. In addition to the Kercheval lanes, the city is putting down 19.5 miles on Grand Boulevard from River Park to Belle Isle, 10.5 miles on Oakman Boulevard from Tireman to Highland Park's city limits, 4 miles on on Lafayette between I-375 and Grand Blvd, 2.8 miles on Forest between Dequindre and Cadillac, 3.7 miles on State Fair between Woodward to Dequindre and 3 miles on St. Jean/ Shoemaker/Conner between Mack and Harper.

http://wearemodeshift.org/node/950