Urban Cycling Developments

[mrnyc]

sorry to say, but having to switch out citibikes in nyc is a real discouraging bummer to using them. especially when it takes 10m or more to mess around at the bike rack kiosks (quite often more, i.e., when it messes up or you can't lock in the bike to switch out and you have to call for help).

[M II A II R II K]

D.C. church says a bike lane would infringe upon its constitutional ‘rights of religious freedom’

Read More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/l...gious-freedom/

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The District Department of Transportation is exploring installing a protected bike lane going northbound and southbound somewhere between Fifth and Ninth streets NW that would connect to popular east and west protected bike lanes, such as M and L streets NW, or Pennsylvania Avenue NW.

- The church, represented by a lawyer, wrote in a letter to DDOT, which WashCycle blog obtained and reported on, that the proposals along Sixth Street are “unsupportable, unrealistic and particularly problematic for traffic and parking.” The church, which says it has more than 800 congregants, notes that the Convention Center is in the area, which already exacerbates traffic and parking issues. Consequently, as many car lanes and parking space as possible are needed on the street.

- The parking loss would place an unconstitutionally undue burden on people who want to pray, the church argues, noting that other churches already have had to flee to the suburbs because of similarly onerous parking restrictions. The church says that DDOT lets cars park diagonally on the street during busy times, which would be seemingly impossible if a protected bike lane were on the street.

- “As you know, bicycles have freely and safely traversed the District of Columbia throughout the 90-year history of the United House of Prayer, without any protected bicycle lanes and without infringing in the least on the United House of Prayer’s religious rights,” the letter states. “More importantly, as discussed at various points with DDOT, there is another alternative that would simply entail altering the proposed bike lane’s route by one block, such that the bike tracks would follow 6th Street to N Street for the block or two needed to avoid impacting adversely on any parking adjacent to God’s White House on 6th and M Streets.”

- At this point, it’s unclear if the city would consider having the protected bike lane be, well, unprotected on Sixth Street NW in front of the United House of Prayer. DDOT spokesman Terry Owens wrote in an e-mail that the bike lane study will last through the end of 2015 and that the agency will not be “making any design decisions, such as how particular blocks are configured until we have decided on a street and design approach.” --- “We are factoring what we hear into our decision-making, and will continue to work on minimizing and mitigating any impacts when we get down to a preferred alternative,” Owens wrote.

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[M II A II R II K]

Lorain Avenue Bikeway concept gets a big boost from Cleveland planning commission

Read More: http://www.cleveland.com/architectur..._proposal.html

Tom McNair, the director of Ohio City Inc., said he was "ecstatic" Friday after the city's Planning Commission unanimously approved conceptual plans for the Lorain Avenue Bikeway, modeled after the widely acclaimed Cultural Trail in Indianapolis.

- The $16 million Lorain Avenue project would transform 2.25 miles of the four-lane avenue from West 20th to West 65th Street into a multi-modal route with two lanes for vehicles, a lane for parking and bus stops, and a 10-foot strip separated from traffic for bikes. If built, it could become the city's first traffic-protected bike path. --- "We have been working on this for three years," McNair said, calling the Planning Commission vote a validation that would help efforts to raise money to get the bikeway built.

- Cleveland last year announced plans double the mileage of existing bike paths by 70 miles by 2017, and to add another 80 miles by 2019. Many of those miles, however, require cyclists to share roadway space with vehicles, either in striped lanes or shared lanes, called "sharrows." --- In addition to the Lorain Avenue Bikeway, the city and the Ohio Department of Transportation have also signaled approval for a protected bike path along two miles of the Opportunity Corridor boulevard, now under construction and scheduled for completion in 2020.

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[M II A II R II K]

NEW BICYCLE LANES COMING TO MARKET STREET IN SAN FRANCISCO

Read More: http://abc7news.com/traffic/bicycle-...in-sf/1040126/

Big changes are coming to the bike lanes on Market Street in San Francisco to make the lanes safer for bicyclists. Construction crews will raise the lanes a few inches off the ground, starting Monday on eastbound Market Street between Gough and 12th Street.

Bicyclists say it's already a bit tense navigating their way on Market Street alongside cars. Some have trouble imagining how they would do it in a lane raised up a little higher than the cars. "I think more people will probably bike off the curb, so I am not sure that's very safe," San Francisco resident Robert Harvey said. --- Construction on a new raised lane started Tuesday. The idea is based on similar lanes in Amsterdam. But with any new idea comes questions about how it will work. "I feel like maybe people could fall off of that. I don't know. Is there going to be like something vertical?" asked San Francisco resident Siena Aguaio. There won't be vertical barriers, but plastic pillars will be there and lanes will still be green.

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[fflint]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

NEW BICYCLE LANES COMING TO MARKET STREET IN SAN FRANCISCO

Read More: http://abc7news.com/traffic/bicycle-...in-sf/1040126/

The guy quoted doesn't know what he's talking about (that cyclists will suddenly start riding in mixed traffic). This stretch of bike lane was already separated from car traffic with soft-hit posts and green paint. It's not like a mixing zone at intersections or anything. Nobody is going to just go from that to riding in mixed traffic because the lane gets raised a couple inches--since yesterday we've had to mix it up with cars (because of the construction activity) and it totally sucks.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

Lorain Avenue Bikeway concept gets a big boost from Cleveland planning commission

Read More: http://www.cleveland.com/architectur..._proposal.html

great as long as it takes out street lanes and not sidewalk space. in fact, they should use the opportunity to widen some of the sidewalk area stretches.

[M II A II R II K]

Bike lanes and paths easier to build under new rules

Read More: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015...new-rules.html

Toronto will be able to build bike lanes in less time for less money thanks to new provincial rules, says the city's manager of cycling infrastructure and programs.

Toronto will no longer do provincial environmental assessments (EA) to build on-street bike lanes. The assessments have been blamed for holding up projects such as the Richmond-Adelaide cycle track. Eliminating the process will save at least six months and sometimes years in the approval of those projects, said Jacquelyn Hayward Gulati, who called Thursday's announcement by Environment Minister Glen Murray "fantastic news."

The changes won't prevent the public from having a say when the city wants to convert a traffic or parking lane to a bike lane. Toronto will still do public consultations, detailed design and traffic analysis, said Hayward Gulati. "There's still due process but it's not subject to putting together that same documentation and filing it with the ministry," she said. It isn't clear whether the city ever needed to do EAs for bike lanes. According to Hayward Gulati, the EA rules weren't explicit.

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[M II A II R II K]

Metro releases plan for $50 million Hillsboro-to-Banks biking and walking path

Read More: http://bikeportland.org/2015/10/22/m...e-trail-166464

PDF: http://www.oregonmetro.gov/sites/def...an_reduced.pdf

An arrow-straight railside trail between Hillsboro and Forest Grove would be one of the first phases of a planned bikeway through the heart of Washington County.

The Council Creek Regional Trail is a vision for a mostly off-road connection between Hillsboro, Forest Grove and Banks — which will also connect the westernmost stop in the MAX system with some of Oregon’s best rural bike routes, including the beloved Banks-Vernonia Trail and a possible future connection to the Pacific Coast.

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Cross-section concept for the Forest Grove section of the path.

[M II A II R II K]

Can the Least-Loved Bike Infrastructure Be Improved?

Read More: http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/201...proved/412180/

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Accepted as a standard marking by the Federal Highway Administration since 2009, the sharrow is one of the least-loved types of bicycle infrastructure. It can be confusing to drivers who have never encountered it before, and is frequently dismissed by cyclists as an ineffective.

- Despite the haters, research shows that sharrows can have positive effects. A 2010 study done by the city of Austin, for instance, concluded that sharrows were “effective at reducing unsafe bicyclist behavior” and also “resulted in improved motorist behavior.” Like them or not, as a result of conclusions like these, sharrows have become increasingly common in cities around the country. But what if transportation planners could create a better sharrow?

- Oakland, California tested what came to be called a “super sharrow,” in which the symbol is painted in white atop a five-foot-wide green strip down the middle of the lane. The marking—which is modeled on similar treatments in Salt Lake City, Minneapolis, and Long Beach, California—aims to clarify where people on bicycles should be riding. It’s designed to help riders to stay safe on a route without a dedicated bike lane—out of the dangerous “door zone,” where they can get clipped by drivers exiting parked cars. It’s also meant to reinforce drivers’ respect for the cyclists’ right to “take the lane,” as well as safe passing.

- The super sharrow was striped on 40th Street in downtown Oakland, a heavily traveled and increasingly popular bike route near the MacArthur BART station that has long been a problem area for the city’s bike-network planners. The street has two travel lanes in either direction, a landscaped median, and parking on both sides. It is also an important bus route. Because of the competing demands of all these users and constituencies, says Jason Patton, Oakland’s bicycle and pedestrian program manager, it proved impossible to create a dedicated bike lane on this stretch of 40th Street, despite three different attempts to do so.

- With the super-sharrow treatment, the number of cyclists staying clear of the door zone increased by a statistically significant margin. On average, the passing distance observed by motorists was the same on super sharrows as on regular sharrows. But the variability of that distance increased: With cyclists were riding further to the left, some drivers moved farther left, but some didn’t, thereby passing closer to the people on bikes. Also, neither kind of sharrow had an effect on whether cyclists passed drivers at a stopped light on the right, in effect “jumping the line”—a practice that can put people on bikes at increased risk of right-hook collisions.

- If nothing else, says Patton, the presence of sharrows is indisputable proof that cyclists have the right to use the lane. “At least it gives cyclists the moral ground to stand on if they get into that argument.” And the highly visible marking, with the accompanying street signs, is just one more way of making the bicycle symbol a pervasive presence on the streets of the city. These symbols, says Patton, reinforce the message that people on bikes are legitimate road users. In that way, he says, the super sharrows are doing more than just marking the place for cyclists to ride.

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[M II A II R II K]

Can some big D.C. churches fight off a bike lane? They are bringing large crowds to try.

Read More: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...crowds-to-try/

Some prominent D.C. African-American churches showed their muscles Thursday evening, bringing out hundreds of congregants to a city meeting to discuss proposals to build a protected bike lane that could cut into street parking spaces near the churches.

- And the packed meeting — which was eventually broken up by city officials who said the crowd in the Shaw library’s meeting room was a fire hazard — highlighted a tension in the rapidly changing District between longtime, black residents and new, largely white residents. --- “We just think we have to protect what’s ours,” said Robert Price III, a pastor at the United House of Prayer church in Shaw on the 600 block of M Street NW, referencing black churches that have left the District in recent years.

- The District Department of Transportation is exploring the possibility of installing a protected bike lane going northbound and southbound somewhere between Fifth and Ninth streets NW that would connect to popular east and west protected bike lanes, such as M and L streets NW, or Pennsylvania Avenue NW. The city is down to four options, three of which would run down Sixth Street NW.

- When the city released the four bike-lane options, United House of Prayer responded with a letter from its lawyer to DDOT saying a bike lane near its property would infringe upon “its constitutionally protected rights of religious freedom and equal protection of the laws.” The letter also argued that city policies were driving African-American churches to the suburbs.

- “This ain’t London, this ain’t Europe. The United States is built on the automobile and we need to respect that,” said Michael Green, a deacon at New Bethel Baptist Church. --- DDOT representatives insisted throughout the heated meeting that it was still in the nascent planning stages and nothing was finalized. And the churchgoers — in front of the outnumbered pro-bike-lane faction present at the meeting — repeatedly stated they wanted no bike lanes in front of the churches.

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[M II A II R II K]

Metro receives $15-million federal grant for Rail-to-River walk and bike path in South L.A.

Read More: http://thesource.metro.net/2015/10/2...-in-south-l-a/

Metro has received a $15-million federal TIGER grant to help construct 6.4 miles of the Rail-to-River pedestrian and bike path that would run between the future Crenshaw/LAX Line, the Silver Line and the Blue Line, the U.S. Department of Transportation and Metro announced Thursday.

- The Rail to Rail project will transform a 6.4 mile stretch of minimally active Metro-owned rail right of way called the Harbor Subdivision into a bicycle and pedestrian path. The project parallels Slauson Avenue in South Los Angeles connecting the future Metro Crenshaw/LAX Line’s Fairview Heights Station with the Metro Silver Line at the I-110 freeway and the Metro Blue Line Station, ending at Santa Fe Avenue.

A few notes about the project:

• The demographics of the area indicate there is a need for better first-mile, last-mile connections. The Rail to Rail corridor is home to about 108,000 residents and has a population density more than six times the county average. Over two-thirds of the area residents are minority. More than one-fifth of the households within ½ mile of the project corridor do not own a vehicle and 16.8 percent of the area workers commute to work via public transit, bicycle and/or walking.

• The path will follow a busy east-west traffic corridor mostly along Slauson Avenue, a four-lane street. There is currently no bike lane on Slauson, nor is there a sidewalk on Slauson’s north side. Here are collision statistics from the corridor from a 2014 feasibility study by Metro.

• There are still hurdles to clear to build the project, which has an estimated cost of $34.3 million. In addition to the $15 million from the federal grant, another $19.3 million will come from local and state funds. Metro will have to environmentally clear the alignment and negotiate with BNSF — which still has rights to use the corridor — to formally abandon the rail right-of-way.

• The right-of-way is typically 15 feet to 17 feet wide. Part of the project will involve adding signage, benches, lighting and some landscaping — although the extent of that will be determined later as the project is actually designed. There is more about the landscaping issue in the project’s feasibility report.

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[M II A II R II K]

Memo to Cities: Most Cyclists Aren’t Urban Hipsters

Read More: http://urbanedge.blogs.rice.edu/2015...urban-hipsters

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Figures from the U.S. Census Bureau show that across the nation and in major cities across the sprawling, car-dependent Sun Belt, the largest share of people who bike are in lower-income brackets.

- To be clear, describing the cyclist community with Census data isn’t ideal, but what’s available paints a clear picture: most cyclists are poor. It’s true nationally, and it’s true in specific U.S. cities. The Census Bureau divides its data on how people get to work by income groups. However, cyclists are included in a catchall category that – somewhat bizarrely – also includes people who use taxis or motorcycles to get to work (notably, bicycle advocates have long advocated for their own category).

- Moreover, a hypothetical commuter who bikes to a bus stop then takes transit to work may or may not be considered a cyclist, further muddying the waters. In other words, the data is far from perfect. Nonetheless, the numbers show that the group that includes bicycle commuters is hardly the upwardly mobile cadre of hipsters it’s often made out to be. Nationally and in cities across Sun Belt, the bulk of those who bike to work – based on our best available data – are low-income people.

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[skyfan]

Originally Posted by fflint

^It's great to see the data. The raw numbers are looking good in the top ten biking cities, the university towns are teaching young people early in life the value and ease of bicycling everywhere, and the growth rates are astounding in many of the Midwestern cities. This does appear to be a long term trend--outside the South, that is, which is conspicuous in its absence from the lists.

I'm not surprised to see Detroit at top of the list, the growth of bike culture in here in the last 10 years, but especially in the last 3-4 has been amazing. Events like weekly slow rides have gone from attracting 100 people to regularly 2,500+ and needing police blockades. and there more bike related events than ever. Not bad for city that barely had a bike lane 10 years ago.

[M II A II R II K]

A City Choking on Cars Hopes Commuters Will Return to Two Wheels

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/wo...wo-wheels.html

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As China has urbanized, families have become more prosperous and many city residents have moved to suburbs many miles from their jobs. The resulting growth in car use combined with lax law enforcement has undermined a half-century tradition of commuting on bikes. Nowhere is that battle more obvious than in Beijing, where buses, automobiles and electric scooters vie with cyclists for space.

- China’s capital, often choked by motorized vehicles, is eager to encourage more commuters to return to two wheels. It wants to increase the proportion of commuters who use bikes to 18 percent by 2020, according to city transportation officials. --- The move is part of Beijing’s pledge to promote “green commutes” as it combats air pollution and traffic congestion. Acrid smog routinely blankets city skyscrapers and at times becomes so bad that it leads to an increase in hospital admissions. --- Bikes became an integral part of China’s culture after the Communist revolution in 1949. Along with a sewing machine and a watch, a bicycle was once considered one of the three must-haves of every Chinese household.

- Persuading Beijing drivers to use their cars less is unlikely to be easy. To encourage more commuters to use bikes, city planners have proposed a ban on car parking on side roads less than 20 feet wide, more colored bike lanes and barricades to separate motor vehicles from nonmotorized ones. But many cyclists here are skeptical that the changes will make Beijing’s roads more hospitable anytime soon. --- “What I can’t stand is that there are practically no bike lanes, and these are often occupied by cars,” said Fang Yongbin, who moved to Beijing last summer. He said he tried biking to work but quit after a month because of a variety of frustrations, including the smog and aggressive motorists.

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[M II A II R II K]

San Francisco Debuts Its Very First Elevated Bike Lane

Read More: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/...e-lane/415776/

Press Release: https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/...2011.12.15.pdf

San Francisco just elevated the cause of bicycling safety … by about 2 inches. The city’s Municipal Transportation Agency has debuted its first-ever raised bike path, providing one long (or two short) blocks of protection in the heart of downtown.

- The new lane, which stretches along Market Street from Gough to 12th Street, is the first of several such paths San Francisco will build through next year in accident-prone locations. The idea is cyclists will choose the designated path over chugging down the sidewalk, and cars will find it more difficult to roam into cyclist territory.

- The SFMTA, which oversees all ground transportation in San Francisco, is taking an innovative approach with the demonstration, testing four different raised bikeway designs simultaneously. This approach will allow the agency to test future applications of raised bikeways with different elevations and slopes, as well as collect feedback from street users on the designs.…

- “We’re looking forward to the implementation of this experiment as we continue to search for new ways to improve the quality of life in the City,” said San Francisco Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru. “The pilot will provide us with the real-world experience to evaluate raised bikeways in San Francisco.”

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[M II A II R II K]

‘SEEMS TO BE IN THE WRONG PLACE’: PEERS REACT TO CLEVELAND’S UNUSUAL BIKE LANE

Read More: http://www.peopleforbikes.org/blog/e...sual-bike-lane

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If you've got at least two feet of roadway to spare, you lay down some hash marks between car and bike lanes and double the comfort of biking on a street. Except in Cleveland, apparently.

- The main point of a buffered bike lane, as made clear by everyone from AASHTO to NACTO, is to separate bikes from moving cars and/or the doors of parked cars, not to protect bikes from curbs. But as more information emerged and it began to seem as if Cleveland was not only doing this intentionally but might be planning to repeat the design elsewhere in town, we wondered whether this might be a new trend in street design.

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[Swede]

A new trend? Nah, just a planner who is opposed to real bike lanes.

[mrnyc]

there is no buffer, its just a regular bike lane and the curbside hashes are for snow and intermittent parking along the way.

very weird article that spoke to everyone under the sun -- except for anyone in cleveland.

[M II A II R II K]

Shifting Gears to Cycling Would be Big Climate Boost

Read More: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/c...te-boost-19682

PDF Report: https://www.itdp.org/wp-content/uplo...ov-12-2015.pdf

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The climate would benefit in a big way if urban commuters worldwide would leave their cars at home and use those dedicated bike lanes to cycle to work, and if more cities would prioritize bike commuting in their urban planning, according to a University of California-Davis report published Thursday.

- Greenhouse gas emissions coming from motor vehicles in big cities worldwide would dive about 11 percent, saving society $24 trillion in infrastructure and other costs between today and 2050 if city dwellers would use bicycles and electric bikes for about 10 percent of their urban trips instead of using motor vehicles, the report says. --- The study was commissioned by three pro-bicycle groups — the European Cyclists’ Federation, the Bicycle Product Suppliers Association and the Union Cycliste Internationale — but researchers and scientists not associated with those groups by and large supported the findings.

- Today, 6 percent of all trips in cities globally are on bikes. In the U.S., bikes account for 1 percent of all urban travel. If global annual carbon dioxide emissions from urban transportation continue on their current trajectory, they stand to increase from 2.3 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide in 2015 to 4.3 gigatonnes in 2050. But if people adopt cycling in cities to the extent the study envisions, it says that carbon dioxide emissions from urban transportation could be reduced to today’s levels in 2050.

- “This is the first report that quantifies the potential carbon dioxide and cost savings associated with a worldwide shift toward much greater use of cycling in urban areas,” co-author Lewis Fulton, director of the Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways program at UC-Davis, said. “The estimated impacts surprised me because they are so large. The costs saved in lower energy use and reducing the need for car travel, new roads and parking lots through 2050 are substantial.”

- For cities to achieve the drop in greenhouse gas emissions and to encourage people to shift from cars to bikes, cities need to develop cycling and e-bike infrastructure quickly, implement bike-share programs, encourage the development of mass transit to accommodate non-motorized transportation options that can be combined with cycling and repeal policies that subsidize motorized vehicle use. In other words, Fulton said, cities worldwide should follow the lead of Copenhagen, where about 40 percent of the city’s trips are on bikes.

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[mrnyc]

Video Tour of The Bronx's New Car-Free Randalls Island Connector

Matt Coneybeare by Matt Coneybeare at 11:11 AM on November 15, 2015


Randall’s Island Connector finally opening to the public and providing safe and direct access between Manhattan and the Bronx.

In this video from Streetfilms, editor Clarence Eckerson Jr. went on out to see what it was like:

Earlier this year, the Highbridge re-opened between The Bronx and Manhattan, the first car-free crossing between the two boroughs. And now incredibly The Bronx has its second in a year with the vital greenway link of Randall’s Island Connector. This project has been in the pipeline for what seems forever, but the nonetheless it is finished and open to the delight of many South Bronx residents who have a direct and easy connection to Randall’s Island and all of its athletic fields, picnic tables, miles of beautiful greenways and unmatched views of the Manhattan skyline!

video:
https://viewing.nyc/video-tour-of-th...and-connector/