One topic often addressed by this blog is that of bike lanes due to their importance in creating complete streets to increase transportation choices, improve air quality, and decrease our dependence on oil. But, it also gets significant attention here because it is the subject of significant controversy.
One of the ways that a safe, welcoming bike lane can be provided to the public is by separating the bike path from the auto lanes. (Want to see the study on separated bike lane safety? Here it is from Injury Prevention.) These separated bike lanes not only make clear the place where bicycle riders are to be, but also exclude dangerous elements, such as moving automobiles or stationary ones with their doors suddenly opening in the path of a biker ("dooring"). And, yes, it does happen, and it can be fatal.
Spokane has a separated bike trail: the Centennial Trail. However, that's more of a bicycle highway, which allows people to travel long distances undisturbed, but also fails to successfully deliver bike riders to their destinations without, as Danish architect and infrastructure consultant Jan Gehl says, "[letting] people fend for themselves once they reach the city." Nevertheless, it's a commendable achievement that we should build upon.
The true usefulness of separated bike paths is when they're permitted to enter the core of the community. A local example of that is the bike system in Liberty Lake. It connects to the Centennial Trail, consists of a number of interconnected trails (though, not all are separated from the road), and many are surrounded by trees and grass. But, these are not urban trails as would be necessary in downtown Spokane or anywhere else where they'd need to be shoehorned in. So what do we do in that situation?
Well, it's pretty congested in New York City:
The first separated bike lane in NYC was proposed in 2007, and its cross-section is below. In this case, a 15-foot wide planted area was inserted into the right-of-way to come between the moving automobiles and the bicyclists. The planted area also includes parking while protecting the bikers from being doored.
The video above did note that there are places where solid barriers would be inappropriate, such as when emergency or delivery vehicles must approach the curb. In that case, a double rolled-curb barrier such as the one displayed here (thank you to StreetsWiki) 
could be more appropriate. Other options mentioned in the video include bollards (removable vertical poles) such as the ones you see where the Centennial Trail crosses roads. They prevent vehicles from passing, unless you have the authority that comes along with having the key.
Coming back to the Pacific Northwest, the current issue of Planning Magazine brings the story of Vancouver, British Columbia's newest experiment in separated bike paths. While separated bike paths were available along the water's edge, last summer brought a proposal to separate the bike path on Hornby Street, penetrating into downtown.
Could Spokane do the same thing? It does present challenges. It is more complex than laying down stripes and it does need to be designed into the physicality of the road. Second Avenue, for instance, would need a concrete strip of some kind in order to move the parking meters away from the sidewalk. However, for much of Spokane region, the roads are very wide, and a few feet for a concrete strip would be easy to accommodate. Plowing would become impossible in the bike lanes in that case, but the city doesn't sufficiently maintain the bike lanes in those situations, anyway. Indeed, you might be able to pitch it as an alternative to piling up snow in the middle of the road during major storms.
As always, the character of the neighborhood and the people's transportation demands will be key to deciding what form a transportation asset will take. But, no matter what you may think about them in general, building separated bike lanes is a valid alternative, and no transportation plan proposal should be presented to the public without it.
One wee quibble, Brian: the Centennial Trail is not separated from the street in all places. As you're heading east from the Spokane city center it becomes the shoulder of Upriver Drive from Avista all the way to Argonne. The section from Avista to the dam isn't too bad, but all bets are off from the dam to Argonne. Since the "trail" at that point is just the shoulder of a major arterial, there's a lot of traffic and a LOT of debris in the road. I've had several catastrophic flat tires - catastrophic means they've shredded my tire so badly I can't fix it by swapping out the tube - along there, to the degree that I won't ride it anymore.
ReplyDeleteIt's worse in the spring because of the snow berms left by the plows. It takes forever to melt, and when it finally does there is so much debris you have no choice in places but to ride in the road. This, of course, infuriates drivers, since all they can see from the vantage point of their cars is a dedicated bike lane. They don't know that it's impassable due to poor maintenance.
I've attempted to contact the county to get a street sweeper out there on numerous occasions, but no agency thinks they're responsible for it. The county thinks it should be the parks department, the parks department says it's the county roads department...it's a giant, frustrating mess.
On another note, I do wish engineers would ride their damn bikes from time to time. If they did they might think to paint those bollards some not-occurring-in-nature color. In dim light they blend in to their surroundings so well that it's easy for inattentive cyclists to plow into them. I, of course, never have (while sober), but hey, if we want old people and kids to ride, we need to make the system more accommodating.
Finally, where the trail is separated from cars it's magic. It is not, however, sealed. If we want this magic amenity to last, the asphalt needs to be sealed. It's already showing signs of wear.
All excellent points!
ReplyDeleteWhat color are the bollards? For some reason, my memory says that they're yellow with a squiggly yellow line on the ground approaching them. Is that just wishful thinking on my part? Or are they brown, which would be completely inappropriate?
The maintenance issue has been a gripe of mine for years. When the road has been sanded, or when there's construction in the area, rocks are thrown from the auto travel lane as a normal reaction to a little rock being hit by a big ol' car. It can get thrown this way and that way, but it will only stop being thrown around when it's no longer in the auto lane. That is, it ends up in the adjacent bike lane. As it turns out, bike tires are not as wide as car tires, so those "little" rocks all together turns the bike lane into asphalt with a gravel-and-broken-glass coating. Treacherous!
TVDinner was having trouble posting a comment, so the comment was sent to me directly. Here it is:
ReplyDeleteThe bollards are usually gray. Perfect for dawn or dusk! There is a squiggly yellow line in the pavement, but you only see that when you're practically on top of them. My average speed on the level is 17 mph, so you can imagine how much reaction time there is for a four-foot squiggly line. Lots of people would suggest I just slow down, which I do of course - if I get to a bollard it means I'm about to cross a street, for Pete's sake - but if I don't see 'em I'm not gonna have time to slow down.
I'm very excited to have added the word "bollard" to my vocabulary, BTW.
I also wish there were signs on the Centennial Trail that instructed all users to keep right. There is nothing to guide people on how to navigate a multi-use path, so there ends up being a lot of unnecessary conflict between pedestrians and bikes. Everyone has their own idea of how to share, and often those ideas at are odds. I couldn't count how many times I've called out to pedestrians, "On your left" as I'm approaching them, and they move left. Argh. Then they get mad at me.
I think a great place to introduce separated bike paths in Spokane would be along Upriver Drive. The roadway is wide and has bike lanes on both sides, there are long stretches where there are no driveways, or other curb cuts on the river side of the road. It might be as simple as installing something like jersey barriers, and moving the vehicle lanes away from the river just a few feet. This would provide some fairly long stretches of separated bike path that families could enjoy.
ReplyDelete