Question:
The parking lot of our elementary school is in chaos every morning before school begins, and again in the afternoon when school lets out. In the morning, walkers are mixing with parents dropping off students. In the afternoon, buses sometimes cannot get into our parking lot because so many parents are waiting for their children. I am worried about the air quality around our school due to all those idling vehicles. I am most worried about the safety hazard posed by all those modes mixing in front of our school. What can I do?

–An elementary school principal in northern Minnesota.

Answer:

You can take some comfort in the fact that your school’s situation is not unique; traffic jams surround schools in even the most walkable of neighborhoods.

My first recommendation is to do what you can to reduce demand for those parking spaces. Here is where a Safe Routes to School (SRTS) program can come in handy. Think about conducting a school travel survey of parents to learn more about their attitudes towards SRTS, and to begin the process of identifying barriers to walking to school.

My second recommendation is to move to offsite pick up and drop off locations. This will allow the buses to enter your parking lot. Reducing the traffic around the school will reduce the safety risk to your walkers, reduce the risk of motor vehicle collisions, and the change to an offsite location will eliminate an air pollution hotspot. Perhaps there is a church nearby that will allow the use of its parking lot for this purpose.

My third (and final) recommendation is that you give NCBW a call or consult with the National Center for Safe Routes to School. Each school is unique, so we would be happy to talk to you about your school’s situation, and to point you towards the appropriate resources.

Mark Plotz
NCWB

Q. We are at the beginning stages of creating some bicycle lanes in our community.. Can you suggest some resources we can look at and share with our community leaders?

Michael McKinny
Olney, IL

Michael,

The links below will take you to specific information about design of bicycle lanes, which was the primary issue we discussed during our phone conversation. The first two refer to the AASHTO Guide, which is essentially the “blue book” of design guidance in the United States. Many community engineers and planners won’t make a move if the design guidance isn’t included in the AASHTO Guide. (“AASHTO” by the way is the acronym for American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials.)

http://www.bicyclinginfo.org/engineering/facilities-bikelanes.cfm
This link will take you to the bicyclinginfo.org site discussion of bike lanes. This site has a lot of excellent information on other pages that you will find useful.

http://www.bikelib.org/roads/aashto.htm
This page refers to a lot of the same information, again taken from the AASHTO Guide. But I wanted to send it along because it also has other information in addition to recommended bicycle lane widths. And, more importantly, it is published by an Illinois group that you may want to contact for further local and regional information and suggestions: The League of Illinois Bicyclists.

http://www.activelivingresources.org
In addition to diagrams and technical data, you may find some information about the process of gaining community approval useful. The Active Living Resource Center web site addresses many of these issues. Also on this site, you’ll find some specific information about bike lane
design at:
http://www.activelivingresources.org/bikingandwalking4.php 

At the bottom of this page, you’ll find links to the excellent Chicago Bicycle Lane Design
(pretty close to home!) and the Oregon Bicycle Lane Design Guide.

That should get you started.

Regards,
Gary

Q. Hi there,
I am an avid bike commuter to work in Southern California. Plus, I’m also working on obtaining my master degree in Public Adminstration. As part of my degree, I am required to evaluate a pubic program/policy;  I selected bikway plans because the topic is dear to my heart.

However, I’m encountering some difficulties in locating scholarly journal articles regarding bikeway program evaluation/assessment/review. I am wondering if you can assist me with obtaining journal articles that deal with bikeway program evaluation/assessment/review.

 

Thank you for your time and assistance.
Kiet Nguyen

 

Hello Kiet–
You should also look into the FHWA Turner Fairbank R&D website. This page has an overview on their bike-related information:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/bikeped/pedbiketrb2007.htm

You should also contact Ann Do at the FHWA, who knows a lot about their bike and pedestrian work. Her email address is: <ann.do@dot.gov>

In addition, you should should find some useful resources in the work of the Transportation
Research Board Bicycle Transportation Committee:
http://www.bicyclinginfo.org/trbbike/

Hope this helps!  I’ve just sent messages out to several colleagues who are more involved in the research arena than I am. I’ll forward any responses that I receive.

Cheers!
John Williams

Jessica Roberts, Programs Manager at alta PLANNING + DESIGN in Portland, Oregon, suggested this resource:
http://www.ibpi.usp.pdx.edu/pathfinder.php

Shawn Turner wrote:
Hi Kiet – It sounds as though you want to evaluate the effects of a bikeway program. The first step is to decide what is the measure of effectiveness. That is, what are you trying to solve implementing bikeway programs?

There are at least 3 main measures of effectiveness that are used from the engineering perspective:

1. Evaluate the bikeway program using increases in bicycle-friendliness – look at changes in the bicycle compatibility index (BCI) or the bicycle level of service (BLOS)  that would result if the bikeway plan were to be implemented. The BCI and BLOS attempt to capture the “bicycle-friendliness” or the comfort level of most cyclists. You can find more on these methods by Googling their names.

2. Evaluate the bikeway program using expected safety improvements – there is a fair bit of literature about safety improvements of different types of bike facilities. Look at Table 1 in the main Memo and Appendix C in the attachments for some more references – these should get you started.

3. Evaluate the bikeway program using expected modal shifts from auto to bike – this is perhaps the most difficult and least understood. You might be able to find something by searching on terms bicycling latent demand, bicycling modal shift, bicycle tripmaking, etc.

Good luck on your project,

Shawn Turner, P.E.
Texas Transportation Institute
College Station, TX
http://tti.tamu.edu>http://tti.tamu.edu

Q. What is the peak hour (or 15 minute) capacity of a 12-foot wide pedestrian bridge, 175-feet long?  Our Parks Department is designing a bridge over a canal next to a new cultural center that could generate large numbers during events and want some assurance that 12-feet will be wide enough.

David Henderson
Miami-Dade MPO

A. Hi David.
I don’t have anything as technical as that. But, when we improved an old car bridge near our university, we went for the full width between the structural members (18ft). We had done a count before the structure was improved and came up with about 1200 people (bicyclists and pedestrians) in 12 hours on a spring day during school. At that time, the usable width was about 8 ft with 3 ft entrances on either end and was in a sorry condition. It was very helpful to have an existing structure there at the time, to give us some sense of typical use.

The improved structure could safely hold people standing shoulder to shoulder all the way across (according to the county bridge engineer). However, our real width considerations were more to do with whether pedestrians could stop and talk leaning on the railing and looking down at the river, and bicyclists could ride side-by-side while chatting. In other words, we looked at the bridge as a place. And a people mover.

I think that taking that use into consideration also allowed it to serve folks going to a special event, e.g., football games, concerts (the Stones came last fall and many folks used the bike/ped bridge).  If you’re going to get large amounts of event traffic, I’d push for more than 12ft. If you’ve got a couple of people leaning over the railing, watching the river (or whatever), and a bicyclist coming each way, it’s a little bit uncomfortable. We’ve got a couple of 14-ft bridges (with bulb-outs for folks who want to hang out, fish, etc). I got the idea from a bike/ped bridge on a trail near Sacramento and liked it.

Cheers!
J

PS: Here’s a bike/ped rail yard overpass we got done in the mid-90s.I believe it’s 18ft wide. It’s got bulb-outs, too.
http://www.bikeplan.com/project1.htm

Here’s a newish bike/ped bridge. I believe it’s 14ft wide (not close to the U or other major traffic generators but is part of the river-front trail system). You can’t see the bulb outs but they’re at the middle on both sides.
http://www.bikeplan.com/project2.htm

Q. Do you have comparison information/preferences/costs on various trail surfaces?

Dan H. Hatley, AICP
Principal Planner
City of North Myrtle Beach
Planning and Development

A. Hi Dan.

If you’re looking at a hard surface, that’ll be either concrete or some form of asphalt, and the price can vary in different places. Some places have lower prices for asphalt, others have lower prices for concrete. One variable to keep in mind is the price of oil, which could make concrete a relative bargain. Concrete also tends to have a longer life than asphalt, so that should be factored in. I don’t believe the life of the surface would vary by region but that could be possible. With asphalt, a major ingredient would be oil, and the prices of oil is getting a lot of publicity these days.

Your best bet is to check around your area and get an idea what surfaces people are currently using.  I’m cc’ing this to Tom Dodds, the SC State Bike/Pedestrian Coordinator, because he’s in your general area and knows local practice. Also, I’ve attached some pages about surfaces from the Wisconsin DOT bikeway guide. I primary on the project back in 2004, so it’s relatively current.

Hope this helps!

John W.

Q. Good day,
I am a member of the Mississauga Cycling Advisory  Committee in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. We are volunteers that promote cycling of all types in our fair city and advise city concillours on cycling issues. I was wondering what you think of the possibility to extend the traffic signal loop detector from detecting bikes at a stand-still, to detecting bicycles in motion on a bike lane while approaching an intersection.

Let me explain:In order to encourage more people to cycle instead of taking their motor vehicles in our sub-urban city, I want to explore priority traffic signals for oncoming cyclists. This would give a much greater chance of the bicycle receiving a green signal at a safe, calculated distance – allowing the cyclist to stay in motion while cycling straight through the intersection.

It would look something like this:
- Put a loop detector in the right-hand bike lane about 40-50 metres (approx 50 yards) from the intersection.
- This loop should detect a bicycle riding over it at normal cycling speeds
- When a moving bicycle is detected, the traffic light will advance to a green light for the
oncoming bicycle.

Benefits & Considerations:
- If an unexpectedly large number of cyclists took to the street, they may find themselves waiting about the same as motor traffic. Perhaps priorities can be set between north-south and east-west traffic?
- Motorists would catch on to this and try to (illegally) drive over the bike signal as they approach. To avoid this, place road bump barriers as a deterance to motorists crossing into the bike lane near that location.
- The detector location should be marked on the road.
- The loop detector must be far enough back to allow the cyclist to pull out of the bike lane to overtake/pass vehicles making right-hand turns.
- If motorists view the efficiency of cycling through that route then they will be encouraged
to using a bicycle instead of a motor vehicle for some of their motor trips.
- “If you were on your bicycle, you would be home by now”
- The goal is not to take away the flow of motor traffic, yet to still make it more fluid for cyclists. I.e. Reward cyclists without harshly punishing motor vehicle drivers.
- This would be far less expensive to implement than putting in, say, a bicycle freeway.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
Allan Harder
MCAC Member
http://www.mississaugacycling.ca

A. Hi Allan–
Off hand, I don’t see a big difference — in terms of wiring — between an advance loop for motor vehicles (pretty common practice) and an advance loop for bicycles. The biggest concerns, I think, would be if there is adequate capacity in the electronics to add a new circuit and if the loop design will detect bicycles reasonably well (the best designs, if memory serves, are the quadrupole or diagonal quadrupole). Come to think of it, even a simple rectangle loop should work if its sensitivity can be adjusted separately from, say, motor vehicle detectors. Which should be the case. An advance loop could also alert the system to an approaching bicyclist, so that the bicyclist might get the green sooner.

I’ve forwarded your inquiry to several bicycle traffic engineering experts who undoubtedly have
significantly more insight than I do on the subject.  I’ll let you know what I hear back.

Cheers!
John W.

A. Allan has a pretty good grip on this except for the physical barrier between motor vehicles and bicycles. A barrier of this nature is one that a bicyclist could “crash and burn” on! It is really quite unnecessary anyway as motorists wouldn’t understand the nuances of bicycle detection and signal timing! I’m sending you both a copy of an article I wrote about a detection system that I implemented in the City of Cupertino way back in 1977. Yep, more than  thirty (30) years ago. You don’t need to do exactly as I have done, however, this should give you concepts that you can build upon.
Glenn

 

Jean-Francois Rheault wrote:
We manufacture loops for bike lanes that do not register motorized traffic. The system has been designed for counting but can be hooked up to traffic signal for detection.

Jean-Francois Rheault
Eco-counter – Bike / Ped counters
<http://www.eco-compteur.com>www.eco-counter.com
Canada & USA: 1-866-518-4404 (toll free)

Eco-counter on video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtyxloPoyI8>

 
Bob Shanteau wrote:
As far as inductive loop detection of bicycles, bike lane or not, see:

<http://rmshant.googlepages.com/DetectingBicyclesandMotorVehiclesUsi.pdf>
<http://rmshant.googlepages.com/BicycleDetectionatTrafficActuatedSig.pdf>

Also Kelly Hughes just called me from New Zealand to tell me about his company’s induction pads that can be used in bike lanes, as long as not too many motor vehicles pass over them:

<http://www.advancedtrafficsupplies.com/detail_xflo.html>

 

Theo Petritsch added:
Sounds like a groovy idea if you can sell it to the local Traffic Ops folks.If they go for it, more power to you.It may be an easier sell to start at the other end of the green. Our MUTCD
requires that:

“On bikeways, signal timing and actuation shall be reviewed and adjusted to consider the needs of bicyclists.”

In addition to (possibly) extending the minimum green time, this could also apply to extending the green time to allow an approaching bicyclist to clear the intersection prior to the red. Basically the dilemma zone can be calculated and loops placed to ensure that a bicyclists traveling at a given speed is not required to stop.

While I like your idea for its high visibility to motorists and bicyclists, my modification may be easier to sell. Extension of the green to prevent the signal trap for cyclists is just a more comprehensive application of an already common treatment. Preemption is typically used for emergency vehicles – in which case the preemption is usually on demand and immediate allowing just for the clearance interval on the side street; or it is used for transit, in which case the minimum side street green times and clearance intervals are maintained – reducing but not eliminating the potential for busses having to stop.

 

While at most intersections, the 10 to 13 second advance notice provided by a 50 m advanced loop would mean the side street would still have plenty of time for a minimum green and clearance, some area have intersections so large that this may not be adequate. Sneaker left turns at the end of a cycle have also caused concerns for advancing the green types of preemption. I think those concerns would be minimal in areas with smaller intersections.

Hope any of this was useful.

Theodore A. Petritsch, P.E., PTOE
Senior Transportation Engineer
 Sprinkle Consulting, Inc.
tap@sprinkleconsulting.com

Q. I am looking for information. I currently bike 15 to 20 miles a day on my recumbent trike. Here in Wisconsin, winter is fast approaching and I will have to give up my biking until spring. To maintain my current exercise level, how long or how far do I need to walk each day? Is there a formula available that I can use?   Thank you for your help in this matter.
Ed Heuer
Port Edwards, WI

Ed,
I looked around for a formula, and I’ve got your question out to a couple of people who aren’t as math-challenged as I am. But I thought of a way to get a quick and dirty estimate: use one of the online calculators that figure calories burned, and compare entries for bicycling and walking.

For example, I used the calorie calculator at:
http://www.healthstatus.com/cgi-bin/calc/calculator.cgi
First, I had to indicate my svelte body weight of 200 lbs. (Okay, it’s a little higher than that, but I have my goals, too.)

This particular calculator has already figured the activities, and you indicate how many minutes you’re going to be doing them. So I estimated that you were bicycling between 12 and 14 mph for 60 minutes, just to get a baseline. The calculator came back with:

Bicycling 12-14 mph for 60 minutes:  792 Activity Calories burned

Then I entered a couple of numbers for walking 4 miles per hour: It turns out that if you walk for 100 minutes at 4mph, you burn about the same number of calories:

Walking 4 mph for 100 minutes: 780 Activity Calories burned

So, 100 minutes (nearly 2 hours) of walking at 4mph is equivalent to one hour of bicycling at 12-14mph in terms of calories burned (if you weigh about 200 pounds). That would be one way to get at this…use one of these on-line calculators to compare caloric burn for the two activities, using your own weight, and the amount of time you spend on the bicycle doing your 15-20 miles each day.

I’ll let you know if I get any other feedback on this.

Gary

Q. Dear John,
We have 8-foot-wide off road multi-use pathways on both sides of two 4-lane county roads (pathway, buffer, 2 lanes, central median, 2 lanes, buffer, pathway). Buckwalter Parkway is about 6 miles long and Bluffton Parkway is about 8 miles long.

 

The Bluffton Town Council,  Bluffton Town Manager and Bluffton Chief of Police in South Carolina are seriously considering allowing golf carts on the Bluffton, Buckwalter and McCracken Circle pathways. Greater Bluffton Pathways believes this would be unsafe for those children and families who are biking and walking to school each day.

Karen Heitman
Greater Bluffton Pathways
Bluffton, SC

Karen, I asked Tom Dodds in the South Carolina state bicycle/pedestrian offce if he had an opinion on this situation.  Tom’s answer:

It was kind of awkward for us to weigh in on an issue on that rare road in South Carolina that does not belong to SCDOT, but we did generally. The shared use path fit the definition in the state code of laws to legally be considered a sidewalk (not a stretch–area beside road for pedestrians). The golf carts fit the definition for motor vehicles, and so we reminded the town that state law says no motor vehicles on sidewalks except at the driveways across the sidewalk. Also these particular paths were not federally funded.

Thomas Dodds, P.E.
Pedestrian and Bicycle Engineer, SCDOT

Karen, I hope that helps. 

JW

Denise wrote with a question about railroad track crossings where bicycle accidents were happening:

Q. Hello,
In Harrisonburg, VA, we are having many bicycle accidents at two sites where train tracks ntersect the roadway at very skewed angles and travel along the roadway. We are looking into installing a bulb-out solution, but one of the sites does not have the room for this so we are looking into flangeway filler.

We want to find a company that makes a product that fills all or most of the flange gap so that riders can ride across these places.  Can you recommend something?

Thanks,
Denise Martin
(bicycle advocate)
Broadway, VA

I wrote back and asked what kind of rail traffic was using the crossing. It’s a lot easier to deal with such rail settings than, say, a through route that has trains going faster. I also asked about the roadway’s lanes — how many, what widths? I thought there might be an opportunity to narrow some travel lanes to create some space for a more perpendicular crossing for bikes.

Denise responded: 

…the trains using the crossings in question were freight trains, probably often hauling grain. At one of the crossings, the rail line comes from the south, follows the road and crosses it over a LONG crossing and then follows along the other side of the road.  It is a 5-lane road (one middle turning lane).  The City wants to find a way to make a smooth crossing to benefit all if possible.  Rerouting the road or rail line is completely out of the picture because no one wants to spend that kind of money.  So is placing a bridge over the rails, which I threw in just to make everything else sound less expensive.  Norfolk Southen (the rail company) says the crossings meet “minimum requirements” and if the City wants “upgrades,” they pay.  I say the fix is much cheaper than the medical bills and certainly much less than the cost of a law suit!  Point: Cost IS an issue.  I don’t think anyone would blink about it though if that many motor vehicles were having accidents at a spot. 

The other crossing is on Country Club Road.  This heavily traveled 2 lane road tracks parallel to Route 33.  This is another long, skewed crossing.  Unfortunately the road and trains also go underneath Interstate 81 at the place of the accidents, so there is no room to widen the road or do much else because of the interstate bridge supports on either side of the crossing.I think once they tried to “twist” the road ever so slightly and installed a narrow rubber filler (leaving the 2.5″ inner flange openings.)

We have had quite a few accidents and even broken bones at these places.  Within the past couple weeks a wrist was broken on the Route 11 crossing.  I know of at least 4 very recent accidents there. The local TV weatherman just wrecked his bicycle there and a Harrisonburg police officer wiped out on his police motorcycle!!!  Neither road has a “shoulder” to speak of either.

We wanted to use a compressible flangeway filler to fill the flange gaps.  One company (Polycorp) told me this is not allowed on public crossings (per American Assoc. of RR Engineer’s standards which require the 2.5″ inner flange opening)  I have a few other flangeway filler companies looking into it.  I just discovered HiRail crossings.  They have a pede-STRAIL that is a rubber crossing for pedestrians and cyclists.  The pede-STRAIL rep is on vacation though, so I don’t know if this will fulfill all our needs.  The person I spoke with was not sure it was made to be placed in the roadway.  Their regular crossing is designed for the roadway and could be helpful, but I don’t know if it will eliminate the accidents.

I asked a follow-up question. Denise had mentioned that the crossings are “long,” which suggests a very
shallow crossing angle. I asked if she had any idea at what angle these tracks cross the roadway?

Her response:

Yes, the angle is very unusual on the crossing, but I don’t know that anyone has measured it.  I’ll ask the City engineer about this.  The rails travel mostly parallel to the road and then
gradually cross the road from Left to Right.  The trains then continue on the other side of the road.  A cyclist needs to use up 2-3 lanes on Rte 11 to swing out to make a perpendicular crossing.  Because the road is so busy, cyclists often fail to obtain this much roadway.  On Country Club Road, the cyclist must actually swing out into oncoming traffic to make a perpendicular crossing.  Those that realize this walk or are technically skilled enough to ride it.  However, some of those eventually fall too. Signs warn “Skewed Crossing, Cyclists Use Caution.”  This is a very weak warning in my opinion since most skewed crossings are only slightly skewed.  I have urged the City to put up more strongly worded signs, and they are working on it.  I think they need to acknowledge it for what it is, unfit for a safe
bicycle crossing.

Denise sent some air photos, and gave me some coordinates for Google Earth, which allowed me to zoom in and look around a bit. The angle of the tracks to the roadway did indeed look amazingly shallow. She also told me that she was speaking with the engineer at the rail company, and several meetings had occurred where cyclists, the RR people, and the City had gathered to discuss the situation. THis sounded like it was heading in the right direction.

She added this information:

On the site I had my accident at each rail line has two rails.  The second rail after the flange gap is what bicycle tires seem to push against and suddenly divert left.  This metal rail will be replaced by rubber filler.  “Bulb out” shoulder improvements are supposed to be placed that will allow the cyclist to zigzag across the tracks. (turn right, cross, turn left, remerge).  The turns might be a bit sharp, but the City people wanted to keep the cyclists in the sight line of motor traffic. 

I responded by sending section of the Wisconsin DOT bike facility guide, which does have more details than many of the other guides available. I pointed to images in that guide, one from Seattle where the  rubberized surface is only used toward the right edge of the lane(s). The panels come in sections (4 ft?) and they were able to save some money by only using them where they needed them.  Denise wrote that the WI DOT materials were the single most concise piece she had read yet, and that it tied a lot of info together beautifully. She said she had forwarded the materials I attached on to the city engineers because they were working on finishing the designs. 

And finally came this note from Denise:
Improvements are actually going to be done in the next couple months!!!!  I can’t believe it. I have had quite an education in RR tracks and crossings.  I spent whole days researching solutions and RR products/crossings, so if any info can be passed along, I would love to do this. 

We all learned from this one, Denise! Sometimes the key is that someone takes on the challenge and keeps pushing unitl officials, elected officials, and others recognize the problem and start looking for solutions.

Cheers,
John W.

Here’s a post that shows that, even if the NCBW staff doesn’t know the answer, we’re probably just one or two links removed from someone who does. Sharon asked about cycling in the Dayton area…

Hello!  Do you know where I can go, to find out what route to take to ride from home to work in the Southwest area of Ohio?

Thanks.

Sharon

Hi Sharon –

I don’t have any information on bicycling to work in Southwest Ohio, but am cc’ing this message to an old friend, Don Burrell, who is Senior Planner and Bicycle/Pedestrian Coordinator for the OKI
(Ohio/Kentucky/Indiana) Regional Council of Governments. If he can’t help you, he’s sure to
know who can.

As a separate message, I’ll send you a copy of Don’s “OKI Bicycle E-Info News”
newsletter.Cheers!
J

A. Sharon,
Dayton puts you outside of OKI’s planning area, but Dayton is more bike friendly for commuters and has a wonderful trail network. I will hand you off to Chuck Smith, a member of the Dayton Cycling Club and president of the Ohio Bicycle Federation.

You will find bike commuting resources from the Dayton club
<http://www.daytoncyclingclub.org/commuter.htm>http://www.daytoncyclingclub.org/commuter.htm
   and from the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission, our counterpart transportation planning agency for Dayton.
<http://www.mvrpc.org/>http://www.mvrpc.org/
Don Burrell, AICP, Senior Planner
Bicycle / Pedestrian Coordinator

A. Sharon,

On Markey Road, you are near the northern end of the Dayton River Corridor Bikeway. Pick up the Bikeway in the Dayton Heart Hospital parking lot, and ride south.  The Dayton River Corridor Bikeway (also known as the Great Miami Trail) will take you as far south as the Montgomery/Butler County border.

Chuck Smith
Chair, Ohio Bicycle Federation
www.ohiobike.org
We bring you:
1.  Share the Road License Plate
2.  Better Ohio Bicycling Law
3.  Ohio Bicycle Events Calendar