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. We are looking for a copy of the following report that was published in the mid-80s.

English, J.W. (1986). Liability Aspects of Bikeway Designation.
Washington, DC: Bicycle Federation of America.

Terrance K. Manion | Director of  IT, Instructor of Law, Librarian | Georgia State University
College of Law

 
A. This report is available in Word format at the National Center for Bicycling & Walking web site. Look in the NCBW Publications section of the site library: www.bikewalk.org/ncbw_pubs.php .

Regards,

Gary MacFadden

Sam Kaufman wrote, asking for pointers on putting in bike lanes around the city of Pittsburgh.

I’m aiming mostly at having the city put in bicycle/walking lanes along all of our trolley lines. Pittsburgh is a very hilly town that dissuades many people from riding a bicycle to work. None of the trolley lines go over a 2.5% grade. I am requesting any guidance on and resources that might be critical to my research. The office of city planning in Pittsburgh does have a master plan written but never has put into effect. What should I do? I was thinking about writing a petition to be put in all local bike shops having people sign it in demand of bicycle lanes and bicycle lanes along the trolley lines as a start. Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

 I cc’d several other Pittsburgh advocates that Sam might work with.

The main suggestion I had for Sam is to build a constituency. Agency staff and elected officials tend to see one advocate as either a crank or…well, a crank. Rather than posting a petition, you might consider posting an announcement for an organizational meeting for a bike advocacy group (assuming there isn’t one already). It could say something like “Want Bike Lanes in Pittsburgh? Join our new group!” You
really want folks to help make things happen, not just sign a petition.

As for the master plan, keep this process in mind: in places like Pittsburgh, a metropolitan planning organization (MPO) handles the major transportation planning efforts, in partnership with local (e.g., city) agencies. They create the long-range transportation plan, which usually has a time-frame of 20 or 30 years.

In your area, the MPO is the “Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission” (http://www.spcregion.org/). They create the transportation plan and to find the plan (“2035 Transportation and Development Plan for
Southwestern Pennsylvania”), go to: http://www.spcregion.org/trans_lrp.shtml. The actual transportation plan is Section 6 but there are likely references to bicycling in other sections, as well.

The key point is this: the purpose of the plan is to identify the long-range goals and major projects. From this plan comes the actual project list — or Transportation Improvement Program (TIP). Projects in the TIP are supposed to be “consistent” with the plan but don’t necessarily have to be specifically be mentioned in the plan. SPC’s current TIP (2007-2010) is here: http://www.spcregion.org/trans_tip_report.shtml.

Scroll down to Pittsburgh and download the map and the list of projects. Identify projects that can either help or hurt efforts. Lobby to get bike-friendly things in and to modify things that aren’t.

One thing I noticed in the list of upcoming projects is that there are several bridge items listed. These are extremely important things because they (1) only come along once in a great while and (2) are critical links in the community. I’d get in touch with the SPC’s planners to find out if there are bike (and
pedestrian) provisions and if not, what needs to happen to get them in. I don’t know who on the staff would be good (probably someone identified as some sort of “transportation planner) but here’s a list:
http://www.spcregion.org/staff.shtml.

One last thing about bike lanes: the best time to paint stripes is right after a street has been paved or repaved. Check out all upcoming projects that involve construction or reconstruction, etc., because these may be good opportunities. They happen more often than new bridges but they don’t happen every year.

Cheers!
John W.

Karen wanted a list of mayors who signed a proposed bicycling resolution at a Mayor’s Conference in June 2008.

Morning John,
I don’t know if you’re the person I need to ask this of or not, so please bear w/ me. Can you tell me how I can find out the names of the mayor’s who signed the resolution at the recent mayor’s conference? I provided a copy of the resolution to Omaha’s mayor (Mike Fahey) and
suspect that he signed it, but would like to know for sure. And since I work w/ several towns/cities in the midwest, I’d like to know which mayor’s are supportive. Thank you.

 

Karen Anderson
National Park Service – Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance
601 Riverfront Dr.
Omaha, NE 68102

 

Hi Karen–
Thanks for the note! See below for the list supplied by Andy Clarke, Executive Director of the League of American Bicyclists.

J

 
From: Andy Clarke
Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 10:48 AM
Subject: US Conference of Mayors – Proposed Bicycling Resolution

Thanks to everyone that asked their mayor to sign on in support of the resolution. We ended up with
a great list of co-sponsors to give support to Chris Koos (Mayor of Normal, Ill.). The resolution sailed through the Transportation Committee and the Children, Health and Human Services Committee and the Mayors adopted this and a bunch of other resolutions en masse on Monday morning. Other Mayors may have signed on as co-sponsors during the meeting – I had dinner with the Mayor of Syracuse, NY, Sunday evening and he was determined to be on the list before it was too late!

1. John Marchione, Redmond, WA
2. Marty Blum, Santa Barbara, CA
3. R.T. Rybak, Minneapolis, MN
4. Jim Brainard, Carmel, Indiana
5. Al Larson, Schaumberg, IL
6. Ron Littlefield, Chattanooga, TN
7. Joe Riley, Charleston, SC
8. John Hickenlooper, Denver, CO
9. Elaine N. Walker, Bowling Green, KY
10. Jerry Abramson, Louisville, KY
11. Peter Lewis, Auburn, WA
12. Richard Kaplan, Lauderhill, FL
13. Kevin Foy, Chapel Hill, NC
14. Richard Moccia, Norwalk, CT
15. Christopher Cabaldon, West Sacramento, CA
16. John Robert Smith, Meridian, MS
17. William Wynn, Austin, TX
18. Bill Mischler, Pinellas Park, FL
19. Elizabeth Kautz, Burnsville, MN
20. Christopher Coleman, St. Paul, MN
21. Ron Tussing, Billings, MT
22. James Cavanaugh, Goodyear, Arizona
23. Ken Flatto, Fairfield, CT
24. Bill Bogaard, Pasadena, CA
25. David Pope, Oak Park, IL