Originally designed as a low-cost way to encourage safer road sharing between bikes and cars, the sharrow has become a symbol of the lack of commitment to protected bike infrastructure in many cities.

Many cyclists hate them. Most drivers don’t see or understand them. So why are sharrows—the painted symbols also known as lane-share markers—so popular with local governments and departments of transportation?
As Kyle Harris points out in a piece for Denverite, the answer is simple: cost. “Thrifty urban planners, disinterested in building significant bike infrastructure, have embraced them. Sharrows give city officials a cheap way to say they’re doing something for cyclists’ safety — even if it’s undermining it.” Indeed, “According to a 2016 University of Colorado, Denver study of bike infrastructure conducted over ten years and on 2,000 blocks in Chicago, sharrows might actually be more dangerous than no infrastructure at all.”
Harris outlines the history of the sharrow symbol, which was created by now-retired Denver bicycle traffic engineer James Mackay in the early 1990s, when the city resisted any efforts to make changes or invest in bike infrastructure. Mackay developed the symbol as an inexpensive way to encourage drivers and cyclists to share the road, but acknowledges that “Given funding and political will, Mackay knows Denver could have done more, such as cities like Copenhagen and Utrecht, to actively discourage driving and encourage biking.”
FULL STORY: Nobody really understands or likes this street symbol, so how’d it get made?

Keanu Reeves Set to Play Daniel Burnham in ‘The Devil in the White City’
Planning is going to get a new level of star power as a limited series adaptation of The Devil in the White City gets ready for television screens in 2024.

Marrying Urban Identity and Economic Prosperity
A new book posits that truly successful communities have a strong economic base and a firmly rooted sense of place.

Surveying the Rising Trend of Office-to-Residential Conversions
With office vacancies climbing and a stubborn supply crunch driving up the cost of housing, some downtowns have emerged at the forefront of a new wave of adaptive reuse.

$2.2 Billion in RAISE Grant Funding Announced for Transportation Projects
The Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) competitive grant program, supersized by the federal infrastructure bill in 2021, just announced a new round of funding.

Colorado Workers Squeezed by Housing Crisis
In Colorado’s booming resort towns, even sleeping in your car has become an unaffordable luxury.

Did L.A.’s Supportive Housing Bond Fail?
Six years after Prop HHH was passed, the fund appears to be delivering on its housing construction goals in the 10-year timeline. But the measure is being routinely criticized on all sides.
City of Mt Shasta
McKenna
Economic & Planning Systems, Inc.
Cohousing Association of the US
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Rail~Volution
Sun City Center Community Association, Inc
City of Mesa
Town of Gilbert, Arizona
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Hand Drawing Master Plans
This course aims to provide an introduction into Urban Design Sketching focused on how to hand draw master plans using a mix of colored markers.