Bicycle advocates in San Francisco want the city to pave bike lanes with colored pavement, but so far the city has resisted the plan, citing a lack of standards.
"If you've ever been so fortunate as to ride a bicycle in the Netherlands or Denmark you know what a difference it can make to have the "bike space" in the roadway called out directly by a different colored pavement. Declaring bicyclists' right of way in such a readily visible manner grants the bicycle a higher legitimacy in an urban streetscape, and is part of the Dutch and Danish formula for successful mode shares for cycling (39% of trips take place by bike in Amsterdam, 36% in Copenhagen; San Francisco sees probably 5% of trips by bike and aspires to 10% by 2010, per our official Bicycle Plan).
Of course, you don't need to travel to Europe to ride your bike on colored lanes. Brooklyn's got some blue bike lanes, as does Portland, Oregon. We hear that even Sunnyvale has some blue bike pavement now, and Petaluma put down some red bike pavement a while ago.
Colored pavement technology is actually pretty pedestrian these days. Generally the pavement coloring is achieved not by plain paint, which tends to be slippery when wet and not too durable, but rather by coloring the paving medium itself, asphalt or composite material. For retro-fitting existing streets, a simple paving slurry, dyed to the appropriate color, is spread out like peanut butter over the roadway, then ground smooth, leaving a thin layer of colored bike lane. As the pavement wears, the color keeps up (bike traffic wears down roadway much more slowly than cars and buses do). Long strips of colored bike lane can be implemented quickly in this way."
Yet efforts to create colored bicycle lanes in San Francisco have not progressed.
"So far nobody in California or Washington DC has written up specs on colored pavement for bike lanes, so SF's traffic engineers are unwilling to use the "device" for fear of legal liability: someone could use the nonstandard bike lanes against the city in a lawsuit. That's right, someone might claim that they didn't know what they were doing when they ran the red light because they were confused by the green bike lane."
FULL STORY: San Francisco Should Move on Colored Bike Lanes
Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
San Francisco's School District Spent $105M To Build Affordable Housing for Teachers — And That's Just the Beginning
SFUSD joins a growing list of school districts using their land holdings to address housing affordability challenges faced by their own employees.
The Tiny, Adorable $7,000 Car Turning Japan Onto EVs
The single seat Mibot charges from a regular plug as quickly as an iPad, and is about half the price of an average EV.
Engineers Gave America's Roads an Almost Failing Grade — Why Aren't We Fixing Them?
With over a trillion dollars spent on roads that are still falling apart, advocates propose a new “fix it first” framework.
The European Cities That Love E-Scooters — And Those That Don’t
Where they're working, where they're banned, and where they're just as annoying the tourists that use them.
Map: Where Senate Republicans Want to Sell Your Public Lands
For public land advocates, the Senate Republicans’ proposal to sell millions of acres of public land in the West is “the biggest fight of their careers.”
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.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
Borough of Carlisle
Smith Gee Studio
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Astoria
Transportation Research & Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
Municipality of Princeton (NJ)