Envisioning Bike Lanes On Your Street

What would cities look like without sidewalks with all traffic - walkers, cyclists, and motorists - using the same throughways for transportation? Who would ever walk? Certainly, a radical concept to imagine, but the author posits that this is what transportation planning does to bicycling by not allotting dedicated networks for cyclists. According to Durning, the vision of bike-friendliness means a "complete, continuous, interconnected network of named bicycle roads or "tracks," each marked and lit, each governed by traffic signs and signals of its own. It means a parallel network interlaced with the other urban grids: the transit grid on road or rail; the street grid for cars, trucks, and taxis; and the sidewalk grid for pedestrians. It means separation from those grids: To be useful for everyone from 8-year-olds to 80-year-olds, bikeways on large roads must be physically curbed, fenced, or graded away from both traffic and walkers."

Is this possible in the US? Durning says yes, and that it doesn't have to be accomplished solely by the creation of new bike lanes, which often times means the reduction of vehicular capacity (not a terribly popular concept in many towns), but that it can be done on residential streets by traffic calming techniques that may "make entire neighborhoods bike-friendly without adding a mile to the bikeway count."

In the article, Durning provides several links that offer examples of what communities are doing for bicycling as part of integrated transportation planning.

He also states his vision of what bike-friendly looks like "a 60-year-old and her granddaughter on two-wheelers, getting the green light at each intersection they approach, while drivers brake to stay out of their way."

Thanks to Mary Pat Lawlor