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To get cyclists off the pavement, build better bike lanes, Washington DC findsA segregated bike lane in Washington DC (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license by BeyondDC:Flickr)

To get cyclists off the pavement, build better bike lanes, Washington DC finds

More cycling overall, fewer on the pavement in US capital
by John Stevenson
Fri, Aug 08, 2014 12:29
39

Fear of traffic is often cited as the reason some cyclists ride on the pavement, so if safer cycling facilities are provided, you'd expect fewer riders on the pavement. A study in Washington DC has found that's exactly what happens.

The Washington Post reports a survey by PeopleForBikes,  that found pavement cycling went down 70 percent when a segregated bike lane was installed.

The lane, on 15th Street NW, also saw a 47 percent increase in cycle traffic, lending credence to the 'if you build decent infrastructure they will come' theory proposed by my activists.

The findings, endorsed by cycling and pedestrian advocacy group Alliance for Biking and Walking, also included a 27 percent drop in pavement riding on L Street NW, with 41 percent increase in cycling; and 52 percent fewer cyclists on the pavements of Pennsylvania Avenue, with 47 percent more bikes.

There have been similar decreases in pavement cycling with increases in bike use in Denver and New York after protected lanes were introduced, PeopleForBikes said.

“People bike on sidewalks for two main reasons: because they’re looking for a space that’s physically separated from speeding cars and trucks, or they’re traveling against traffic on a one-way street,” the group said in a statement.

“Well-designed, protected bike lanes, which use posts, curbs or parked cars to divide bike and auto traffic, create a safer solution to both of these needs.

“In project after project, adding a protected bike lane to a street has sharply cut sidewalk biking even as it greatly increased bike traffic.”

Washington DC
PeopleForBikes
John Stevenson

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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39 comments

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HKCambridge replied to duc888 | 10 years ago
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duc888 wrote:

segregated bike lanes are not the way forward. Think of it like this, you are out in your car on a B road and stuck behind a caravanist ..... 1

In london replace 'caravanist' with 'Boris biker', with no spacial awareness and weaving all over the place. In fact that also describes a lot of non Boris bikers.

The lanes should not be segregated, no kerbs between bikes and traffic, the thick white line system of the London CSH routes works fine, giving faster riders space to overtake.

Which is why good cycle provision includes lanes which are wide enough for overtaking.

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zanf replied to HKCambridge | 10 years ago
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HKCambridge wrote:
duc888 wrote:

segregated bike lanes are not the way forward. Think of it like this, you are out in your car on a B road and stuck behind a caravanist ..... 1

In london replace 'caravanist' with 'Boris biker', with no spacial awareness and weaving all over the place. In fact that also describes a lot of non Boris bikers.

The lanes should not be segregated, no kerbs between bikes and traffic, the thick white line system of the London CSH routes works fine, giving faster riders space to overtake.

Which is why good cycle provision includes lanes which are wide enough for overtaking.

I could understand the position taken by duc88 if all provisions were like this: http://goo.gl/maps/SoqBx (and I can assure you, following someone up that hill who rides slowly is painful!) but decent infrastructure doesnt look like this.

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a.jumper replied to duc888 | 10 years ago
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duc888 wrote:

In london replace 'caravanist' with 'Boris biker', with no spacial awareness and weaving all over the place. In fact that also describes a lot of non Boris bikers.

The lanes should not be segregated, no kerbs between bikes and traffic, the thick white line system of the London CSH routes works fine, giving faster riders space to overtake.

The only thing that unites Boris bikers is that we haven't taken our own bikes into central London, often because of the annoying tube and train rules. Some are slow, while I'm scalping hipsters as we pull away from the lights because a lighter bike and poorly-maintained 11-speed drive train is no substitute for riding the distances us country bumpkins often do. 21

Bike lanes should be wide enough for most overtaking but still protected, probably with bollards like the above, so the more confident riders can change lane easily if it's really that busy. Some of the London CSH routes are horrendous and I think they must be topping up the blue paint quite often because of how many people drive on them.

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cub | 10 years ago
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Why do they insist on having two way cycle lanes on only one side of the road? All it means is you'll have to cycle on the pavement to cross back over to the correct side of the road at a junction and if you cross side road cars tend to pull into it without checking for bikes.

Designers simple put a separate lane on either side of the road.

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HKCambridge replied to cub | 10 years ago
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cub wrote:

Why do they insist on having two way cycle lanes on only one side of the road? All it means is you'll have to cycle on the pavement to cross back over to the correct side of the road at a junction and if you cross side road cars tend to pull into it without checking for bikes.

Designers simple put a separate lane on either side of the road.

Depends. You can design the junctions well to make re-joining the road network or joining another cycle path easy. Even with cycle lanes on each side of the road, junctions needs careful thought.

Agree two-way lanes across side-roads is bad, but not everywhere has side access, such as along a riverbank, train line, or across a bridge.

They're not my preferred solution, but they have advantages. You get more usable cycle lane for the width, because you only need one lot of segregation, and people will tend to cycle away from the sides. It's cheaper. They're more flexible: if you have heavier flows in one direction at different times of day you can use the spare capacity for overtaking.

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andyp | 10 years ago
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if you are going to segregate, that's certainly the way to do it. Riders can get on and off whenever they like/need.

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qwerky | 10 years ago
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Really like the bike lane in the picture, it ticks all the boxes;
- wide enough for two way traffic/overtaking
- properly segregated
- uninterrupted

Puts the crappy infrastructure we have to shame.

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HKCambridge replied to qwerky | 10 years ago
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qwerky wrote:

Really like the bike lane in the picture, it ticks all the boxes;
- wide enough for two way traffic/overtaking
- properly segregated
- uninterrupted

Puts the crappy infrastructure we have to shame.

Well if I was going to be picky (I'm going to be picky) it could be wider if there are heavy flows in both directions. Kerb-side looks like full height kerb, rather than chamfered 45 degree kerb. Chamfered kerb means more of the width can be used because your pedals don't hit the kerb, so you don't need to cycle so far away from it. Those bollards: how easy is it to clip them, and does it hurt? Again reduces usable width because panniers / handlebars can't overhang edge. Is that a drain cover in the lane? Hard to tell in that picture.

Problems mentioned above with two-way cycle lanes on one side of road.

Still lots better than most of UK.

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zanf | 10 years ago
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In other news, bear faeces found in a forest.

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