It has been around 14 months since the city adopted the bicycle master plan and SDOT has made great strides. Over the summer it seamed like every time I rode somewhere there were new bike lanes or sharrows popping up. There were some snafus and I think the city still doesn’t fully understand how to design bicycle facilities but they are working it out (although slower than I would like).
Bike lanes are great but SDOT shouldn’t stop there. We only need to look to Portland or Boulder to see all of the amazing bicycle facilities that can be built when you really want to. So far the city has done a lot of the low hanging project that are just obvious but soon the city needs to show how serious it is about bicycle facilities and start taking out parking and vehicle lanes. We all know what happened to Stone Way. I think that was a very important lesson for the city.
One corridor that I think these more advanced types of bicycle facilities are especially warranted are along Eastlake Ave. It connects Seattle’s largest urban villages, has a lot of bicycle traffic and it should be designed accordingly.
The most important thing Eastlake Ave needs are cycle tracks (not bike lanes) from Fairview to the Harvard. Actually the cycle tracks could even go all the way up to Ravenna or even Lake City Way but again I won’t touch on that.
Eastlake is uniquely suited to have cycle tracks. The blocks are very long in the N/S direction which reduces the number point in which the bicyclist have to interact with vehicles. Additionally there are a only a few driveways that connect to Eastlake Ave. Again this reduces the number of times that bicyclist interact with vehicles. Eastlake would become the defecto N/S spine of the bicycle network connecting to the Burke and Ravenna.
Cycle tracks are very common in Scandinavian cities and provide the most attractive bicycle facility possible in urban environments. Instead of wedging bicyclist between parked and traveling cars cycle tracks move the bicyclist to the very edge of the road, next to the sidewalk. Bicyclist are protected from moving cars by a 2-3 foot median and when possible parked cars. The most important aspect of cycle tracks are that even an average person who wouldn’t normal ride in the road will use them. If you want to learn more about cycle tracks watch this presentation or flip through the power point.
This is a quick sketch I made to see how cycle tracks might be fit into the ROW. Eastlake is around 55 feet wide. I also think that the intersection with Harvard and Fairview should be looked at because they are major points where bicyclist branch off. Harvard is a perfect location to install a bicycle signal with a protected left turn phase. My only serious accident was at this intersection and it wouldn’t have been serious if there was a protected left turn.
This cycle track in Melbourne is what cycle tracks in the Seattle might look like.
At the end of the day bicycling has to become safer and more attractive if it is to become accepted as an integral part of our transportation system. Bike lanes are a awesome but cycle tracks are the type of segregated bicycle facilities that really start to bring around the necessary paradigm shift.
hm that’s a really cool idea, although maybe it wouldn’t be necessary for eastlake because of the cheshiahud trail… but i’m not exactly sure where that trail is. but there are quite a few streets where that would be great. i wonder if it could work downtown anywhere?
The Cheshiahund trail will likely only be a recreational trail, because Eastlake Ave will always be more direct. These cycle tracks are a good idea, although it may be challenging to fit them into a street that could also have a streetcar.
The Cheshiahund loop is also not designed to the standards of a bicycle trail, it is a loop, not a trail. The city doesn’t want cyclists using it, it was primarily designed for pedestrians.
One of the problems with Eastlake is parking. The local businesses are scared to death that a reduction of on-street parking will kill them. The public right of way is so narrow that doing streetcar plus cars plus bikes is going to be very problematic if we don’t remove on-street parking.
What we need is an education push in our local businesses to help them understand that cars do not equal customers.
The truth is that these separated bicycle lanes aren’t necessarily safer. They have been studying this a lot in Europe and found that there are more serious accidents involved with separated bike lanes then with other types of bike infrastructure. Thus, Europe is now moving towards more shared space concepts and ideas.
THAT BEING SAID, I think that you are right on in saying this would be super handy for Eastlake. The truth is that separated has a much safer PRECEPTION. Having biked Eastlake many times I know it is utterly uncomfortable and doing it once can prevent you from wanting to bike it on a regular basis. A separate bike lane would encourage and allow many more users to feel at ease and start biking between the Northend and Downtown regularly.
I only mention the above because I think there can be a tendency to think a completely separate bike lane network is the answer but I believe it can end up a big waste of money and space as well as not stating clearly to drivers that biking is priority. I mean, my theory is that the roads are already there, we just need to get more bikes and less cars on them. Separated bike lanes should be part of the solution, but only where they are necessary and will facilitate a large amount of new riders.
Check out these for more info on bike paths:
http://www.bikexprt.com/bikepol/facil/sidepath/adfc173.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_path_debate
Thanks a lot for pointing that out. I didn’t want to harp on that point for several reason.
The image above is from the study you referenced. Although I don’t have any information to say otherwise I think that one has to be very cautious in using an old studies from Sweden. Driver and bicyclist behavior is very different in the US and Europe. Just look at the difference in bicycles and what the bicyclist are wearing. Yeah kind of ridiculous.
Also many lessons have been learned about segregated facilities since that study was conducted. The fact is that there just aren’t enough example in the US to determine how safe they are here.
Shared space facilities are awesome (I really prefer this type because I hate riding on streets with high vehicle volumes) and I think we need more of them but they only really work on neighborhood streets.
Going back to the image the most dangerous bicycle movement (contraflow on the right, 11.9 in the figure) isn’t very common any more because it is so dangerous. They have them in some places but they are pretty limited and are usually more “trail” like than cycle track.
Also the left turn from the cycle track doesn’t take into account most cyclist in europe do a “copenhagen left” (essentially taking a left how a pedestrian would get to the opposite corner) at intersections. This is because in most European countries it is illegal for bicyclist to be on the roadway so it would be illegal for them to get into the left turn lane.
The second reason I didn’t talk about this is because anyone who lives along Eastlake knows that the only people that use the curb lane when they are open to peak traffic are buses and bikes and maybe right turn vehicles at Lynn St. Besides that bicyclist already “own” that lane so lets just codify that fact with a physically separated facility.
As you said during off peak hours it is horrible to ride along Eastlake and I don’t do it because I don’t feel safe. If I feel like that I’m sure there are casual bicyclist that are terrified of Eastlake. I know how to ride in mixed traffic and I’ll take a whole lane when I don’t feel safe with someone passing me but most bicyclist will not do that.
I recently purchased directional turn signals for my bike and the 1st day I used them they saved my life at an intersection where a truck was making a right turn.
It’s a no brainer. I purchased mine at http://www.safetybikesignals.com