9 Answers

• Reputation: 1178 Q&A: 28 0 2 681 103 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 1

  3 0 Get rid of Seattle's absurd segmented pavement design. That is to say: repave every street that's bigger than a residential street with normal pavement. Then go back and repave the residential streets too. With all the various hazards of cycling, having to deal with tire-catching ledges and gaps scattered randomly throughout the city is never fun. One of the best things about riding in Portland, or even on the Eastside, is not having to deal with segmented pavement. Lilting Missive answered in Cars, Bikes & Transit over 2 years ago | Report 1 comment by TVDinner Redux… 0 0 You see?! This is exactly the kind of information I want! I'd forgotten about those fucking segments, since I've spent the last two years in Spokane and the problems out here include - and I am not making this up - a load of animal bones dumped in the bike path. They're gonna smell great today. Thank you, Lilting. Keep it coming. TVDinner Redux commented over 2 years ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

  Share this answer with a friend:

• Reputation: 3 Q&A: 0 0 0 3 0 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 0 Ian Page-Echols

  3 0 Play on people's psychology. For example, the sharrows might indicate that there are bikes in the area to someone who is looking at all of the signs. However, this is an arrow in the street. This says that the bikes are in the domain of the car. The sharrows indicate that the bikes are there, but not that you are supposed to do anything about it. My favorite counter example to that is in Boulder, CO. They had some crazy crosswalks going across a fast street to get to campus. It felt dangerous to walk (or run, if you were smart) across because you were in the domain of the car and the cars never slowed down. At some point, they redid some of these crosswalks. The street was asphalt, and they differentiated the crosswalk by making it both raised and paved with brick. When you get there in a car, it's just obvious that you are crossing over into the walking realm. Instantly, with no education or signage changes, the drivers slowed down and waved the walkers across. I think that the easiest way to make a big splash of a bike friendly message is to do like London and other cities with fees in order for dirty and big vehicles to enter the downtown areas. Make it free for electric vehicles, bikes, and pedestrians to access these areas. Make large park and ride stations on the perimeter so it isn't a hassle. Put in charging stations for electric vehicles. In this type of situation, I think it's a no-brainer to fully close off some streets to car traffic. Here, something like 1st, 2nd or 3rd downtown being closed to cars and buses would be great. Allowing cafe seating out into the first lanes while setting the middle lanes as fully bike lanes would make it more of a destination and something people could count on as a main part of their ride to and from work. A place they wouldn't have to worry about being around loud and scary traffic. Festivals/events on closed off streets can affect how people think about these types of changes. Close the street that's being targeted for bike and cafe seating use every weekend. People love when the streets are closed off and they treat the area differently after they see what's possible. Give bikers treats. Like part of a path goes through somewhere you don't get to see from your car. Some cool water feature maybe. A lot of European cities have bike specific "highways". These are bike paths that keep going at intersections (underneath maybe), making them really fast for commutes, and just like a highway or subway, you can take an exit for the street you want and get fairly close to where you are going. I think there is a benefit to visibility, so maybe a mixture of choices so that the drivers know to be looking for bikes. I really think these types of things are doable in almost any US city currently. All it takes is some political guts on the part of a mayor or maybe a batch of city council members. Ian Page-Echols answered in Cars, Bikes & Transit over 2 years ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

  Share this answer with a friend:

• Reputation: 6000 Q&A: 113 0 11 4226 721 3 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 6 Fnarf

  3 0 Since bikes ride with cars for the most part, the safest thing you can do for bikes is make the cars drive slower. That means smaller streets with more intersections (shorter blocks). No giant four- or six-lane arterials, or, if you have to have them (because your city is too spread out), these arterials need to have real dedicated bike lanes. None of this sharrow garbage. If you're designing from scratch, you have the opportunity to try to build some sort of curb-separated lane, perhaps. Look to Copenhagen for arterials. Also: pay special attention to intersections, because intersections are where problems occur. A bike lane that right-turners have to cross to get to their turn is a disaster waiting to happen. For intersections, stick to square grids; Seattle's plethora of veering lanes that head off this way and that way are often impossible to bike up, and difficult even for drivers to figure out what they're supposed to be doing. It's not enough to retrofit existing poorly-designed streets, as Seattle is proving. Too often, that's the approach: look at what you've got, and try to design some cosmetic improvements to lay over the top of it. But you can't bike up a street with nice planter boxes. The entire grid needs to be rethought. Note that shrinking the fabric of the city makes arterials less necessary, because stuff is closer together and thus closer to where you already are. Then, you can replace those city arterials with country lanes, which are more fun to bike on anyways. Fnarf answered in Cars, Bikes & Transit over 2 years ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

  Share this answer with a friend:

• Reputation: 9 Q&A: 0 0 0 13 4 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 0 David Hiller

  2 0 In addition to speed reduction mentioned here already, some of the elements to a bikeable community that you should strive to influence are: origin-destination collocation, and site design elements that support trip making by bicycle. Origin-destination proximity, usually accomplished through the planning and development of mixed use communities, effects trip length and travel time. With tolerance for travel time being roughly fixed, the closer travelers are to the suite of destinations they may need to travel to on a given day, the easier it is for them to choose a slower mode, such as bicycling or walking. Site design also effects mode choice. Long setbacks with oversupplied parking separating buildings from streets and sidewalks have been shown to generate fewer bicycle trips than zero-lot-line buildings that frame the public space. Much of the research on the subject has been captured here, in the Guide to Promoting Sustainable Transportation Through Site Design : http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/programs/environment-most-canadianguide-1149.htm David Hiller answered in Cars, Bikes & Transit over 2 years ago | Report 1 comment by Fnarf… 0 0 Good god, man. "Frame the public space". THANK YOU. So many people talking piffle about urbanism today don't get this. They waffle on and on about "green space" and "plazas" and stuff as if no one had to live through the seventies. Streets are rooms. And "origin-destination proximity" is just another way of saying "shrink the fabric of the city". Right on. Fnarf commented over 2 years ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

  Share this answer with a friend:

• Reputation: 1 Q&A: 0 0 0 1 0 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 0 icefish

  1 0 I love the dreamers' answers, and believe we should aim there. However there is quite a bit of low-hanging fruit that can be harvested by the handful and still make a difference, just by making bicycling NORMAL: - require buildings to post information about bicycle parking at the front entrance; locate bicycle parking at the front entrance or in other visible places - this applies most importantly to all public buildings and facilities - make it illegal to post a sign prohibiting bicycle parking without including information about where to park (horrible example: Westlake Mall) - require that all of your city's communications relating to transportation - including directions to events - include bicycle information (when Seattle unveiled the Master Bicycle Plan, the invitation to the event gave directions only by way of the freeway!!); this applies to websites, emails, posters, ads, whatever. - when giving directions to places and events, DE-emphasize driving - drivers will look past the bike, transit and walking directions to find driving directions, but they won't go past the driving directions if they have never considered NOT driving - make sure your city takes advantage of the recent law that allows bicyclist commuters to be reimbursed tax-free for the cost of cycling (currently only $20/month, but hey, it's a start!). Find additional ways to reward city employees who commute by bicycle, and give incentives for businesses to extend these benefits to private-sector employees as well. - ride your bike everywhere yourself, wearing normal clothes in every kind of weather. The best way to make a city bicycle friendly is to get people riding bicycles, all sorts of people for all sorts of reasons. It's circular! The more people ride, the more people will demand bicycle-friendly design; the more bicycle-friendly the design, the more people will ride, etc. etc. icefish answered in Cars, Bikes & Transit over 2 years ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

  Share this answer with a friend:

• Reputation: 3723 Q&A: 109 0 27 1716 713 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 1 Rev.Enant

  1 0 in no particular order: Giant multilane bike habi-trails soaring above the traffic. On the surface: ped and bike only zones. But more than just college campuses: I'm talking DISTRICTS. Biking storage/shower centers like Chicago has. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald%27s_Cycle_Center Free bikes for the homeless. 2 to 4 Free Bikes via the city to anyone that wants to trade in their non-electric car. trees. Lots of them. mini-roadways on the grid, just like roads, but built for smaller-than-car vehicles such as bikes, skateboards, etc. security / locking stations that work and are in likely-needed areas. revamp bike laws to fit the city, NOT the other way around. Bike parking zoning required in new residential high density zones - replacing car parking minimums. Incentives for small repair / refuel / massage businesses to open in the city along bike route - mobile would be even better. smooth-ass road pavement like in Medina. separation between bikers (20+ mph) and strollers/bladers at places like green lake. Rev.Enant answered in Cars, Bikes & Transit over 2 years ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

  Share this answer with a friend:

• Reputation: 1610 Q&A: 27 0 12 879 49 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 0

  1 0 Make sure the bike paths go somewhere people want to go. Just riding is nice, but I want not just a ride but a reason to go at the end of it. I will ride to get to my favorite restaurant, my gym, or the farmer's market a lot more often than I will ride for the ride alone. CleverScreenName answered in Cars, Bikes & Transit over 2 years ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

  Share this answer with a friend:

• Reputation: 160 Q&A: 0 0 7 26 6 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 0

  1 0 Go to Vancouver, BC and copy what they've been doing. This includes bike signals at intersections, roads with bike lanes having a symbol on their street signs, through-paths for bikes on dead end residential streets, etc. Alex answered in Cars, Bikes & Transit over 2 years ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

  Share this answer with a friend:

• Reputation: 25 Q&A: 0 0 0 29 4 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 0

  0 1 Well, do you ride a bike? It affects the answer! alexkostelnik answered in Cars, Bikes & Transit over 2 years ago | Report 1 comment by TVDinner Redux… 0 0 I've been commuting for more than 20 years, both in the suburbs (scary!), through every section of Seattle, and now in Spokane. My bona fides are in order. :) I'm just curious about other peoples' ideas. TVDinner Redux commented over 2 years ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

  Share this answer with a friend: