Biking and Walking - Bike Routes

Slowing Traffic | Sidewalks | Crosswalks | Bike Routes

Bike lanes and routes
On-street bike lanes are striped travel lanes for bicyclists. Bike lanes broadcast to the community that bicycles are an important part of traffic, sending a message of welcome for both those who ride now and those who would like to ride.

Unfortunately, many communities still haven't taken this step, or have only taken a half-hearted approach. Maybe yours is one of those?

Different streets, different approaches
Bike lanes serve bicyclists best when they are striped on busier streets. Quiet neighborhood streets almost never need bike lanes because traffic tends to be slow and sparse. However, such streets may carry lots of bicycle traffic: families riding around the neighborhood and folks riding through on their way to work, school, or a store, for example.

For these quiet streets, basic improvements are most important

- patching pot holes
- eliminating "blind corners"
- replacing dangerous storm sewer grates

Plus, connecting these streets with important destinations is critical to their safety and utility. This may mean creating safe, "bicycle-friendly" intersections with major roads, or it may mean creating an off-road bicycle connection, such as a bridge or a short trail.

Striping bicycle lanes on busier "arterial" or "collector" streets is a different matter. Because most such streets are often already striped with turn lanes, through lanes, and bus lanes, bike lanes must fit within that setting. It is possible to quickly — and cheaply — stripe bike lanes on some streets. For instance, a collector street may currently have just a centerline stripe. If there's room, bike lanes could be signed and striped at very little cost, especially if done when the crews are out refreshing the paint after the winter.

Bike lanes on major arterial streets, however, can require serious study and careful design. Many existing stripes will almost certainly be in the wrong places. Some travel lanes may need to be narrowed or eliminated. For this reason, bike lanes on major streets are often best done in conjunction with a major improvement project or, at the very least, when the street is repaved. This allows the engineers and work crews to "start from scratch" with fresh asphalt.

Removing stripes from old pavement may seem a good idea, but it seldom works out well in the real world. Old stripes can still be visible. which can confuse drivers, especially on dark, rainy nights. The bottom line: done right, bike lanes on busy streets can be an important link in a community's bike network.

Creating Your Route Networks
A quiet street bike network is a service for bicyclists who aren't interested in riding on busy streets or who are afraid to ride in traffic. Providing signs that identify this network can give riders important navigational cues: "University - 2 mi.;" "Busy Street bypass," "Scenic/Historic Bike Route," for instance.

With the help of the bicycling public, you can quickly come up with some test routes to try as an experiment, and then fill in the gaps as you go along. Be sure to check the candidate streets very carefully to make sure they don't harbor any hazards that would catch unsuspecting bicyclists by surprise!

A bicycle route is identified through signing. The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) describes the signs: all are green with white lettering: (1) a sign with a bicycle on it; (2) a subplate with destination information; and, if necessary, (3) directional aids. The diagram shows typical bicycle route signs.

The basic sign, with bike symbol and destination, should be used fairly often on a route. Directional aids should be added at decision points or where several routes come together. Distance information should be added at regular intervals, perhaps every mile or 1/2 mile.

Because the signs are green, they are strictly informational. This means that putting up bike route signs to warn or regulate is wrong, although historically many jurisdictions have done just that. Yellow signs should be used for warnings and white/black (or red) signs should be used for regulatory messages.

Creating bike routes can be very inexpensive. Once the specific streets have been identified, a series of signs is just about all that's required. A simple one-mile route could be designated for a few thousand dollars. Where routes cross major roads, rivers, or other barriers, however, the costs can go up quickly. Structures such as overpasses and tunnels linking neighborhoods are often the most costly "barrier breakers," sometimes costing millions of dollars. Still, such connectors can open up miles of quiet streets.

Resources
For a look at the range of design options and where they're best used, check out the Oregon Bicycle Pedestrian Plan's discussion of On-Road Bikeway Design Standards. Over the years, the state of Oregon has been one of the leaders in bicycle facilities.

To see how bike facilities can be integrated into a major city's street system, check out Chicago's Bike Lane Design Guide, created by the City in conjunction with the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation and the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center.

Both items are linked in the Resources box below.

- On-Road Bikeway Design Standards (Oregon) | Online Resource
- Chicago's Bike Lane Design Guide | PDF File 1.2MB

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