ak08820

https://vimeo.com/59953351
Bike Path from Marblehead, MA to Swanscott, MA

genec

His vision of what could be would of course be quite nice... but doubtful that it would happen.

Paved path with bridges... oh my.

dynodonn 

Eugene Oregon comes to mind, and what great looking bridges they are, especially at night with all their lighting.

Ferrous Bueller

I didn't know there was another Attenborough brother.
Humo(u)r aside, I love his dream of an East Coast Network.
Connect it to the Trans Canada Trail, and by 2017 there's another 14000 miles to roll on to.

genec

We should have major and minor networks all over... even if they do not touch all cities or all areas of cities, they will still provide cyclists with some relief from dealing with motor vehicle traffic on every inch of their routes. If the systems were well designed as a bicycle freeway, there would be underpasses and overpasses allowing cyclists to not have to stop and thus conserving momentum and energy...

But it would take a transportation act equivalent to the national highway act of 1956 to get something like this done. Perhaps if we weren't so busy buying new fancy attack aircraft for our military we might be able to build some bicycle infrastructure to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. This would also encourage better national health. But hey, I am dreaming, right...

buzzman

Nice link. thanks.

B. Carfree

The one with all the red lighting is something of a local joke. It was built to connect a part of town that has approximately zero people who walk or ride bikes to the main river bike path. While it does successfully span the four lane Delta Highway, some idiot designer failed to note the 60 mph traffic on Goodpasture Island Rd that adjoins Delta Highway. Thus, those few people who cross that bridge must wait for this high speed traffic to clear before attempting to cross. Needless to say, very few people use the bridge and no unaccompanied children cross it. At one point we feared it would cost close to $1000 per crossing, but now it looks like it will be less than $100.

Eugene is pretty good at securing funds for bike bridges and paths to no where. Unfortunately, the notion of actually building bike infrastructure to connect people to places has not yet arrived.

dynodonn 

Looking at the Goodpasture crossing, with peds and cyclists only having to cross one lane at a time, it is nothing to the 3 lane arterials that many pedestrians and cyclists have to cross in our locale on a daily basis. Maybe having a radar speed sign next to the 40mph speed limit sign that's located at the crossing might be a helpful start, along with a push button activated crossing lights to alert drivers would be another useful addition.


Added: Just today, a young woman was seriously injured in crossing one of our local 3 lane arterials.

B. Carfree

Sure, it's doable and definitely isn't on anyone's top 100 list of dangerous crossings, but would you let your eight-year-old do it? If a hundred foot long bridge is going to be built to connect a neighborhood to the riverfront, it seems silly and wasteful to not construct the last thirty feet so that it actually makes the connection.

And I guess that brings us back to the topic: connections or lack thereof. Wouldn't it be lovely if bike infrastructure was constructed with connectivity in mind? Locally, our traffic planners have rigged the game so that there is only one discussion per decade (so-call TransPlan) on regional connectivity, and that committee is stacked with motoring interests. In the intervening years it is impossible to change policy towards sane, safe connections with the possible exception of the periodic reports from a city-only pedestrian and cycling advisory committee.

dynodonn 

Oh hell yes. If my children at 8 years old could not navigate that crossing, then I could not have trusted them to cross a two lane street. Do you have any data showing the number of peds and cyclists being hit at that crossing? It's a whole lot safer than crossing one of our busy two lane streets, since at that particular crossing a person only basically has to concentrate on one lane/one direction at a time.