wsbob

Depending upon the type of rider it is that it's hoped will start biking and make biking a regular practice, depending on a given road/traffic situation, bike lanes most certainly may be considered by such persons, and also...advocates, cities and many people besides those that ride...as inferior to cycle-tracks located separate from the main roadway. Many people apparently need that physically separated distance away from passing cars that cycle tracks provide, for them to feel that a bike can be a viable choice of transportation for them.

Because it seems they may take a lot of land and money to build, the cycle-track design doesn't seem likely to replace bike lanes on all thoroughfares around the U.S., or even in Portland. Paralleling some thoroughfares though, cycle-tracks could be a wonderful thing for many people. I'll give bikeportland's publisher-editor a little pitch here...he's been in the NL and Copenhagen the last couple weeks, writing articles with accompanying photos showing some of that cycle-track infrastructure with people using it; they...people and pics...make a strong case that cycle-tracks well sited, work well.

Even if cycle-tracks were built parallel to some thoroughfares in Portland, that in no way would necessarily mean the City Club committee's thought about possibly removing bike lanes from thoroughfares to somehow encourage use of cycle-tracks/discourage use of bikes on thoroughfares, would become city policy.


Some of you reading here, might be interested in googling a map of the section of Foster Rd in question. It's a two and a half to three mile section of four lane thoroughfare...fast moving traffic...ugly...closest point is about the same distance from Downtown. Street runs at a diagonal to the square block grid, leaving no secondary streets parallel to Foster for an easy, alternate bike route. A cycle track would be kind of 'choice' on this street. Putting one in would be a big deal...require moving all kinds of obstacles...curbs, utilities, trees, etc...expensive...no surprise people in the neighborhood don't want to risk or delay the bike lane project by pursuing that idea. If the neighborhood somehow were able to get a cycle-track paralleling Foster, I bet residents would like it a lot.

Bekologist

you realize you're commenting on the city with the greatest participation in bicycling in the entire country, don't you? B CArfree's commentary on both portland and davis are so skewed his commentary loses all credibility. What does spare wheel think of riding the sellwood bridge? ever ridden it solo in the lane at rush hour? I have. Is it 'quite short' like B Carfree describes it? of course not, it's well over a thousand feet in length, as it crosses the willamatte just like the rest of the bridges in that part of Portland. Would you ever consider it one of the most pleasant places to ride in all of portland? I didn't think so.

B carfree's commentary about bicycling, as seductive as it may sound, rings hollow.

Davis is the city with the greatest participation in cycling in the country. "Build it and they will ride" did happen in Davis.


I'm sorry you're having a hard time understanding what I'm posting. Waving a white flag? Hardly. You sound like General Lee at the Appomattox courthouse.

That petrified "the sky is falling, the sky is falling" routine you seem to fall victim to at every suggestion of improving cycling in Portland hardly seems productive.



Obviously, you missed the real bike advocacy cycling report from last week, got confused the civic booster club's white paper was the important cycling report issued last week in Portland.

Bicycle Transportation Alliance of Oregon's "Blueprint for World Class Cycling"


I certainly hope you read the BTA report, spare wheel, if the white paper of the booster club got you into such paroxysms.

To step cycling up to the next level in portland, the BTA recommends a combination of cycle tracks, bike boulevards, paths, bike lanes and regular streets too, just like me and a lot of other people.

spare_wheel

Do you have data demonstrating that there is a large group of cyclists who will use cycle tracks but not buffered bike lanes. I'm not at all convinced. Moreover, bike lanes and bike boulevards have facilitated mode share as high as 40% in some Munich neighborhoods.

Given that Maus' trip was planned and sponsored by the cycle track advocacy group, bikes belong, this is hardly surprising.

Cycle tracks are desirable when speed or traffic density can only be mitigated by increased separation. Given the high-speed of vehicle traffic on Foster, a properly-designed cycle track would have been a good option. It was dropped due to funding limitations. That being said I still favor traffic calming, speed limitation, and non-separated infrastructure in dense urban areas with lots of intersections. Cycle tracks work best in situations where there are high speeds and few intersections.

Bekologist

you need to get your planning warrants straight: those two meter wide, buffered bikelanes you suggest as your preffered alternative physically separate bike and car traffic to the greatest extent possible. -although now you couch your suggestions with the idea that so you're for the cycle track, not the buffered bike lane. okay. your position on Foster is cycle track, not buffered bikelane. got it.

ah, so if portland had sufficient budget for bike transportation, you're for cycle tracks on a lot of the major arterial roads like foster seen across portland! cycle tracks on the busy roads. a good plan, spare wheel. Gee- i wonder if there's any movement towards that model of bike planning going on in Portland right now?

nice flag, did you bleach it this morning?

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you not going to see your plan of 'bikes may use full traffic lane' next to a two meter buffered bikelane in portland. *traffic separation*

wsbob

Data...for Portland or one of its' neighborhoods for which a NL style cycle-track might be considered, that indicates interest on the part of residents in using a cycle-track, if one existed in their neighborhood? If there's apparently no data of that sort, you'll perhaps feel that lack of information of that type indicating support for a type of active transportation infrastructure that Americans generally do not have first hand experience using in their own country, city or neighborhood...means that if Americans had a cycle-track available, they wouldn't use it in numbers significant to make building one worth the effort.

Other than the suggestion presented by pictures of cycle-tracks in Netherlands and elsewhere as well it seems, and much that has been written about them, I have no real way of knowing whether, if they had one available, people in the Portland Metro area would ride a cycle-track. The sense I get though, is that if they were designed well and built well, people would cycle-tracks. I think interest in using them would build up slowly, if some neighborhood or town-employment center in the area actually had a cycle-track available for people to try out first hand. The expense and effort to build one likely would not force the city where it was sited, to go into bankruptcy. Portland has survived complications associated with constructing the Tram, Streetcar, Max. A first class cycle-track on Foster would be miniscule in comparison to those projects. If the city built a cycle-track, and it didn't work out, the city could rip it back out.

Apparently, having to ride right alongside motor vehicle traffic, is a big reason many people in the U.S. won't even consider riding a bike very far on a road where motor vehicles travel also. Cycle-tracks, generally being distance separated from main lanes of a road, address this issue. I think they're how it's possible to get riding, the kinds of people that just want to pedal along a short distance to wherever they're going, without having to constantly be on the watch for motor vehicles rushing past them.

Somewhat unconventional ideas can really grab hold of the public's interest, if people have a chance to try them out...for example, Sunday Parkways, which despite considerable expense to put them on, and a share of criticism, seem to be fabulously popular. Then there's the Eastside Esplanade (for those not familiar with Portland, it's a long pedestrian-bikeway along the Willamette River Downtown), roundly poo-pooed when conceived of, for the money it cost...which has turned out to be hugely successful and popular.

spare_wheel

The preferred form of cycle track in Denmark is contiguous to the road and separated only by a small crub or ramp. Ironically, the Danes prefer this type of infrastructure because its safer than full separation when there are lots of intersections of driveways.

Cycling has far less fiscal support than mass transit. Moreover, building cycle tracks (unless they are funded by the State or Feds) will almost certainly slow the development of cycling connectivity. Hembrow and other european cycling advocates argue that increasing connectivity is more important than installing a particular form of infrastructure. I agree.

hagen2456

All very fine and dandy - except for the fact that they don't have "Dutch-style segregation" in very many parts of Germany. Segregation, maybe - Dutch-style? HA!

Munich is a very nice example of non-Dutch Style segregation. Lots of narrow paths carved out of the sidewalk, making both sidewalk and path too narrow.

hagen2456

Land use and mega stores could be an explanation. It is in smaller Danish cities.

hagen2456

Nah. It's just that lots of streets don't have room for it. Most cyclists here actually prefer them, and there's no statistic telling that they're particularly dangerous.

The ramps do form a quite effective psycological barrier for the drivers, though.

spare_wheel

If our cycle tracks were danish-style road-contiguous cycle tracks, I would have a lot less to ***** about.

Separated infrastructure in the USA is a classic example of the famous Churchill quote: