Originally Posted by
Road Fan
I think that without strong cycling lobbying, states and other authorities will not entertain major road marking changes and especially expensive road geometry changes. So we need to think of low-cost solutions.
How will cyclists get to the median path? If we're not to cross up to three lanes of traffic moving up to 80 mph, there must be a crossing facility designed that separates the cycle travelway from the motor-vehicle travelway. It must be installed at closely-spaced locations allow exit/entry access to at least the major accesses. If your going to cross and remain separated, there has to be a cycling overpass or underpass. Chicago (just for example) has a few steel ped/cyc bridges that cross Lake Shore Drive and allow access to Lake Michigan, but they are over 50 years old. All bridges need maintenance over time, even if the build cost is low.
Road problems need to be analyzed in terms of use cases. Is your problem mainly while cycling on the shoulder, or in using a MUP that parallels the arterial? Is it with the interface between the merge/diverge and US 169, and crossing that interface when fast cars are entering/exiting the cloverleaf? Is it in negotiating the cloverleaf to get to the cross street (Rockford Road in your example)?
Why is the best travel choice to use the high speed road? Isn't there an alternative road cyclists can use?
I guess we're in a hole in the road design policies, where bike-legal highways are built with features of a true non-bike-legal limited access highway, or when a high-speed bridge is the only way to cross a waterway or other obstacle. The Ambassador, Blue Water, Zilwaukee, and Mackinaw Bridges in Michigan are other examples. I don't know how one might go from Detroit, MI to Windsor, ON by bike.
My overall answer: show a strong and broad understanding of all aspects of the problem, and a means of implementing this solution concept that is not expensive. Even more, show that it is the best solution to support the expected volume of cyclists on such a road, and hence justifies the public cost. Highway departments have the charter to use public money to promote and improve public transport, but they need to focus on the projects that will either remove the biggest dangers, improve the biggest bottlenecks, facilitate commercial transport, or improve accessibility for a large segment of road users.
I don't see the set of cyclists that are willing to use 60 mph limited-access highways as being large. Many people, even here, argue for separated cycleways such as MUPs.
Road Fan
The issue with cloverleafs is crossing over the lanes that cars use to enter/exit. Whether you are in the shoulder or on MUP, it's hard to put it on the side of the highway when you have to deal with the curved roads entering/exiting at 30-40 mph.
On my design, the way that you would get to the starting point of the "trail-in-the-median" would be to use the crosswalk at the nearest intersection. On the other side, after you've crossed the cloverleaf and arrived at the next closest intersection, there would be a walk button ride where the trail ends, so that you can trigger the light to cross through the intersection again and continue on your way.
To me these seems like a very cheap way to incorporate a bikeway through a cloverleaf.
That pic I took of the intersection at US 169 is important because it is actually in a highly populated suburb of a large metropolitan area. There is a beautiful regional park and large lake to the west of that cloverleaf, only about a mile further, but people on the east side of the cloverleaf will have a hard time biking to that park/lake area.
I know there are alternative roads, but do you really want to have to travel 2 miles out of your way to the nearest safe road to cross a freeway, and then travel 2 miles back? Automobiles aren't expected to do that, so why should we be expected to?