john m flores 

"A new working paper from the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), 'Designing for Small Things With Wheels,” offers tips for city planners looking to bring bike infrastructure into the new era of micromobility.

'Rapid growth in cargo bikes and trikes for deliveries and family transportation means that many devices in a bikeway are wider, longer, and have larger turning radii than typical bikes,' the paper states. 'E-scooters have smaller wheels than bicycles and handle surfaces, bumps, grates, and gradients differently than devices with larger tires.'"

https://bikeportland.org/2023/03/21/not-just-bikes-new-paper-says-bike-lanes-must-evolve-as-vehicles-do-371644/amp

Korina

Here's a link directly to the paper. NACTO has a lot of good publications; i.e. it's a rabbit hole.

Daniel4

I would caution that if bike lanes too wide cars and pickups will be using them.

FBinNY 

One of the problems with trying to accommodate everybody is that you end up accommodating nobody.

A chief argument for segregated bike lanes is the difference in speeds (cars &bikes) causes nonlaminar flow, and passing hazards.

So, if you create bike lanes, then opt to include e-scooters, boards, roller blades, etc. you end up with the same problems you initially were trying to resolve.

The bright side is that those issues are now limited to the second class users you claim to be serving.

Having ridden for decades in NYC both before and after bike lanes I've come to the conclusion that separate but unequal isn't good for bicyclists.

Just tossing this out there for folks to think about.

livedarklions

If these lanes are being used by heavy motorized cargo vehicles, they really are just narrow roads.

tyrion

Now there's a proper bike lane (West Mission Bay bridge, San Diego) . Concrete barrier, etc. Unfortunately the off ramp to the bike path on the other side is not complete, so it takes you to the Midway Dr. Death Gauntlet.

diphthong

almost miss the super tight "walk your bike" bridge path that this replaced. almost. they've done a nice job with this bridge. midway/sports arena/rosecrans triangle of death not getting better anytime soon.

for major streets in the city of san diego, the road quality on midway, university (from park blvd east to la mesa), ingraham south of rocky's/pacific beach drive to the northern edge of mission bay,
camino del rio norte (from texas st/qualcomm/stadium way to ward st) and india from laurel st/5 fwy underpass to old town are all dogmeat.
university ave-by far-has the longest, non-consecutive stretches of dogmeat...approx 4 miles. park to wilson ave, then fairmount to the la mesa border.
the others are roughly a mile-1.5 miles. not exactly something to be proud of. the winter (and now spring!) rains didn't exactly help matters any.

flangehead

Standards are a double-edged sword. They are a way to collect experience and best practices.

However in my experience they are often implemented by designers with limited real-world user experience, and the objective is to check boxes against standards for liability protection.

We have to participate in the process of avoiding bad designs and influencing future standards.

So I will leave you with this jewel from Destin FL:


Westbound bike lane.


At some times of the day a bicycle is faster point-to-point. Westbound.


No bike lane eastbound . … and there is no reasonable alternative to this road.

I would be surprised if these were not built to some “standard”.

Korina

Bollards.