gerv 

At a recent bike infrastructure planning session, we were told about "bicycle super highways".

These are combinations of MUPs, side-streets, bike lanes... whatever exists... consistently marked as a bike route and intended to support bikes moving from one end of a city to another.

To me this sounds like another dismal "share the road" effort.

But there could be some differences:
- in London, these have been clearly indicated with blue paint through the area and seem to be non-cars sections.
- the routes use low-traffic streets as much as possible
- in some parts of Europe, these are new infrastructure, with clear separation from car traffic and intended to handle a lot of bike traffic. In North America, the intention is to piggy-back on existing car infrastructure and support a more modest bike traffic flow.

If carefully planned, this could be a great way to add bicycle infrastructure while not spending a lot of money. It would also allow for fairly rapid increase in bicycle traffic.(This last one is important because a lot of existing infrastructure , ie MUPs and even some bike lanes, are often over-crowded and unable to support future growth.)

Unfortunately, I'm not finding much on the Internet... has anyone heard or have much experience with these?

Platy

"Bicycle super highway" is a pretty grandiose name for a patchwork bike network. Sounds pretty ominous too. I think the phrase itself would incite anti bike opposition from the usual sources.

Ekdog

The ones planned for London were discussed in an episode of my favourite cycling podcast, The Bike Show from Resonance FM. There is difference of opinion on them. Give it a listen.

chewybrian 

www.greenway.org

This group is trying to create a bike trail from Maine to Florida, connecting all the large cities along the East coast of the U.S. It would be, if completed, about 3,000 miles long, with 2.000 miles of connectors. They say about 20% is complete, in the form of off-road trails(it does not mean they were made for this purpose, as they are attempting to link up existing trails).

They offer maps to the completed trails, and road sections to link them up, so it is possible to ride it now, if you're willing to be on the road most of the time. I hope they finish it, because I would love to go the whole 3,000 and back.

mr geeker

bicycle super highway... ACA route maps!

SunnyFlorida

I clicked into the Florida portion because it runs pretty close to where I live in Melbourne. It mentions a wide side path. What wide side path? Are they talking about the sidewalk that hugs the A1A route on the left hand side?

Would be neat to be able to travel from where I live to St Lucia (where a relative lives) and possibly to Fort Lauderdale or Miami where (you guess it) I have even more relatives.

Aussie_Al

Yeah that would be a fantastic experience

Roody

I have alternating feelings of fear and hope when I hear about these bicycle infrastructure projects. Some are wonderful boons to everyday cyclists, some are poorly disguised attempts to push bikes out of the way, and some are really just recreational projects which are nice fun but of no benefit to transportation cyclists.

If your area is like mine, there are several advocacy groups and government agencies that all claim to be designining projects that will be good for cyclists. I'm on all their email lists because sometimes the come dangerously close to actually accomplishing something.

chewybrian 

Yes, I'm pretty sure they mean the sidewalk. But, to be fair, very few driveways or roads intersect that sidewalk south of 192. It's very wide, and a lot of it is blacktop and smooth, so it's as much of a MUP as anything, though rarely used.

Do you mean St. Lucie? If so, A1A to Vero, cross to Old Dixie Highway to St. Lucie. I've ridden that, and it's super easy. We have a brevet ride that covers a lot of it. I'm not so sure about going to Ft. Lauderdale and beyond, though. From my experience, the fun/easy rides end around Jupiter.

gerv 

What's going on here is that the planning consultants are kind of trying to meld the phenomenon in Europe and trying to fit it to mid-size US cities. The European version is meant to accommodate a rapid growth in cycling which they anticipate in a few years, without spending a great deal of money. Take away from the cars. Give it to the bicycles.

However, there is kind of underground movement happening in the US, built around bikely.com and google maps where unofficial and often quite serviceable route are found in existing streets, paths, alley, etc. All that is needed is for the planning company to put a better name on the product and sell it back to their clients... the cities.

I listened to this and was intrigued enough to stay for all of it despite the 3 minute intro and the references to streets and districts that I am unfamiliar with. It's wonderful to see what the next evolution in problematic planning is ... when the cities are struggling to decide that " the green alley "(ie, a flow of green lights designed to keep traffic moving) should switch from cars to bicycles. When commuters in the US start fighting for these rights, you know we've gained ground.

However, as everywhere, car parking takes precedence... even when the bicycle traffic outnumbers the car traffic.

tsl

There is that. But the advocacy groups around here seem to engage only the political machine, which probably explains why they only come dangerously close to accomplishing anything.

I've found working directly with DOT is far more effective.

Even before the legislature passed a watered-down version of Complete Streets last month, DOT's mandate was to be all-inclusive on new projects and rehabilitation of existing routes. Even so, these things take time.

It was 18 months ago that I rode around with a DOT engineer giving him a cyclist's eye perspective of the four-lane one block over from where I live. They were contemplating a "road diet". Last month it was milled, repaved, and restriped as a two-lane with left-turn-only lanes at all stoplights. And, all No Left Turn signs were removed.

It had been my favorite route to, from and through downtown. Now, hoo boy! It's an incredibly nice ride, and not just for the fresh asphalt. I have my own lane in each direction, stoplights excepted, but even there I share a 15-foot wide lane. Even the most hamfisted driver can manage to share that. On more than one occasion I've found myself riding right past my turn simply because the ride is so nice.

Even better, two drivers--yes drivers--have told me how much they like the new changes.

Among other projects where I've shared the cyclist's viewpoint is an incredibly controversial expressway/surface street interchange. DOT was considering a Diverging Diamond Interchange. Initially I was vehemently opposed to the concept. I was swayed by the presentation and driving simulations, then I was recruited by the engineering staff.

In the end, every one of my objections were covered and what's now an incredibly dangerous interchange for cars as well as cyclists and peds, will become much safer and smoother. All my suggestions from the standpoint of a road cyclist were included as well as those from a sidewalk cyclist's perspective. Everything made it into the final plan. Construction starts next spring.

The point is, that especially beyond the public meetings, the traffic engineers I've worked with truly enjoy their jobs and relish the challenge of adding bikes and peds to the mix safely. In all the projects where I've had input, there was never a question of marginalizing cyclists and peds. They not only understand, but embrace the concept that "I'm not holding up traffic, I am traffic."

So I don't work much with the advocacy groups any more. They make a lot of noise, and a lot of enemies. And they work only with the politicians, who really are interested only in where their next campaign contribution is coming from . They don't give a hoot about anyone or anything else.

I go directly to the DOT engineers. And I bring the donuts.

akohekohe

+1 The secret is to get to know the engineers that a really making the decisions. The devil is usually in the details and people will listen is you can get there in the planing phase.

As far as the Super Highway concept I just got through riding the entire Mississippi utilizing the Mississippi River Trail. Well, it was interesting, sometimes there were nice back roads and other times the trail was on a heavy traffic road with lots of trucks and what was an adequate shoulder at one time until they put the rumble strip down. It amazed me that roads that were on an official national bike route could pay so little attention to that needs of bicycles. In many, many cases the roads could have been bicycle friendly with simple design changes that would have cost nothing or even saved money. So one wonders what the designation really means. Don't get me wrong, there were some nice roads that had been improved with bicycles in mind and some very nice trails like the stretch from the Quad cities to Savanna, but it is frustrating seeing large stretches of road that could have easily been very nice be so bike unfriendly.

12bar

In parts of Brazil they pave the center of the median for bicycle and pedestrian use, it appears to work fairly well.

Artkansas 

That's about as ludicrous a term as "information super highways". What do they think we are trying to do, pedal across the country at high speed? Very automotive-centric thinking if you ask me.

Roody

Provided the bikes and the peds are separated from each other, and there are safe and efficient means for each to enter and exit the median trail.

gerv 

Oops... I have to apologize about this.

I believe the speaker may have called these informal route "bicycle boulevards." These are routes through residential or low traffic streets and frequently link up with trails, paths and sometimes alleys.

"Bicycle superhighways" is the term used in London to define something basically a bit wider than a bike lane, colored blue and intended to cross the city. I believe several posters above also use this term for long bike paths.

Robert Foster

I don't see why this has to be an either or proposition. We can have cars and bikes in the same general area and lights can be designed to work for both. I would love to see some kind of continous bike lane running from one side of our state to the other and even from west to east and north to south in the US. We need better seperation I agree but I have been to several states where there is plenty of shoulder room for a pretty good bike lane. I happen to be in Gallup this week and there is a shoulder of about 8 feet running from the west end all the way to down town. I have been on the bike path from Oceanside to San Diego a few times and found it pretty nice even if at times the cars were about 4 feet from you and in some of the little towns a bit closer. My only gripe is very few lights are set to be tripped by a bicycle, at least not a CF bicycle if that makes any difference.

Several years ago three counties received money to build the SART bike trail all the way from San Bernardino to Hunnington Beach. Some of the counties finished their part and some still have a long way to go, unless you have a MTB and don't mind a bit of dirt road. I have been waiting for at least four years to see that finished.

gerv 

That's funny, you know. In Canada, I believe you can cross the entire country by bike on the Trans Canada Highway. I believe there's a paved shoulder the whole route and bikes are allowed.

In Iowa, there's almost nothing in the way of paved shoulders, but you can easily cross the state on "county blacktop" roads, which are part of a network of paved country roads with almost no car traffic. It's a little boring though -- long stretches of corn fields, with a bunch of small towns, many of them without store or places to stock up.

wahoonc

From what I gather the London Superhighway leaves quite a bit to be desired. If they want to call a bicycle route a super highway I want to see something very similar to an interstate: Limited access, for bicycles ONLY, no dogs, pedestrians, scooters, mopeds, or cars.

I am still puzzling over the bicycle boulevards, the only one I have seen so far in Wilmington, NC still puzzles me, they put sharrows on a 2 block stretch of road, and the sharrows have you riding in the door zone of poorly parked cars.

Aaron

Roody

It's a big fad in the traffic engineering community to include something they can call "bicycle facilities." Unfortunately, the traffic designers rarely care if these facilities actually benefit every day cyclists.

rbrian

In Britain we have the Notional Cycling Network, not just in London, it covers the whole country.

I actually live on a stretch of Notional Cycle Route 1! It is an urban dual carriageway, the main entrance to the city from the south, with heavy motor traffic including lots of lorries since it close to the docks. There are no cycle lanes, just advanced stop lines, which are everywhere (and very welcome) in Aberdeen. The pavements (sidewalks) are too narrow to cycle on, they're barely wide enough to walk on, and I'm pretty sure it's illegal to cycle on them anyway.

It seems that in order to become part of the Notional Cycling Network, a small blue sign is added, and tada! - a horrible road becomes a perfect place to cycle.

The best part is half a mile further on, when a narrow (18" or so) strip of tarmac is painted red with a cycle symbol, as a right turn lane (we drive on the left in Britain). The other side of the road is almost always blocked with traffic waiting for the lights to change, and should you manage to cross two lanes you are led into a rough cobbled street with no motor vehicle access, to find cars parked everywhere, and random pedestrians.

csanders

What a bicycle super highway may look like (Cedar Lake Trail in Minneapolis, MN):

Robert Foster

I am spending the week in New Mexico this week and noticed that in Gallup I can ride my bike on old route 66 with a shoulder that is about 8 feet wide all the way into town. I was talking to a guy that just opened a small bicycle shop in downtown Gallup, the only one I believe, and he said you can ride all the way to Canyon De Chelly from Gallup with a reasonable shoulder. I didn't see it as all that reasonable, maybe two feet, but the light traffic did give you a lot of room. Now if it only wasn't so windy in the afternoon

But I have noticed that even with all this room and very little traffic there aren't many cyclists on the street. Not like Denver or Salt Lake City.

SunnyFlorida

Ahhh yes, I meant St. Lucie. Didn't notice the typo at the end. Thanks for picking that up and clarifying what I thought they meant as usuable bike highway around my way.

Thinking about this super highway again, it's a nice idea but as others have generally pointed out, easier access for locals to get around their own county would be more useful.

gerv 

I think they are under some pressure to increase cycling infrastructure, but then they have to deal with people who want to park their cars on the street... right next to the Bicycle AutoStrada... Ekdog's link above to Resonance fm bike show is a good example. The mayor of London is a cyclist, so are many traffic engineers, on many routes the bicycles out-number cars and still there is intense pressure not to time the green lights in favor of bicycles or to remove parking.