http://www.sfmta.com/cms/uploadedfiles/dpt/bike/Bike_Plan/Shared%20Lane%20Marking%20Full%20Report-052404.pdf

This is an impressive study undertaken in San Francisco.

The compromise on the placement of sharrows, resulting in a minimum guideline which endangers bicyclists, illustrates a major cultural problem in this country—lack of respect for bicyclists. Can you see how the same people who insisted on the sharrow placement would also be in charge of building bikeway facilities?

Building facilities on the current cultural foundation will make things WAY WORSE for transportation cyclists. The facilities will be inferior, inconvenient and possibly dangerous. Bicyclists will still be a minority, but we will have come to public attention as a special interest which has received expensive facilities built with “their” money. The majority will then insist we be required by law to ride on what has been built for us, and kept out of “their” way.

You can post a million links about how great European facilities are. It’s meaningless. What will be built here will not look like that. It will not be built by a culture which considers the bicycle a viable mode of transportation. It will be built by a culture that wants cyclists out of the way of motorists.

I’m not speaking hypothetically. I live in a city with 100s of miles of trails built for toy bikes. These trails are wonderful when they are on their own right-of-way. Some of them serve a transportation purpose. All of them have fundamental flaws in the way they terminate and interface with the roadway system. We have:

$4 million trail bridges not designed to be ridden over, they have signs which say “bicyclists must dismount.” They couldn’t be bothered to design them right, but they’re happy to pat themselves on the back for installing them.

We have a multimillion dollar trail tunnel which closes at sunset. You must have your toys home by sunset.

Almost all trials become poorly-designed sidepaths when they run out of separated ROW. Some of them even become ridiculous Frankenstein configurations next to residential streets. Or they just dead-end into sidewalks with no attempt to integrate back into the transportation network. Message is clear here: bicycles are toys, not vehicles. They don’t belong on the road, any road. Therefore, bicycles can’t possibly be a viable mode of transportation.

There were dozens of important physical features and cultural attitudes in place in Europe BEFORE the bikeways were built. Those features and attitudes make up a foundation that is absolutely required for building quality facilities. Attempting to force facilities in current US culture will likely result in a decrease of service for transportation cyclists.

Cycling advocates have a responsibility to understand the culture in which we operate, think ahead and form appropriate strategies so they don’t make things worse for cyclists.

“Bicyclists and motorists must never be able to cross paths at grade.”

Kevin’s comment:

Interestingly enough, I was just writing about this at the Commute Orlando blog.

Level crossings do present a problem. Fortunately, there are several solutions to this problem. Here are five examples of potential solutions from the City of Copenhage, which has done an excellent job of protecting cyclists through intersections.

Example #1: Bike boxes (note how cheap they were to install) at:
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2008/07/117-safer-intersections-in-copenhagen.html

Example #2 blue paint (again, cheap) to show the bike route through the intersection at:
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2008/11/copenhagen-blue.html

Example #3: roundabouts (less cheap, but cheaper than human life) at:
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/01/countryside-bicycle-lanes-and-city.html

Example #4: Giving cyclists the right-of-way (signs are cheap) at:
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2008/02/cars-stop-for-bikes.html

Example #5: separate traffic signals (cheap) for bikes at:
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2007/12/copenhagen-berlin-bike-traffic-lights.html

With the sole exception of reconstructing intersections as roundabouts (expensive), all these items are cheap and easy to do.

I’ll take a sixth example from Toronto, the so-called “Barnes Scramble.” To see how it works, take a look at the video at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQkFEMisENU

Since human intelligence knows no limits, there are probably other solutions also out there, but here are six tools in the toolkit of protecting cyclists and pedestrians at level crossing.

“Bicyclists and motorists must never be able to cross paths at grade.”

Kevin’s comment:

Although fully grade-separated is the ideal, there are several inexpensive ways of protecting cyclists through level crossings.

Copenhagen has done an excellent job of protecting cyclists through intersections. Examples include bike boxes (note how cheap they were to install) at:

http://www.copenhagenize.com/2008/07/117-safer-intersections-in-copenhagen.html

Or blue paint (again, cheap) to show the bike route through the intersection at:

http://www.copenhagenize.com/2008/11/copenhagen-blue.html

Or roundabouts (less cheap, but cheaper than human life) at:
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/01/countryside-bicycle-lanes-and-city.html

Giving cyclists the right-of-way (signs are cheap) at:

http://www.copenhagenize.com/2008/02/cars-stop-for-bikes.html

And separate traffic signals (cheap) for bikes at:

http://www.copenhagenize.com/2007/12/copenhagen-berlin-bike-traffic-lights.html

With the sole exception of reconstructing intersections as roundabouts (expensive), all these items are cheap and easy to do.
There are many North American examples, ranging from Davis, California to Toronto.

My test for infrastructure is “am I OK with my 10-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter cycling on these roads?” If the answer is “no,” then the infrastructure is broken and needs to be fixed.

For an example of good infrastructure, see this video of children going to school in Assen, NL at: