Hello,

I like the idea of complete streets a lot.
However they need to be constructed well.

Bike lanes at the sides of streets tend to be used a lot by for parking cars - the best thing in my opinion is a barrier between the bike lane and the road - such as a high curb or a small lawn.

The quality of the pavement of the bike lane seen on the picture is worse than the road. On a racing bike i would prefer the road to the bike lane.

So in my opinion the more effective way is constructing a seperated infrastructure for bikes and cars - which reduces the width of the street and brings on something like a complete street as well.

I completely agree. Growing up in northern Virginia and seeing sprawl development germinate unheeded and unwisely planned, this is a great, great idea far past overdue.

As an alternative to what Uli Stehling proposes, a perforated median that cars could cross over in emergencies that bikes could weave in and out of w/ great ease might be more mutually functional.

I primarily suggest this because America is still a car culture and will be for a long time yet, for better or worse. People tend to chafe at anything that inhibits them. While my suggestion would do that, it would not do so nearly as much as the former suggestion.

Also, a partial/perforated median would require less material and less maintenance than would, say, a Jersey wall or a grass strip.

Just a thought.

Love to see things heading this way!!

@Uli:

When you separate the bike lanes too much from the ca rlanes you will get more accidents. The reason for this is that car drivers taking a right turn will overlook the bicyclists, and consequently hit them. In my opinion the best thing is the situation as in the picture, but with the seperation line replaced by a kerb stone.

Excellent post. I would suggest, however, that you leave out skateboarders. They tend to be parasites and damage the pavement!

Can you elaborate on how us skateboarders damage pavement? ;)

I agree with the first commenter...that bike lane paving surface would be uncomfortable for a road bike and unrideable for a kick scooter.

That said, KUDOS for the idea of taking back the streets

I thought studies showed it was safer to actually have a real separation between cars and bikes (like in Amsterdam).

There is no substitute for education and enforcement. People need to learn and understand the roads are for everyone and officials need to enforce the laws. If a car is seen cutting off a cyclist or driving/parking in a bike lane, they should be ticketed for reckless driving.

Anyway, the surface in that photo is definitely not ideal for cycling. Even on a mountain bike the constant bumps would become quite irritating.

Agreed with several commenters; while I like the idea of bike lanes being a different color, that should be accomplished by coloring the surface material. Paint is slippery and bricks are labor intensive, but pigmented asphalt is neither.

Bike lanes by the edge make the most sense to me, too, as that encourages people to treat bicycles as vehicles, and makes transitions to areas without bike lanes easier.

Skateboards themselves do not damage pavement, but stunts like sliding and jumping can chip curbs and stone edgings.

Also, how about completing the sidewalks? In most parts of the US, developers are required to put sidewalks in their developments, but they are usually only on one side and they usually end near the entrance, making them essentially useless for pedestrians. Even when the development COULD be walkable, forcing pedestrians to walk across 100' of mud or road encourages them to drive, instead.

I can't agree more with the first comment. Bike lanes that are on the side of motorised vehicle lanes just don't work. There needs to be a clear separation between bikes and motorised vehicle lanes. This idea has been tried before and is ineffective; vehicles do park and wander into the lanes making cycling difficult and ultimately more dangerous.

Bike lanes - not sure that is an improvement.

A study just out of Copenhagen, Denmark, compared the accident rate on streets before and after bicycle infrastructure (bike lanes, blue lanes across intersections, side paths) was put in ("Road Safety and Perceived Risk of Cycle Facilities in Copenhagen").

Side paths were the worst, of course. But even bike lanes looked like they had a negative impact.

They found that the accident and injury rates went up very significantly for everyone - pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists. While there was an increase in bicycling on the streets that were modified, the increase in numbers was significantly less than the increase in injuries to bicyclists and there was no indication that the enhancements increased the overall number of bicyclists. They may had just switched streets.

Some of the injury increases were amazing - the worst was to people entering/exiting buses. Their injuries went up 1762%!

Wow, a brick bike lane.. what will they think of next?

In the Netherlands (Holland) bicycling has always been common, like in Denmark, Sweden, India and China.

I can compare roads with still modest car-traffic on the same 'lane' as the cyclist in the 50's with the present situation in Holland. Wherever possible the city-planners now make seperate bicycle-lanes. On many long stretches the cycle-paths are seperated, sometimes at a distance from the car-road. Especially in cities there are many bicycle-lanes with just a reddish colour and a interrupted or continuous white line to seperate it from the car-lane.
The last road-situations where car and bicycle share the same space are diminishing fast. And that is good.

It is utterly clear that one cycles much more relaxed when not constant being taken over by cars and busses, so close by. Bringing your children to school on bicycle is still very common in my country, especially since most distances between house and school are bicycable.

Forget too much staring at studies and their outcome. Whenever possible and at the continent, rent a bike and experience it yourself. Semi-seperated or fully seperrated bicycle lanes are the best thing possible from a current shared road-situation!

The only 'problem' could be the getting too relaxed when cycling. When one does run into a shared situation, both cyclist and car-driver could be too unaccustomed so that one or both fail.

One more about change:
Since 8 years the traffic-law is changed in that cyclists coming from the right have right-of-way over a car arriving from the bike's left, when the crossing road are equal.
(A logic rule-change I thought, cause since childhood I couldn't grasp why faster traffic should have more rights than the slower, and more vunerable ones, so cyclists should yielded to pedestrians at all time too I believed.)
The outcome is that that the change from a know balancing of 'might' and 'right' is difficult. Cyclists don't take their right easily; it's still a risk. Drivers may be reminded to the changed rights in a relevant situation, only if he/she is a rare traffic-thinker with a noble heart or when the cyclist presses and thus reminds the driver.
Hope is on the new generation that get's the present traffic laws taught at school.