The kinds of wheeled-vehicles used for getting round on our streets today are very completely different than they had been a decade or so in the past. Bike lanes aren’t simply utilized by folks on common bikes anymore: check out who’s utilizing Portland’s bike infrastructure and also you’ll see every kind of gadgets, from Lime e-scooters to giant cargo bikes, and even electrical one-wheelers.
However as transportation expertise has quickly developed, bikeway design has largely stayed the identical. A brand new working paper from the Nationwide Affiliation of Metropolis Transportation Officers (NACTO), “Designing for Small Issues With Wheels,” provides suggestions for metropolis planners trying to carry bike infrastructure into the brand new period of micromobility.
“Fast progress in cargo bikes and trikes for deliveries and household transportation implies that many gadgets in a bikeway are wider, longer, and have bigger turning radii than typical bikes,” the paper states. “E-scooters have smaller wheels than bicycles and deal with surfaces, bumps, grates, and gradients in another way than gadgets with bigger tires.”
Some folks could ask if folks using all these newfangled gadgets be allowed within the bike lanes in any respect. Sure, the NACTO paper says: even when an e-bike or scooter can journey sooner than a daily one, the individual using it’s nonetheless susceptible to automobile site visitors. Design enhancements could make it so everybody can journey safely with out competing for house.
“Usually, bike lanes are the very best, most secure, and most comfy place for folks utilizing the big selection of (usually electrified) small issues with wheels,” the paper states. “To make sure bikeway design is inclusive of all potential riders — no matter which wheeled system they experience — designers have to accommodate extra folks utilizing bikeways with larger pace and dimension differentials.”
The paper comes up with 4 key areas the place “up to date design considering” is required to accommodate the brand new breadth of auto sorts: lane width, intersections and driveways, surfaces and gradients, and community legibility.
Lane width
Biking pace varies considerably from individual to individual, and as electrical gadgets develop in recognition, the vary of speeds you may see folks utilizing in a motorcycle lane can be increasing. How can we make sure that all of these persons are capable of journey safely?
One key means is to deal with lane width so folks can go one another comfortably in bike lanes, even when they’re using greater gadgets like cargo trikes.
“Wider bikeways can extra comfortably accommodate the rise in passing occasions and the rise in side-by-side using that comes with larger bike volumes,” the paper states. “Wider protected bike lanes are particularly vital for kids and caregivers, side-by-side riders, folks utilizing adaptive gadgets, and folks transferring items.
The paper offers a step-by-step methodology for figuring out vital lane widths, which differs for one-way and two-way bikeways. In the end, these calculations will range relying on who a planner determines is utilizing the bike lanes, however the paper suggests contemplating the widest system folks will use to find out the passing house width and ensuring to contemplate the completely different between the marked width of a bikeway on paper and precise bikeable width. (Keep in mind the “shy distance”: the “unrideable floor subsequent to a vertical object” as a result of it’s too near a wall, curb, gutter, and many others.)
Utilizing these pointers, a one-way bike lane accommodating cargo bikes needs to be 7.5-8.5 toes broad — doubled for a two-way lane. That is fairly a bit wider than a few of Portland’s bike lanes, together with the two-way bikeway on Naito Parkway, which has seven toes of house in every course.
If there isn’t sufficient house alongside all the bikeway, NACTO suggests methods to make do: “alongside all services, search for alternatives to supply and designate wider passing areas. Uphill passing alternatives could be particularly helpful alongside services the place folks use gadgets with and with out electrical help.”
Intersections and driveways
Good intersection design is essential for ensuring interactions between folks on micromobility gadgets and folks in automobiles go easily. With new units of wheels within the image, planners have completely different concerns to make. The NACTO paper offers three suggestions for designing intersections and driveways, that are to:
- “Design sufficient house for folks to attend at intersections” to keep away from overcrowding and battle between pedestrians, bikeway customers and motorcar site visitors, and supply an apparent protected place to attend so folks don’t “spill right into a crosswalk be compelled to attend very near motorcar site visitors.”
- “Permit turning maneuvers and lane shifts at acceptable working speeds” and ensure turning radii at intersections are “maneuverable by all gadgets working within the bikeway.”
- “Guarantee visibility of all bikeway customers at intersections and driveways,” which varies “based mostly on motorcar pace, driver expectations, and bikeway speeds.” Folks using sooner gadgets within the bikeways “necessitate longer sight distances so turning drivers can see approaching riders in time to gradual, yield, or cease utterly.”
Surfaces and gradients
With completely different units of wheels come completely different on-pavement experiences. Issues that is likely to be okay to somebody using a daily bike could also be insurmountable to somebody on a skateboard or scooter with a set of small, dense wheels that don’t take in shock properly. (And actually, the folks on bikes will recognize smoother surfaces, too.)
“For a lot of riders with small wheels, even slight maneuvers to keep away from particles may cause the consumer to fall, tip over, or lose management of the system. Trash, gravel, snow, ice, and different roadway particles develop into a serious problem for these smaller-wheeled gadgets and a substantial nuisance for customers with bigger wheels,” the paper states.
Some suggestions for planners: design a “easy however not slick” floor that has good traction in all climate circumstances and take into account learn how to make grade adjustments extra comfy. (The paper endorses bike-friendly pace bump designs like those PBOT is presently searching for suggestions about.)
However, as everyone knows, none of this issues if the roadways aren’t well-maintained. The paper states cities have to “develop proactive upkeep practices to make sure that bikeway surfaces are maintained to the next diploma,” noting that “comparatively minor potholes, longitudinal cracks and seams, and different roadway defects can pose a hazard for smaller-wheeled gadgets.”
Community legibility
How do folks know which bikeways to make use of? Wayfinding and community legibility is changing into a scorching subject of dialog amongst bike advocates right here in Portland, and apparently the priority is related throughout North America at giant. The NACTO paper states that “folks depend on a mixture of formal data and apparent connections when deciding the place to experience” and together with “complete wayfinding and intuitive, comfy, and protected transitions between services improves the perform of the bike community and of the sidewalk community.”
“Indicators and markings will not be an alternative to good design, however assist set expectations for learn how to use the bikeway. They’re useful for clarifying the number of methods folks can use the bikeway and emphasizing that newly common system sorts—like e-scooters and e-bikes—are welcome,” the paper states (utilizing an instance from Portland’s personal Naito Parkway).
It’s fascinating to consider how infrastructure ought to evolve together with automobile sorts. I feel a lot of the backlash to shared micromobility gadgets like electrical scooters has to do with the truth that their adoption and recognition has outpaced infrastructure growth in a number of circumstances. In a spot like Los Angeles, which has rentable scooters in every single place however a restricted bike lane community, persons are compelled to experience on the sidewalks (regardless that the scooter firms say to not) or the road. This may end up in an uncomfortable and harmful journey setting for everybody.
As Portland prepares to doubtlessly undertake plans like an e-bike rebate program and a cargo bike-friendly freight plan, town might want to work even tougher to verify our streets accommodate all of those gadgets. This NACTO paper offers a very good framework for the place they may begin. You possibly can learn the full paper right here.
Taylor has been BikePortland’s workers author since November 2021. She has additionally written for Avenue Roots and Eugene Weekly. Contact her at taylorgriggswriter@gmail.com
