Sunday, July 2, 2017

A Trip to Portland Oregon: Part 2 - Cargo Bike Roll Call Pedalpalooza Ride (my first!)


I have two xtracycles at home so I had to participate in the Cargo Bike Roll Call ride even if all I brought was my folding Bike Friday bike.
Saw at least three Bike Friday Haul-a-Days on the ride.   
A bicycle-pulled sauna.  Why not?

Great to see all the kids on the ride.
Portland's greenways are so nice!  Another Haul-a-Day with extra wheels for walls.
I like these bicycle-only left turns.   These diverters reduce car traffic on greenways.
Twenty is Plenty!  Portland's Neighborhood Greenways are 20mph and have low car traffic volume.
We rode round Ladd's Circle only 4 times, 496 to go!  Note the cartoon doggie doing a handstand on the Sharrow.


This guy wins for heaviest load!  Long-tail cargo bike plus a trailer.

Quite the sound system on this cargo bike.

A vist to Portland, Oregon: Part 1 - Public Art Tour

I toured the city early Sunday morning, June 11th, taking a route suggested by Where to Bike.

Portlandia
   

"Litte Prince" crown.

Bike sculpture and Zoobomb bike storage.

My Bike Friday in front of the guest at at the Northwest Portland Hostel on NW 18th Ave.
Check it out! Two side-by-side same direction bicycle lanes. 
Now that's a wide buffered bike lane on SW 13th Ave.  From Google Street view it appears parking
was removed from this street sometime after 2016.
On the Hawthorne Bridge.  I like the clear bike and pedestrian markings.

My first ride in a left-side bike lane.   Unusual being in the passenger side door zone.

Bikes and transit, great combination.   Riding the nice recent bicycle infrastructure on Natio Parkway.

Lots of green for people on bikes near the transit station.  Only bicycles and buses can go straight here.


Saturday, July 1, 2017

Looking at FDOT's data on bike lanes, paved shoulders, and speed limits




Striking how many big arterial roads have speed limits 45 mph and greater and no shoulders.  Few bike lanes and paved shoulders on slower roads.  The street grid is often interrupted and this forces people who bicycles on to these bigger roads.

Less stressful north-south connections east of Ridgewood Ave/US-1  and between Hand Ave to the north and  Beville Rd/SR 400 to the south can use the network of smaller, low traffic-volume city streets.   North of Hand Ave many cul-de-sacs provide little to no connectivity and people on bicycles must brave busy roads and take lengthy detours.

On the Beachside, connectively south of Mason Ave/SR 430 is absent apart from Peninsula Dr and A1A, both of which lack shoulders.

All or parts of several wide east-west, 35-mph roads like Mason Ave and Dunn/George W Engram Blvd,  lack shoulders or bike lanes.

There appears to be errors in the paved shoulder database.   For example, paved shoulders are indicated on Beach St between Orange Ave and Bay St in Daytona Beach.  Instead there are four lanes with a median and no shoulders.

Daytona Beach in currently working on a Bike/Ped master plan.  I hope they take this lack connectivity into serious consideration.

Bike lane data: https://ftp.fdot.gov/file/d/FTP/FDOT/co/planning/transtat/gis/shapefiles/bike_lane.zip
Shoulder data: https://ftp.fdot.gov/file/d/FTP/FDOT/co/planning/transtat/gis/shapefiles/outside_shoulder_type.zip
Speed limit data: https://ftp.fdot.gov/file/d/FTP/FDOT/co/planning/transtat/gis/shapefiles/maxspeed.zip



Saturday, October 1, 2016

Statewide Interactive Map of FDOT Speed Limits




Quite amazing how high speed limits are in the very hearts of cities, a danger to all, in particular vulnerable road users: people who bike, walk and roll.  Here's an interactive map of all state roads and some smaller roads.  Jump in a check out your city.   Useful to route planning.  In Daytona Beach note the speed limits on parallel routes ISB/US92 and Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Blvd between White St and US 1.  Speeds on ISB/US 92 are 20 mph higher.   While US 92 has bike lanes, many people on bicycles are on the sidewalk, while on Bethune Blvd slower speeds prevail and people may
feel more comfortable, despite the lack of bike lanes.

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Working on maps for the St. John's River to Sea Loop

The 260-mile St. John's River to Sea Loop is 30% complete and construction continues.  The Loop goes through Daytona Beach where it is also part of the East Coast Greenway.   The latest edition in Daytona Beach includes a wooden bridge under US92/ISB connecting the City Island Library and the News-Journal Center.   Here's a photo of Daytona's Sandy Cyclers on the new trail in early September.



Along the northern part of the Loop between St. Augustine and Palatka are smalls towns that invite agritourism.  A few sites are on this map (screen shot below). The GIS data were uploaded to Mapbox studio and legends and pop-up windows were coded in java script.


Sunday, June 12, 2016

A visit to Tucson: A Gold-level Bicycle Friendly Community

Get up early in Tucson in late May to enjoy the cool temperatures (70s) and Tucson's Rillito River Shared-Use Path!  Early rides provide great, long, morning shadows! About a 20 minute bike ride from the University of Arizona, this urban bikeway runs along both sides of the river on the north side of town. The trail goes under each major road crossing providing miles and miles a stress-free riding.


The ride between the Rillito path to the University is nice.  Mountain Ave has a buffered bike lane most of the way:

Mountain Ave also has signage to help prevent "right-hook" crashes in the bike lane at major intersections...


... and a button for cyclists to call for a green light:


As you approach the University, underpasses provide access to the main campus without crossing major street the borders campus and paths continue into campus to bike parking. 

Other bike routes are easily identified on Tucson's Bikeway map which conveniently folds to size of a business card: purple for off-road paths, green for on-road bikeways:


Apart from the wonderful shared-use paths and buffered bike lanes, Tucson offers bicycle boulevards along low-traffic streets.   Here sharrows, rather than bike lanes dominate, here's 3rd Street, a route I used to ride nearly everyday when I lived to Tucson 10 years ago.


On the 3rd Street Bicycle Boulevard, cars may not turn on to 3rd Street from busy roads.  Note the DO NOT ENTER: BICYCLES EXEMPT sign and the sharrow leading the way:


Bike routes are also marked by signs where the bike routes intersect:  

One some routes, cyclists are channeled to use the cross walk to cross major roads:


At these here the ped and bike crossing run parallel and people on bikes get their own signal:


Note this crossing is a mid-block crossing for bike/ped, there is no crossing light for car traffic:


These routes provide regular sharrows with both a directions and a "share the road" message:





On major roads with regular bike lanes, wrong way signs on the road tell cyclists to bike in the direction of traffic:


So many great ideas here for other cities to steal.  Let's further prioritize bicycle travel!  We may not be Amsterdam, but can we at least be Tucson?

Local Connections:
Shared-use paths you can bike to:  The East Coast Greenway is coming along, just got a big boost as part of the St. John's River to Sea Loop will get $25 million in coming years.  The segment under the International Speedway Blvd/US 92 bridge opens July 14th at 5:30pm!




Protected/buffered bike lanes to the shared-use paths:  Beville Rd (SR 400) just got buffered lanes from Ridgewood Ave/US1 to west of Clyde Morris Blvd (SR 483).  


Other major arterial roads are behind: ISB, Nova, Clyde Morris, Williamson all have sections that are busy, very fast, and lack all infrastructure (except lanes for cars): no sidewalks, no shoulders, no bike lanes, etc. Safe travel on busy roads is important because few parallel routes provide connectivity due to closed-off neighborhoods and waterways.   We need to think about how to build
a low-stress highly connected network for bikeways.   I believe we first need a stress map, then we can start planning:



Friday, March 18, 2016

New National Report Ranks Florida on Biking and Walking

When it comes to biking and walking, how does
Florida stack up? A new report from theAlliance for Biking & Walking puts local and state efforts in perspective in Bicycling and Walking in the United States: 2016 Benchmarking Report.

The broad trend is clear: Walking and biking are on the rise across the United States. Active
transportation has broken through into the
mainstream conversation and been embraced by powerful stakeholders. But the real story is far more complex than a single trend line — or simple narrative.

Our transportation choices are significantly impacted by a wealth of different factors —
from gender to income to available infrastructure — and a new report from the Alliance for Biking & Walking illuminates these often overlooked indicators that shape American mobility.

Bicycling and Walking in the United States: 2016 Benchmarking Report collects and
analyzes data from all 50 states, the 50 most populous U.S. cities, and 18 additional cities
of various sizes. The report traces the rise of walking and biking and explores the intricate
intersections between transportation, health, economics, equity, government funding,
advocacy efforts — and so much more.

So where does Florida stand?

First the bad news:

Walking
● 39 pedestrian fatalities per 10,000 pedestrians in Florida (highest of all 50 states)
● 1.5% of commuters in Florida walk to work, behind the national average of 2.8%.  Jacksonville is last among the 50 most populous cities at 1.2%

Biking
● 4% of all traffic fatalities in Florida are bicyclists (highest of all 50 states)

(Mississippi is highest at 41 in the number of bicyclist fatalities per 10,000 bicyclists, 
Florida is at 23)

Better news:

● 0.7% of commuters bike to work, slightly higher than the national average of 0.6%
● $2.98 in per capita funding in Florida for biking and walking projects, higher than the national average of $2.47.  This is great for local jobs:

Also bicycling and bike share are good for businesses:




Read the full report here and follow @BikeWalk and #BikeWalk16 on Twitter for ongoing
conversation about the Benchmarking Report!