Separated Bike Lanes: Two Modest Proposals

Physically separated bike lanes have been used in many cities and substantially improve cycling safety without impeding traffic flow. There are two main proposals.

The first is a simple change in streetscape stratification to reduce the turbulence between traffic moving at different speeds. Bike lanes are moved next to the sidewalk, with a car parking "lane" separating cyclists from moving vehicular traffic. So called "complete streets" more closely reflect the variety of social and recreational functions that they are actually used for. The video below demonstrates the use of this approach in New York City.



The second proposal is predominant in Vancouver. Here is what I wrote of this system in a letter published recently in The Star in response to an editorial encouraging heavy regulation of bikes as if they were cars (Sept 19, 2009, Insight section IN7):

As a long-time commuter cyclist who has lived in both Vancouver and Toronto (and who has been hit twice in a bike lane by cars running red lights in this city) I can assure you that excessive regulation is no substitute for good design.

Toronto's approach is flawed compared to Vancouver's. There, major bike routes are not along the main arterial roads where traffic is at its most dense and drivers at their most frustrated. Instead, the major bike routes parallel main thoroughfares on residential side streets that have been fitted with roundabouts at every intersection and cyclist priority crossings at major arterial intersections.

The result is a pleasant bike ride with less exhaust fumes, lots of room for cyclists to pass one another, separated bike and car traffic, no "door jamming," a calmer interaction when cars and cyclists do meet, and a whole network of small businesses that serve the cyclist commuter population. It's a win/win approach for everyone.

Approaching traffic flows as a question of "design" is valuable because it is able to respect traffic flows and street use relative to the nature of both the vehicle and participant. Neither is granted artificial priority over the other. Ontario and Toronto currently approach the problem through a legal framework that regulates bicycles as if they are equal to cars. But it is little more than a legal fiction that the two are commensurate. The legal abstraction ignores the reality that bikes are more vulnerable, less visible, and prefer to maintain their momentum. Bikes can't help but conflict with the stop/go logic of combustion cars. Recently, The Star wrote quite an excellent piece reflecting on the need to think about the problem from outside the "legal abstraction" box (Kenneth Kidd, "Traffic signs can make streets dangerous" Toronto Star Sept. 5 2009):

The North American approach to regulating traffic, rules that are supposed to ensure safety, may do just the opposite because they emphasize rights and diminish individual judgment and any consideration of others.

Compared with most places in Europe, North American cities are crammed with traffic lights and signs telling us what we can and can't do. They confer rights, which we've been conditioned to assert.

That's the subtext every time a driver races through the intersection on a green light and honks loudly at any pedestrian who has lingered too long in crossing.

It's there when a cyclist blocks an entire lane or a pedestrian marches onto a crosswalk without checking to see whether an oncoming car or cyclist can safely stop in time.

John Staddon, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at Duke University who's lately been turning his attention to traffic, argues that the plethora of signs is actually the key reason North American roads are more dangerous than European ones. We look to signs to give us instruction – tell us our rights – rather than making decisions based on the actions of other drivers, pedestrians and cyclists.

Staddon notes, for instance, that some studies have found drivers actually give cyclists a wider berth in the absence of marked bike lanes. In other words, drivers are using their discretion, rather than looking for a line on the road.

An experiment now sweeping Europe is the removal of as many signs as possible, and sometimes even sidewalks. It seems to be working. In some neighbourhoods that have tried this approach, pedestrian accidents have fallen by 40 per cent and the traffic moves no more slowly than it did before.

11:22 AM