What would make good routes for Sharrows?

Atlanta has an opportunity to be at the forefront of cycling. Although we're not banning automobiles from all surface streets just yet, there are only a handful of municipalities in the US that are considering sharrows.

What are these innovative lane markings for cyclists?

The Wikipedia article for Shared lane marking (or sharrows) describes sharrows as markings on a road where the lane is too narrow for a bike lane or the bike lane would put cyclists in the "door zone" of parked cars. They indicate the location on the pavement where cyclists are expected to travel (typically about where the right wheel of a motor vehicle would be).

The intent is to mark favorable bike routes and help both motorists and cyclists understand the best lane position for a cyclist to maintain when the lane isn't suitable for bike lanes. Atlanta has a number of good roads for cyclists that are a little narrow for bike lanes. Sharrows are the proposed way to indicate those routes.

I had put together some criteria for choosing appropriate roads in Atlanta that would be suitable for an initial set of sharrows:

• Minor thoroughfare with substantial, but not heavy traffic;
  
• Single travel lane too narrow for bike lanes;
  
• On-street parking;
  
• Intersects with other facilities (planned or actual).
  

For initial selections, the following criteria will improve the chances of acceptance by both motorists and cyclists:

• Already has substantial bike traffic;
  
• High visibility;
  
• Pleasant route regardless of what it connects. In other words, the route can be its own cycling destination.
  

It was several months ago that I posted about sharrows. Since then, the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition has started talking with the City of Atlanta about a pilot program to introduce sharrows within the city. Starting with the criteria above, we've proposed a few routes:



This website allows browsing the map and getting more detail about the routes. The website will be updated as we generate more proposals for routes.

I'm interested in hearing your suggestions for either routes or criteria for selecting a route. The routes listed are examples we'd like to expand upon.

Sharrows anyone?

This topic has been on my mind for some time, but what prompted me to write about sharrows is a petition to add 'Bike There' to Google Maps.

Lots of people would support Google adding an option to plan out a route appropriate for cyclists between two points. Cyclists are always asking each other the same thing, so certainly the demand would be there. How do we get this thing built?

I'm a software developer and can appreciate something called "software re-use". Re-using software means finding existing software close to what we need, exploring the gaps, and then considering how those gaps might be filled.

Google Maps relies on existing databases of street maps. Does the information specific to cycling -- hills, lane width, traffic velocity, and bike paths/lanes -- exist in similar databases?

For some cities, the database and sofware both exist. Atlanta's own A-Train Trip Planner is an example of software that combines cycling with mass transit and knows about hills and traffic volumes. In moments it plots routes that I've spent years working out. On Wikipedia, several such systems are listed under the page Intermodal Journey Planner.

These systems probably go beyond what we're asking Google Maps to provide in one important aspect: they take into account putting your bike on a bus or train and thus have knowledge about your departure/arrival time and the transit schedules.

What else do we have to help cyclists get to their destinations? I really like the Bike Suitability maps (Midtown/Downtown example) that grade routes by color and indicate hills. This collection of maps is an excellent condensation of cycling route knowledge.

There are also on-line route databases such as bikely.com that list routes that other cyclists have worked out.

Finally, we come to sharrows, which we don't have in Atlanta. Yet. These have advantages over Bike Lanes in a few respects:

• Not limited to streets wide enough for separate lanes
  
• Indicates a lane position that avoids the door zone
  
• Provides motorists with a visual aid for judging the 3-feet clearance cyclists need
  
• Reduces the number of wrong way cyclists
  
• Still performs the function of letting both motorists and cyclists know the route is frequented by cyclists, but does so more prominently.
  

I support efforts to add "Bike There" to Google Maps, but I also understand there are both good alternatives and good existing software to build upon.

Commute Summary

Round Trip Distance: 18.7
Number of Cyclists seen: 11 (5 in, 6 out)
In-bound Route: Goofin' 9.6
Out-bound Route: Emory via Clifton
Weather: Full-finger gloves for the first time this season and windy.

Density good for Cycling?

Intown Atlanta is going through re-development. Under-utilized properties are planned for more square-footage and that brings more traffic, right? More traffic = bad, right?

The Beltline proposal that was released this past week for the northeast segment argues that density is good and made some good points about how it is good.

For non-local readers, the Beltline is a proposed light rail system that forms a roughly 3-mile radius loop around downtown. It is exciting for the city because this will likely turn into a magnet for new urban development. Parts of this are already being built. My neighborhood Virginia-Highland, borders a northeast stretch of the Beltline.

With the rise of the suburbs, people fled the urban street-scape to find their own piece of land away from it all. To avoid traffic on the street in front of their house, they avoided through streets and thus became dependent on arterial streets to get anywhere. This image shows most trips being made on high-speed and high-capacity roads and thus most likely in a car.

 

What is proposed is a return to the streets of older cities. This image shows a network of smaller streets that allow multiple paths and encourage lower speeds. These streets are more conducive to both pedestrian and bicycle travel.

 

Although there are more people -- and probably because there are more people -- the cars are not as threatening because they are forced to travel closer to people speed.

Another factor is the number of cars in a small area motivates drivers to leave their cars behind. Proximity to work, shopping, schools and restaurants -- in short, density -- makes it possible to ditch the car.

Atlanta's Bureau of Planning has been seeking public input on the city's first transportation plan. I attended a workshop at City Hall East this evening and got to see some of the ideas they're talking about.

I was encourage by a few things:

• One of the guys I spoke with had worked in Portland.
  
• A willingness to entertain ideas that other cities have found helpful (sharrows and bike boulevards for example).
  
• Increased designation of routes through the city (they have a good feel for what makes a good route).
  
• Good understanding of the needs of both experienced cyclists and inexperienced cyclists.
  
• A candidate list of roads that could go on a diet (take away lanes to turn over to cycling and pedestrian facilities).
  

The plan looks as far out as 2030, by which time Atlanta expects to add another 300,000 residents (city proper, not metro). They expect density to increase and understand that a shift to non-automobile modes of transportation will be critical.

I'm quite encouraged by what I saw and heard at this workshop.

The workshops are winding down, but Atlanta cyclists can still participate. There is still time to complete the online survey.

What Makes a Good Cycling Route?

If you've been reading this blog recently (thank you for visiting), you'll know I've been working on a Safety Quiz. The "It Depends" answer I got from an 11-year-old has sent ripples across the quiet pond of my thinking. How do experienced cyclists best summarize their criteria for choosing a good route is the latest quiz question.

In earlier questions, I was looking for fun, thought-provoking answers, and silliness factored into a lot of these answers. Here, I'm interested to know what other cyclists value when choosing one route over another.

Just to seed the idea garden, I've got an ironic story to share.

Last Spring, I had inadvertently posted about one of the divides between cars and cyclists that seems to be in need of repair. The post was about a Tree that Babe Ruth put a baseball in, but I came across the tree during a search for bicycle access to the 650 Ponce shopping center.

In the early 90's, before the shopping center was developed as it stands today, there were multiple ways to get in and out of the parking lot. This was particularly attractive to me because I could cross from my house in Virginia-Highland over to Midtown without having to use either Monroe/10th Street or even busier Ponce de Leon. When plans for the development included a Borders, Staples, Home Depot, and other large stores, the neighborhood asked that traffic be forced to use Ponce de Leon alone. It is now impossible to get to these stores by foot or bicycle without approaching along Ponce. Out of a fear of excessive automobile traffic, the automobile traffic is encouraged.

Even more irony: the BeltLine -- Atlanta's planned pedestrian and transit corridor -- runs directly behind the shopping center and crosses my former cut-through. We'll see if the blocked entrance is opened back up.

So, when thinking about good routes and why it's hard to find those that go where we want, just remember we can sometimes be our own worst enemy.

Let me know what makes a good route for you.

Would Cyclists like an audience with City Transportation Planners?

This isn't getting the buzz that I thought it might. The City of Atlanta's Bureau of Planning is developing a transportation plan, it started last fall, and the local cycling forums appear to have been quiet about it.

With the popularity of cycling on the rise in Atlanta, this is our opportunity to influence Atlanta's transportation planning.

There are a couple of ways cyclists in Atlanta can exercise their citizenship muscles:

1. Fill out an on-line survey telling the planners you use your bike, prefer walkable communities, and want to see public investment in accommodating a life-style that is less car-oriented. In only a few moments, you can help tip the scales in favor of cycling.
   
2. Attend open workshops that run for a week per neighborhood from 10AM to 8PM. For most intown residents, the meetings will occur at City Hall East during the week of March 24-27 (Mon - Thu).
   

We often lament that government isn't doing anything for the cyclist, but if we don't tell government what we want, how will it know? Government works best when its citizens are involved. I'm inviting you to 1) fill out the survey and 2) join me one evening to go down and talk with the planners at City Hall East.

We can even ride our bikes over there.