Re: advice for 933-Angela intersection?

[Steve Buchtel]

Policy that at the very least prohibits street reconstruction/alignment changes from making things worse for cyclists is a hallmark of a bike friendly city. Have you guys heard of Bicycle Level of Service (BLOS)? It ranks streets with a letter grade for bicycle friendliness. Ranking streets with BLOS as a benchmark can provide an effective safety stop that keeps bike friendliness from bottoming out. The city can say "all of our streets where bikes are permitted will be improved to meet a minimum C level of service; no street above C level of service may fall below current level of service as the result of any maintenance, reconstruction or design change."

http://www.bikelib.org/bike-planning/bicycle-level-of-service/

A good advocacy goal is to ensure that no street or intersection project that's known to or could serve cyclists proceeds without input from the cycling community. An intersection redesign would have ample planning/engineering time to influence outcome. In Illinois, following the Dept. of Transportation's Transportation Improvement Program helps us to stay on top of projects receiving state or federal dollars. MACOG info on its TIP is here:

http://www.macog.com/0812TIP.HTM

Also, a bike plan grounded in public input would capture cyclists' need to navigate this intersection. An open charette-style route mapping session centered on Notre Dame that includes vigorous outreach to all the staff and off-campus students who commute to the school could give a very compelling case to improve accommodations within a 2-3 mile radius, and would integrate easily with the city's existing plans. Might even inspire the city to take on other "destination driven" planning charettes. I'd be honored to coordinate and lead such a charette, or to help guide someone else.
---
Steve Buchtel
Southland Coordinator
Active Transportation Alliance
1639 Burr Oak Rd.
Homewood, IL 60430

p 708.365.9365
f 312-427-4907
http://activetrans.org

[Kevin Heber]

Thanks, Steve, great suggestions. South Bend/Mishawaka has a peculiar
penchant for NOT striping streets at all, leaving vast amounts of
unregulated real estate in the roadway for no apparent purpose, which
is both a blessing and a curse to cyclists. I would guess a BLOS
would have a hard time with this identity crisis. Motorists have a
hard enough time. Right now it's like a NASCAR race out there on
Lincoln Way, for example. I've never seen anything quite like it,
frankly.

Quoting Steve Buchtel <st...@activetrans.org>:

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[jakob wolgamood]

A favorite of mine: http://www.completestreets.org/ 

(If it has been mentioned/discussed before, forgive the reposting.)

Taking a "Best Practice" approach may be off-putting to some in the Michiana area. There is a bullheadedness towards devising one's own system and shoving it through. And while I appreciate the developments that can come from such a mindset, there is usually more to gain with less effort by first applying proven techniques.

Glad to see some activity on bike-michiana. 

Also very pleased to see someone (Steve) from Active Trans posting. You people are doing a great job in the Chicago area, both in advocacy and in events. Keep it up!