Guardian "Can you name the city from the bike lane map?"

[Ken Clark]

This: Can you guess the city from its bike lane maps?

Can you guess the city from its bike lane maps? Nick Van Mead Mapping company Bike Citizens has trawled its database of city cycle infrastructure to create these ‘naked’ cycl...

No, Ann Arbor isn't in it.  But Portland and Chicago are there.  The reason I mention it is because you'll probably spot Portland - they have bike lanes on pretty much every street.  It's too bad they don't have Davis, CA - they have the significant streets and paths connecting areas the roads don't go. 

Also interesting - Portland's network looks better than Amsterdam's.  But that's not too surprising when you remember that gas is much cheaper in the US than in Europe.  You have to have an extensive network to overcome the low gas prices.

I think it's a little disconcerting that we're trying to put in the latest things Portland is putting in - bike boulevards - without doing the work to get to a situation where those boulevards really make sense.  They make sense in Portland because they've done everything else already.  They've built a critical mass of bike lanes, and have attracted a critical mass of cyclists.  We haven't done either of those.  The risk is that very expensive and visible facilities won't get enough people using them to make them look like a good idea.  That will then attract a backlash instead of new people to biking.  We need to stop taking two steps forward then two steps back.

Ken

[Nicholas Adams]

Bike boulevards are safe(r), and hence people use them. Paint on pavement isn't, therefore people don't. 

Perhaps the bigger mistake is in half measures like removing a lane on Maple and putting in a 'buffered' bike lane that still doesn't make people feel safe. I've very rarely seen another cyclist on that stretch and I myself try to avoid it. Meanwhile, every motorist who drives through there at rush hour sees empty bike lanes and traffic back-ups and identifies that unused bike lane as the problem. 

Any bike lane that follows a major arterial should be protected, otherwise, only the bravest among us will use them.

Nick Adams

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