From blue paint to freeway bike lanes: Searching for what’s next
Posted on December 5th, 2006 – 6:10 AMBy Roadguy
When Leo Lopez realized he was sitting across the table from Roadguy, he immediately had thoughts to share.
Leo used to commute by bicycle from Highland Park in St. Paul to downtown Minneapolis. It was seven miles, he said, and back in the day, he had no trouble going full tilt the whole time. He didn’t realize he was breaking the speed limit, which on many recreational paths is 10 miles per hour, and even if he had known the rules, “Who has a speedometer on their bike?”
As we talked, it occurred to me that bicycles are still widely viewed the way automobiles once were: as recreational contraptions. Leo, who now lives in Minneapolis’ Longfellow area, would like to see things change, and soon. In fact, if I-35W is ever rebuilt, he’d want to include a reversible bicycle lane, with nonstop pedaling for miles. He’s “not so interested in a scenic ride” — he just wants to get where he’s going.
That was just one of the conversations I had Monday night at another community event in Longfellow. Homes in Longfellow range from modest rentals to riverfront palaces, bike paths grace the area’s perimeter, and the light-rail line is just across Hiawatha Avenue. So it’s an interesting and diverse place to examine transportation — and some of its residents spend a lot of time doing just that.
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| Annie Welch serves up a pie chart. | |
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| Chris Wiger maps things out. |
Or they get other people to do it. Last night, a main part of the meeting was a presentation by four students from the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, who asked more than 200 residents about how they got around. The students used an online survey rather than a scientifically randomized poll, but the respondents were from all parts of the expansive neighborhood, and the conclusions were worth a look.
When asked about their main mode of transportation, 71% of respondents said automobiles, which was lower than the students expected. While many of the reasons for not using bicycles or transit could not be remedied (”Bad weather,” “Destination too far,” “Too difficult to carry items,”), the researchers focused on things that community groups might address, such as improving difficult intersections or increasing lighting to reduce “fear of vehicles.” The main recommendations for boosting alternative transportation included:
- Add and upgrade bike routes.
- Promote bicycle safety with a variety of innovations, such as raised or blue-painted lanes.
- Increase driver awareness.
- Learn from other cities. (Portland, Ottawa, Boulder and Chicago were among those cited.)
- Evaluate and address fears about crime. (More secure bike parking, more surveillance at rail stations, etc.)
Even making the best of their limited resources, the students weren’t able to tackle the most mammoth and eternal challenge of getting motorists to switch to transit — “takes too long to arrive at destination” — but they provided lots of other valuable information to some community-minded neighbors. And who knows — as transportation conversations like these continue around the metro area, maybe Leo will get his freeway bike lane after all.
10 Responses to "From blue paint to freeway bike lanes: Searching for what’s next"
Yes! I too would love a bike freeway! And wider roads with shoulders/painted bike lanes. For starters, widen West River Parkway in Minneapolis to included dedicated bike lanes. The bike path is full of non-bikers, poor pavement, 10 mph speed limit, etc. The parkway is a bit narrow and full of drivers exceeding the 25mph limit. It could certainly be a more pleasant main route experience.
As far as the excuses for not biking, people seem to fail to realize that it isn’t an all-or-nothing venture. I’m able to commute only half the time on bike (23 miles one way or 16 if I “cheat” and use lightrail), but that has still saved 14,000 miles off the car in the past three years. Just get started!
Personally, I think if we had a good rail system built now, eventually it will be faster to take mass transit rather than drive. I read somewhere that our metro area is the same size that DC was when they built their Metro lines. And we are growing!!
Whoops, one more comment: skip the blue-painted bike lanes. They’re a safety hazard–not as much traction as asphalt/concrete, and downright slick/dangerous when wet. Where are they used? Arizona?
The people that say bicycling takes too long likely haven’t tested their beliefs. From east nokomis to southern Edina (France & 77th), driving takes me 1/2 hour, while bicycling takes 45 minutes. For a ten mile commute, taking an extra 15 minutes to go by bicycle is trivial.
The handout I got last night says the blue lanes are in use in Portland, Ore., and Denmark (if you click on “blue-painted lanes” above, there’s a picture of one in Portland). I, too, am curious about how slippery they are when they’re wet, especially since it rains a lot in Portland. I’m also wondering whether the blue would get scraped off by our plows, just like all our other road paint.
Bless you Roadguy for talking about the OTHER car, the bicycle. The blue lanes scare me a bit because they’re like a few lanes here in Minneapolis that run down the middle of two-way streets and on those, at least, drivers cross the lanes as they make turns without looking for bikers. It gets too Darwinian out there.
The lanes along one-way avenues Park and Portland, on the other hand, work well since the bikes are A)out of the way of traffic and B)everyone’s going nearly the same speed in the same direction, making collisions less dangerous if they occur.
Something that might be worth looking into someday: there’s another group of transportation students and faculty at the Humphrey school who conducted a survey this summer of routes taken by bike commuters. They attached GPS units to something like 200 bikes and studied their routes for a month. The results are supposed to help with planning a new set of bike routes.
I have a little bit of experience riding a bicycle on wet pavement and thousands of miles on a motorcycle. Painted lines are VERY slippery when they’re wet and even a bit slippery when dry. Freshly painted lines are the worst. Older ones are not as bad but it’s still best to avoid riding over them when you have any lean at all. The worst are those big rectangular ones used to mark crosswalks. If you hit one of those leaned over in the wet you’re probably going down.
About ten years ago (?) someone came out with some plastic sheet material that is glued down as a substitute for painted lines. They are more durable than paint and reflect more light at night. Some of these are smooth and are even slipperier than fresh paint. There are also some that are textured with little raised squares. These are better but still to be avoided.
I would guess that the paint used in the blue lanes (just a guess) is of the textured variety that is reflective at night, something like rhino-lining or some types of textured powder coating. These are much less slippery when new, but after a few years of plowing, driving and wear form weather it would probably be as slippery as old paint lines.
As a motorcycle rider myself I am very much opposed to more paint on the roadways. I don’t mind painted lines for bicycle specific lanes, but painting a whole bike lane seems ridiculous.
I can’t speak to what the best placement of bike lanes would be, but I’d be terrified to ride next to I-35 without a cement barrier, and I would probably prefer lanes like that on Hennepin ave, in the middle between the bus lane and the traffic lanes. I’m not a huge fan of the lanes on the side of smaller streets because too man parked car doors open or turning cars don’t look etc.
I do think we need more bike lanes though, especially with the increasing popularity of road bikes as both transportation and recreation.
You’re right, there are some blue bike lanes in Denmark. Also, in many cases, the bike lanes are physically differentiated from the roadway as well, by being slightly raised, or having a mini-curb between the bike lane & motor vehicle lanes.
Also, on the ‘but a bike lane down 35W’ topic. Is anyone else paranoid about breathing all the toxic crap that’s concentrated around freeways? I’m not just talking about exhaust, but that dust that’s in the air the first couple days after a snowfall, where whatever chemicals they’re applying to the road surface eventually dry out, turn to dust and get flung into the air by traffic. I’ve never seen a study on the subject, but can’t believe that breathing that stuff is good for you; its bad enough being in a car, pedaling down the median with a higher heart rate & breathing heavily isn’t appealing at all.
The one-way bike lanes mentioned by Matt along Portland and Park are nice, but a concern there is what will happen if the city turns those two streets back to two-way traffic.
The plastic-sheet material mentioned by Dale B is called thermoplast by some DOTs. It’s used quite a bit down in the Deep South. One potential problem with using it in Minnesota is that it can get scraped up by the snowplows.
