Cleveland's New Bicycle Showpiece

Cleveland has unveiled a new center median bike path plan:

Cleveland's Bike Expressway

No doubt this is a major step for the 'cradle of car culture' and is being championed as a progressive magnet attraction.

I walk or ride to work everyday. Often, I'm a very lonely soul in the depths of winter, though that is slowly changing. Doing both, I have come to primarily support walking access and/or public and private mass and shared transit, over any further vehicle infrastructure accommodation. I also support and use non-motorized vehicles, (bikes, trikes, skates, skateboards, scooters, etc) as a partial solution to the environmental, social, and funding model destruction that is automobile culture. I also retain a proudly underused automobile.

Cycling culture has presented the first serious and worthy challenge to motorized vehicle hegemony. All reasonable means should be employed to encourage its continued growth.

However, as an active walker and cyclist, I directly witness some of the same attitudes of automobile culture creeping into my fellow cycle drivers: namely desire for speed, and an assumption of segregated use rights, both major psychological components of automobile arrogance.

Every segregated lane built reinforces this belief among both user groups.

"Bicycle Expressway." Think about that.

Also, let's consider that there are innovations such as the "Copenhagen Wheel" that add motorized power to a bicycle, improvements over the old "Whizzers" you still see occasionally. Where do these fit in this new infrastructure? How will it serve wider and slower three and four wheeled, pedaled vehicles such as the "ELF," (also motor assisted) or trikes and electric scooters for the elderly? Will younger faster cyclists be 'rear-ending' slower pedaled vehicles from behind as they pass? It's almost happened to me.

How might expanded bicycle "Expressway" infrastructure interfere with mass transit? Some of my fellow bike lane enthusiasts also complain about the reductions in bus stops.

I support bike lanes as a temporary measure to reduce and slow automobiles as long as pedestrians are not any more burdened than they already are. Cleveland's proposal makes some bold claims about pedestrian accommodation. I find them lacking. One of the accepted facts cited by opponents of cars and bike lanes is the increased complication of crossing zones and signaling.

Bike Lanes Not Safer

And aren't we tired of this attitude?:

Jaywalking is a crime, parking is just rude

When bike lanes are designed properly, they should reduce the amount of available space in a public right of way that was systematically and deliberately stolen from humans and given to automobiles by their manufacturers, sellers, and driving clubs over the last 100 years. That space should be granted back to pedestrians and various static street use, (such as dining and innovative retail,) first, other vehicles second.

Yes, while nothing compares to the conditioned arrogance of your average automobile driver, a narrow, (pun intended) POV is now becoming evident in the cycling community.

Aside from further marginalizing walkers and slower cyclists, when such expensive transformations of a street are pursued, what is often left out is the ongoing dedication to, and costs of maintenance. Concerns regarding winter conditions are valid. Already, the existing dedicated cycling  infrastructure, (shared with pedestrians,) on bridges over the Cuyahoga river are infrequently cleared of snow and ice, usually only after appeals are made to the city. The remainder of bridge sidewalks in the city, which the city has a duty to clear, are either untouched or worse, serve as receptacles for snow from the automobile lane. I also expect this path to collect much of the same detritus as the outside edge.

While street redesign is necessary, rather than introduce more design and maintenance costs, it is "revenue positive" to simply reduce 6 lanes to 5, 4 lanes to 3, widen pedestrian access and other static use, reduce speed limits to 25 MPH in urban settings, consider whether curbside parking is really necessary, (Cleveland insists on preserving it everywhere, along the entire extent of a street,) and aggressively pursue traffic law violators. 

This can be done mostly with paint and pen.

For stepped up enforcement, we can expand and continue to use camera technology, and/or better yet, a proposed "traffic enforcer corp" in the police department as a way to train new officers in their people management skills. In Cleveland there exists a "Traffic Controller" department to ticket parking meters. This should be expanded to mobile traffic violations as well. They carry cameras already.

Along with design and law enforcement, existing traffic laws that make all forms of transportation secondary to the  "maximum speed and flow" of automobile drivers, such as ORC 4511.55....

The Notorious 4511.55

...should be repealed and rewritten to provide equitable rights to those without the $10,000 a year for your average private automobile.

Also a system of "Strict Liability" for motorized vehicle drivers should be introduced into the civil code as it has been in the Netherlands.

Read this excellent piece in the Guardian regarding Britain's approach to bike infrastructure, taking Holland and Germany's years of experience and differing approaches into account:

It's more than bike lanes

The concluding point of the article is the absolute necessity of additional legal and behavioral principles beyond bike lanes in both Holland and Germany to create a truly effective system:

Speed and Behavioral control and enforcement

A system of assumed liability for the more powerful road users

Without dedication to these more fundamental components, any urban special infrastructure will fail in its core mission. While NYC is a special case, and bike tracks are doing well, complete transformation of attitude is the ongoing, hard, lasting work that needs to be done for the 95% of urban roads which will not be redesigned.

Can these same principles  be achieved in the US without segregated infrastructure? Can special infrastructure help?

This is a proper bike intra-urban expressway:

Danish Bike Super Highway

Mass Transit is the Answer

The future of our cities and earth depend on a lasting reduction of the personal automobile.

How is this best achieved?

Nope bike won't do it on their own, though they are certainly a huge part of the solution for younger and healthier people.

Effective, comfortable and safe Mass Transit.

The goal within a ten mile radius of any viable population center is this:

One should be able to walk no more than five minutes to and from a transit node.

The commuter should arrive at any destination within 15-30 minutes

The commuter should be able to carry and secure 10-20 pounds of belongings. (Tough one I know.)

The financing of this, simply put would be transferred from the billions currently wasted on propping up needless freeway systems.

Opportunity Corridor Alternative

Cleveland has been trying to get I-490 through the Heights somehow for 60 years. Right now it ends in an ugly and abused stub at E 55th Street.

Now the idea is to get it to University Circle with its powerful medical residents, (like that?) the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospital.

The State of Ohio and City favor a destructive and expensive plan to displace (mostly poor) residents from an area, (that actually could be a Mass Transit Paradise,) with a freeway termed the "Opportunity Corridor."

This is not an opportunity for the residents of the neighborhood.  The primary reason is to get suburbanites quickly through a part of the city they abhor.

Opposition to the project is found here:

http://opportunitycorridor.com/

Following the idea of the Woodland Ave Alternative I made a map of my specific ideas by which existing roads and freeways could be re-built intelligently and cost effectively, affording a true opportunity for all people involved.

MVH Opportunity Corridor Alternative Map

Oh yeah.

This is the ODOT page:

ODOT Opportunity Corridor

Bike Lanes Are Capitulation

I often post this on bike lane discussions.

Bike lanes are the dominant subject among bicyclists at the moment, though many of the more experienced tacitly acknowledge their imperfect, incomplete and possibly misleading implication of safety.

Regardless, the strategy is to get more bikes on the road by whatever means necessary. Many new cyclists, trained in automobile lane culture, need to feel that there is a space reserved for them.

Not only do I believe the implied safety of a bike lane is greatly, and perhaps dangerously overstated, I don't believe the nascent strategy is taking much hold. I've witnessed that "women with kids" and "older people" simply will not ride bicycles unless they "feel as if they are riding on the sidewalk," which of course many of them do anyhow. Most new cyclists are younger and less in need of such misleading assurances. Bike lanes at intersections are especially dangerous.

There are the gold, (green) standard bike lanes; painted bright green and 4 feet in width along slow speed ROW's. There are also completely parallel segregated facilities in nations such as The Netherlands, all requiring additional and/or specific maintenance and funding, and of course, dedicated bicycle trails. These require even more maintenance and funding, and are often shared with hikers or families and strollers through parkland.

In the U.S., we have the advantage of typically and sufficiently wide public right-of-ways already available. Of course our history in the last 100 years has been to give every inch of that space to automobile culture.

That space isn't being taken away from automobile culture in the application of bike lane philosophy as it should be, the more usual application is to either lessen the width of, (but retain in number) existing automobile lanes AND retain on-street automobile curb parking.
Even more 'safe' in this way of thinking is to add surface to the right of existing automobile space, with or without an added median, necessarily encroaching on what little space there may have been for pedestrian access originally.

Capitulation.

The true solution is a two-part strategy:

Reduce four, (or six) bi-directional lanes for automobiles to two, (or five) including a center left-turn lane. There's your cycling space.

More importantly, slow that automobile traffic the fuck down. 20-25 MPH is the target.

These should be the goals of the cycling movement.

Percentages and Taking The Road Back

"Road Sharing" is not doing very well.

As thoroughly detailed in Peter D. Norton's book "Fighting Traffic," our public right-of-ways were systematically taken from all users and given to personal motorized automobiles over the last 100 years.

Taking it back by gently introducing bicycle traffic is only killing those without 2000 pounds of steel to protect them. Treating bicycles in law as 'equal vehicles' simply isn't so in reality. Try it! The experienced knowledge of vulnerability by cyclists and pedestrians accounts partially for what many motorists consider irresponsible behavior.

The Bicycle Lobby is a valuable resource in correcting the situation but I feel many of the participants are not fully educated about the history of road use. Like me they have grown up in a world of automobile primacy regarding physical design of the road and transportation psychology.

Bike lanes are still secondary to a maximum of car lanes and may even be limiting pedestrian lanes, (sidewalks) in some cases. Car access is simply not being challenged.

Meanwhile, we have a high percentage of tax payer-funded "limited access" highways; limited to motorized vehicle traffic.
I've made the previous point that, at least in my city 100% of our right-of-ways are accessible to motorized vehicles.

It seems a reasonable proposal to remove or reduce a percentage of automobile access from "shared roads" at least equal to the percentage of existing "limited access" roads.

Some may point out a very small number of bike paths (that double as walking lanes) in our parks, but as these routes serve only a recreational purpose they can't be considered as fair treatment.
(It's also very notable that on these bike paths, walkers are properly given the right-of-way over pedaled vehicles.)

What does this mean and how may it be accomplished?

Should we take the number of limited access highways as our measure, or their total length? What about their total used space, both length and width?

Difficult to precisely assess, but not so difficult to estimate.

Removal strategies could work well in areas of high population density.

Reduction strategies could work (and have worked) anywhere.

         Reduce 3 car lanes in each direction to 2, (no shared surface should have more than 2 car lanes)
         Reduce 2 car lanes in each direction to 1 with a center left turn lane

        Percentages apply regarding the total width of the ROW: motorized vehicles should be given no greater share of the Right Of Way than any other form of transportation:

        2 Car Lanes = 2 Bike Lanes = 2 Pedestrian Lanes, all of equal width.
        
        I may need to walk a wide cart or pull it behind my bike, after all.
        Shouldn't I have the space to do so?

New Road Funding Models - New Road Design Categories

How does the pedestrian and cycling community assert their space on our public rights of way?

Capacity engineering has held sway for at least the last 50 years. That capacity was strictly for automobiles, though somehow most roads still have a sidewalk. Many sidewalks seem to have taken on the appearance of emergency sidewalks, like you find along the freeway bridge; only to be used in case your car breaks down.

Simply waiting for increased cycling to inspire politicians has little effect outside of cities like mine who are desperate to attract the younger crowd. That itself is not currently working all that well, though it's still in its early stages.

I suggest some basic frameworks:


Funding and Design

Much has been written about the shrinking pie of maintenance funding for all of our public infrastructure.
Roads and bridges are crumbling, stormwater flooding from sprawl is increasing un-abated, electrical blackouts and brownouts are evidence of development beyond its capability to sustain.

In the case of roadways, I propose three major funding and design classes:

Limited Access Highways
All Access Roads
Restricted Access Roads

Limited Access Highways: The high speed highway system is to be funded predominantly with a MUCH higher federal gas tax. Increasing the fuel taxes will help encourage alternative fuel technology.

As, (hopefully,) alternative fuel vehicles take a larger proportion, a use fee, such as a endorsement on your registration could provide an increasing amount of funding as gas tax revenues dwindle. Of course, at some point if everything goes well, it will become apparent that not all of our freeways can be maintained.

Excellent. Enabling sprawl, many of them are senseless 'pork' projects anyhow.

If high speed track systems, (trains) were ever made part of this geography, the requisite federal construction funding could be added for their construction and maintenance.

All-Access Roads: There should be a mixture of an equal share of that gas tax and additional, more traditional funding sources to be handled by the US State following the current status quo.

All motorized and non-motorized vehicles are required to be given EQUAL access, meaning equal space allocation, along with (those deemed necessary) segregation structures, such as car lanes, bike lanes and sufficient sidewalks. Mass Transit included.

Motorized vehicles speed limited to 20-30 MPH.

Restricted access roads: To be funded at the US State and local level with a proportion of private support. These road designs would restrict motorized vehicles to emergency or law enforcement only, along with limited, permitted small delivery vehicles. All non-motorized vehicles allowed at slow speeds with pedestrians given priority.

Commercial and Recreational development within the ROW encouraged, (alfresco dining, etc.,) within design capacity. Developers share in the maintenance cost of this development by permit.

These roadways should be the least expensive to maintain with public funds.

Pocket Neighborhoods

There must be several dozen places in Cleveland where this type of car-lite development can be done.

http://www.pocket-neighborhoods.net/

Indeed, within a couple miles of the destroyed urban core there once existed many of these patterns, the remains of which are still discernible and ignored or worse, refitted for automobiles.

Redevelopment in the city so far has been geared towards restaurants, bars, and other playgrounds which obviously succeed best when attracting suburbanites.

Some of my friends have resigned themselves to this pattern hoping that the  neighborhood they saved as pioneering artists will return to livability once  'the next neighborhood' gets hot.

Our political leaders have finally noticed the bar-resto pattern for the misleading and fickle 'vibrancy' it provides. The business owners receive preferential treatment in zoning variances on a regular basis.

Pocket Neighborhoods, especially around a shared green-space and agricultural zone could provide the model for true urban rebirth.

In the city, a development like this would require some premeditation and multi-cultural cooperation: a particularly tricky business never successfully achieved to my knowledge.

How about a real future for CLE?