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Jeanette Sadik-Kahn, Commissioner of the New York City Dept of Transportation and President of the National Association of City Transportation Officials, announced the release of the NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide at the National Bike Summit in Washington DC.
After acknowledging bikeway successes in major US cities over the past five years, Sadik-Kahn – who is being sued in New York City by rich and powerful NIMBYs for the removal of six car park spaces and the placement of a bike lane – noted that a lack of common guidelines and standards are a major obstacle for many planners seeking to introduce on-street bicycle infrastructure. Facilities like bike boxes, advanced stop lines, and protected bike lanes, while common in the Netherland or Germany, and some progressive US cities, have been out of reach for many US cities.
To address this problem, NACTO officials worked with planners and designers to create a new comprehensive web-only guide. The Guide’s developers conducted an extensive survey of existing best practices and successful and innovative projects from around the world. While the design guide is American, it would be equally relevant as a visual aid for cities anywhere in the world
The Guide includes detailed descriptions of a wide range of facilities and treatments, with recommendations for use, options, and examples. As well as photos of existing good practice there are computer graphics of infrastructure examples, including break-downs of how some facilities can be done cheaply and then later beefed up, for instance starting with planters and then progressing to kerbs.
Topics covered by the Guide include bike lanes, cycle tracks, intersections, signals, and signage.
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Reporting by Andrew Conway, a Boston-based cycling advocate and MD of Ciclismo Classico.
