Cycletrack and Blue Marking for Conflict & Transition Zones in Cambridge

Cambridge, MA was one of the earliest adopters of cycletracks in the U.S. and this was my first time cycling on the facility which is adjacent to the MIT campus. The cycletrack was enjoyable to ride on and reminded me of many of the Dutch cycletracks I had used last summer or the one way facilities common in Copenhagen.  The nature of having the cycling facility flush with the driveway (which is lower speed traffic) is a nice touch. The markings at the driveway denote the potential for a conflict or a transition at the locations where the cycletrack is ending.
The City was using the blue markings prior to the feedback the City of Portland got related to using green and apparently they haven't had the need to go back and refresh the markings.  
The treatment that was worth noting was the yield to bikes sign and the lane configuration sign which included the blue bike lane to indicate to motorists that the lane exists and there should be an awareness of the potential for a conflict. The first time I saw the sign, I had a hard time noting the bike marking in the lane, the black and blue does not provide a very good contrast that is easy to pick up and doesn't offer a consistent marking for the bike symbol, I tend to prefer the addition of the rider to match the striping, but that's a detail that's something to talk with the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) National Committee about this week.    
This post reminded me of the early work done by Alta to summarize some of the facilities in 2009, which seemed like an eternity ago what with the Green Lane Project and so much emphasis on cycletracks and protected facilities in the past several years.

What's a Public Official To Do with Signal Optimization - Green Wave for Bikes or High Bandwidth

Great coincidence that I am in Copenhagen when this post comes across BikePortland reposting a NY Times article on what European cities do with cars. Obviously, this is not a new concept and the students that are joining me in the Netherlands this week will see this first hand while meeting with numerous people that have been involved in Dutch transport policy.

It's not just about the bicycle. As I reviewed my pictures from this trip, I came across this one from the Christianshavn neighborhood that I took on Friday morning during the a.m. rush hour. It's pretty easy for an engineer in Copenhagen to say, of course we never would think of optimizing traffic signals for cars. Any engineer (or planner for that matter) could see that the people on bicycles out number the people in their cars five, maybe eight to one. The person carrying capacity of this street is clearly a function of the cycletrack (keeping it clear from loading vehicles, construction, etc) as opposed to the green time for the motorists on the street. Besides, if you're in your car and its raining, who should we prioritize? The person that can sit in a climate controlled environment with a high priced stereo system (perhaps a DVD system for the kids in the back) or the pedestrian waiting on the corner that could have chosen to drive?

But back to the lowly engineer. They can make the signals work well for the people who are here and that gives them job satisfaction. They might even get recognition from those that have noticed a change (like I have with the N Williams/N Vancouver green wave changes) some good, some bad depending on how fast you're travelling and how hard you want to work. It's going to be hard for most of the engineers I know to make that shift to serving cyclists or pedestrians without several things. First, a concerted effort from advocates to ask for the treatment people that are out of their cars deserve. These advocates need to know more about signal timing and ask for a permissive to be increased in the coordinated settings to reduce the delay for someone that wants to cross the street. This could also include getting the word out there and educating the public, training them to give engineers feedback. Second, we need the advocates to deliver the goods. Get people in the cycletracks and on the sidewalk using the facilities. I am not sure which comes first. Third, the political support for these sorts of changes. I haven't fielded a lot of complaints during my tenure at the City, but I know most communities face the ire of the motoring public when you make a change. All of this requires land use and that's not something the engineer has much involvement in other than we help define the performance measures used by development to determine if the transportation system is adequate for the type of development being considered for a particular area. The challenge therein is that we set the table for transportation facilities that have to be widened.

It's a vicious cycle, no pun intended.

Window into Danish Culture

I couldn't resist taking a picture of the instructions posted on the door of the Children's Museum of the Danish Nationalmuseet. First, I enjoyed the incorporation of green means ok, yellow is a caution, and red means prohibited. In particular, I enjoyed that the green tells you to "travel through time, and Have fun with history".

I am not entirely sure if this suggests that the Danes need to be told when and where to have fun or to liven up their lives a bit, but I will leave that to the sociologists. This reminds me of some of the messages I have seen on TriMet buses in Portland, where they try to use positive messages as opposed to restrictive or strict prohibitions. No loud music is transformed to use headphones when listening to music. I especially appreciate TriMet's "Repsect the Ride" message.

This makes me think about whether we should try to incorporate this more into the City of Portland and in on-street parking. Taking a customer's viewpoint, what do I want to be asked to do (instead of told to do), might offer a way to lay out the welcome mat.

Left Turn Bicycle Signal in Copenhagen

There is clearly a social contract between engineers and the public that chooses to ride a bicycle through traffic signals that we design. As a designer, you try to make the indications as clear and unambiguous as possible and there is a certain amount of consideration for what the expectation is for a reasonable person to understand. I think this bicycle signal displays meets that criteria. The display is inline with the cyclist maneuver at the intersection. It is a delineated movement with striping on the pavement.

One might argue that it might be a little unclear at night, but I would take that arguement and in this instance it isn't reasonable to assume one should be able to make a left turn from the right lane. This sort of situation wouldn't preclude you from taking the lane and making the left turn, although it could be argued that the signal timing should be set up to insure that the arrivals of the motor vehicles occurred (faster speeds) followed by the bicycle traffic (from the upstream intersection).

I am blogging about bicycle traffic signals and I stop and wonder am I the only one that is thinking about this. Well, luckily I caught the following this evening from the Copenhagenize.com blog on traffic signals in Barcelona.

Bicycle Counting Station

Adjacent to City Hall on H.C. Andersens Boulevard is the bicycle counting station that identifies the number of cyclists that have used the cycletrack today and the number that have used it this year. The numbers speak for themselves. I know what it would take to create one of these things and it is very similar to what we've done with the parking garages downtown.


The problem is that I haven't found an adequate place to put one. Many of our facilities could be subject to vandalism (Springwater corridor) and there is always the problem of getting power to the device.

In the time that we were there, the cyclist count went from 6,399 to 6,403 and that was only 39 seconds. More coverage about this can be found at this posting on the Copenhagenize blog.

Bicycle Signal Sequence in Copenhagen

Side street movement active, all stopped on Torvegade: 8:48:08 AM

This is a series of photos that were taken at the intersection of Torvegade and Prinsessegade. This intersection is one of the more complicated because of the phasing. The design of the street network is very smart reserving the left turns at the intersection prior to the major transit station where additional green time is needed for pedestrian and bicycle traffic. The system is basically constrained by these additional turn phases, but the relationship between the intersections is preserved because of this (the travel time is effects this relationship). I may need to rewrite this for clarity.

I also should put the times associated with each interval, but it is hard to do that in the Blogger interface.

Advance indication for bicycle traffic. 8:48:19 AM

Green for bikes, alert for vehicles 8:48:22 AM - 3 seconds later

8:48:28 AM - not sure I caught the exact time it went green (I have video of this too)

8:48:46 AM yellow for bikes, next interval is the right turn conflict across cycle track

8:48:50 AM - Right turn across cycletrack, stopped bicycles

8:49:02 AM yellow for right turn movement

8:49:07 AM Red for all Torvegade