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.

Green Wave Signal Timing in Copenhagen with Transit

A great conversation with a consultant who is working on modifying the Green Wave signal timing to incorporate transit priority measures that will reduce delay for buses. In describing the two Green Wave projects we have implemented in Portland outside of downtown (which is all timed for human scale speeds) we discussed the relative importance of certainty associated with the signal timing and the practical implementation issues associated with what you cannot at the intersectionof two green waves. Our experience in Portland is a little difference because our Green Waves are on one way couplets, which makes the progression issue less of an issue in the opposite direction.

From One Greenwave unofficially starts at the Bike Signal at Interstate & Oregon

My experience in Copenhagen was fantastic on their green waves. It was also very necessary to facilitate the movement of people with their impressive bike mode split nearing 40% for people on bikes. The impetus for reduced bus delay is to reduce costs of service. This is also consistent with an argument I consistently made as a consultant... Any public sector employee should want to reduce bus delay since ultimately the investment in transit is a service that if faster is a savings we can all enjoy. It also can reduce pavement wear if buses are not suddenly stopping at the stop bar.

The person I talked to was also very interested in what we've done with VISSIM to assess bicycles and pedestrians. While we've used some of the elements of simulation, I would say we've just scratched the surface related to what can be done. Beyond the simple assessment of adequacy of the facilities, is the quality of the network to support multimodal travel. There are a lot of details we are not ready to assess to fully evaluate tradeoffs between transit, bike, ped, and freight mobility. Things like the use of detection are difficult to weigh without performance measures and a complete assessment for the 24/7 operating conditions we deal. This is not to mention the maintenance issues associated with the decision of the engineers.

Finally, we discussed detection technology, which is consistent with several posts and a recent inquiry from the Oregonian, BikePortland, and Alta about some work that was done in Pleasonton, CA.

Bike Box from the Left

I am reviewing a few photos in preparation for my volunteer teaching assignment at the initiative for bicycle & pedestrian innovation at Portland State University. New York City staff rolled out the red carpet during my visit, getting me a bike to use and providing a nice amount of time to show me some of their newest facilities.

NYC uses green more than Portland does, in this case a significant length of the bike lane on the left hand side has green thermoplastic.

In most cases, they have an exclusive turn lane adjacent to the bike lane. Here they have a separate lane, one on of the design treatments NYC has implemented in the U.S. first is a mixing zone for the turn lane, which I will add to another post.

They added the bicycle signals on the poles and moved the left turn signals adjacent to that signal head on an extension arm. There has been some debate within my colleagues about whether it is desirable to have the vehicle see the bicycle indication. The National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices has discussed whether Red, Yellow, and Green is appropriate for a bicycle indication. That seems like an odd question given the extensive application in Europe and the compliance they have had. Granted the U.S. is different, but we'll continue to debate that in the coming years.
One of the specific treatments that has received negative feedback is the green across multiple lanes as shown in the third photo. There's some concern about how the green will be interpreted by a cyclist making that transition and whether they may be caught making that movement when the signal turns green, thus creating a potential conflict. It seems that is already an issue with pedestrians, but research is necessary for that.

One last photo of the corridor and the range of signals and how that's a bit confusing to look to the next signal and see the indications for the downstream movements as well as the intersection with the closest vicinity.