Hong Kong NW Territory Cycling Infrastructure

I was expecting to see good cycling infrastructure while visiting China. I'd read a few stories highlighting how the status of the bicycle has fallen quite a bit in the past years and how cycling is not considered as a sport. Clearly, there is considerable status in having a car much as it is in the U.S. and on warm summer days in Hong Kong, I understand the usefulness of air conditioning. This post hopes to share the good and bad of Hong Kong cycling infrastructure.

One of the observed problems (which I will cover in more details later) is behavior of cyclists, but that's party a response to the lack of comfort they feel while using the facilities. It is partly due to conflicts from the other users of the streets, but also from the infrastructure provided. I liked the succinct comment I found with a quick search at http://www.whatsonningbo.com/health47.html:  "44 percent of people in Beijing use their cars to travel distances of less than 5 kilometres. Most of these journeys could be made on a bicycle. So creating an environment to enable this social change is vital. 
Duan Liren, a traffic consultant for Beijing municipal government, says first and foremost Chinese road users need to understand the concept of Right of Way on bicycle. "If a thief steals 100 yuan, you know it's illegal. Actually this is as wrong as a vehicle driving in a bicycle lane." 

2-way Cycletracks were provided on many of the streets we were on.
At intersections, they use bollards to slow traffic to insure yielding.

As much as right of way and behavior is important, quality infrastructure is critical for people that want to use the facilities that are built. This post is a summary of some cycletrack elements we saw in the Northwest Territory of Hong Kong. In general, the City seems heavily influenced by British traffic (driving) standards and much like I have seen in London, most of the cycling infrastructure was not present on many of the major streets. London is making major strides to change that by committing to a new plan just this past March.  It's not just London that is making bold steps, but cities like New York City among others in the U.S., yet similarly there there are occasional challenges to this new infrastructure.

A weekend mountain biker weaves through the cars that are parked near the bollards.

Bollards at the intersections made it impossible to cycle side by side
with another person continuously. 

During our tour from a local we got to see some of the urban infrastructure. The visit and cycling tour in the NW Territory was a good opportunity to experience the infrastructure from a local's perspective.    The tour guide gave us a troup of the area nearby his home and then out into the “Wetlands, New Towns & Heritage Trails”.

The bollards took varioius form. In order to keep cars out of the facility, signs were placed
at numerous locations even at some locations is might have been unnecessary. 

A private driveway introduced a curve which made this intersection difficult to traverse, especially for a younger rider that may not be as confident on their bike.  

     

Signal IntersectionDesign: Bicycle Lane & Left Side Mixing Zone on 1st Ave

This person chose to weave through the left turning traffic to the left, so as
to avoid the conflict. The next vehicle is in queue, so this is a relatively
safe movement, as long as someone doesn't pull from the adjacent through
lane into the parking on the farside. In the next picture, you can see a
concrete barrier that protects against that.  

This person passes the vehicle on the right and then moves back into
the marked area. This picture also shows the bus on the right hand side
they have a bus priority lane in red on the right hand side of the street. 

   The mixing zone in NYC was something that I had wanted to spend some time looking at because when I first thought of the idea, I didn't know how well it would work. My past visit to NYC suggested that it was something so new that they weren't sure how it would work, but they did know that it eliminated the need for a bicycle signal movement that is separated in time from the left turning traffic, essentially providing a permissive left across the bicycle lane, which requires motorists to look back before making the left turn to see if a person on a bicycle is approaching.
Generally, it was a new concept to me and upon visiting this location, I was curious to see how folks were using the intersection.

The NY Times did a Q&A about the lanes and the engineer from NYC offered the following:  “this ‘complete street’ treatment has been shown to decrease injuries by up to 58 percent for everyone using these streets, whether on foot, on a bike or in a vehicle.”

The second question on the Q&A is about traffic signal timing, which is a bonus for those that clink on the link. 

A little more research shows that the NYCDOT did some initial work on this back in 2009 as covered by StreetFilms. NE Multnomah Boulevard is Portland's first foray into mixing zones and it includes buses and that should something that the City studies with one of its summer interns. 

NYC Mixing Zone for Cycletrack

There is interest in exploring cycletrack opportunities where we have excess road capacity in Portland. There aren't many locations where this is easy to do persay, but jumping off from Ronald Tamse's (Dutch Engineer) recent presentation, it's not a very far leap to find the right spots where there's space available. 

In order to transition back from a cycletrack into a spot where capacity is constrained takes care. You can maintain adequate capacity when making the transition if the signal timing is combined with geometric design elements like we produced on NE 12th Avenue. To this end, I think New York City is onto something for making a cycletrack work well at intersections. They take care to produce a "Mixing zone" at right turn opportunities that blend the facility in with the traffic. The diagram on the right isn't for the heaviest right turn traffic, but it seems to offer promise for retaining the auto capacity while providing opportunities for finding the right match. 

The research conducted by Portland State University about our SW Broadway cycletrack suggests that its an application that will work well in places where we have few conflicts with driveways. I first saw the Mixing Zone during a visit back in November 2010 and it seemed to work exceptionally well and I felt extremely comfortable when cycling in the cycletrack. It also eliminates the need for a specific phase for people on bikes, so you end up with a traffic engineering win-win. 

New York City Bike Lane and Mixing Zone (Left Turn)

The following photos show the striping for the left side bike lane where there is on-street parking that is removed to make room for an exclusive left turn lane. To maintain as much parking as possible the amount of length for the left turn lane is kept to a minimum. The vehicles are presented with the teeth to indicate yield on entry. The green bike lane marking is dropped at this same point to indicate shared space with the traffic and sharrows are used in this space.

The second photos shows the Turning Vehicles Yield to Bicycles sign, which is in the MUTCD specifically for pedestrians, but it makes sense to call out bicycle traffic at this location because you have a left turn lane that conflicts with the left side bike lane.

The farside of the intersection is where I think NYC has offered the greatest innovation. The provision of the curbing for a pedestrian refuge presents an opportunity for yielding between the person on a bicycle and reducing the amount of time (potentially) that is necessary for the pedestrian clearance. To reduce the total time for the intersection, you'd have to do something on the nearside.

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.

Innovative Intersection Design for Reclaiming Space

Broadway entering Time Square had an odd crossing that resulted in some significant challenges to traffic through the district. Part of making the area more livable and more successful for pedestrians was simplifying the intersection. It also increased the accessibility for bicycles. In this picture, on-street parking was added in the middle of the street to separate the cycletrack from the auto traffic.
I arrived near 5:30 PM and it was clear that there were more pedestrians than any other traffic in a period that one might think you'd see heavy auto traffic. My brief analysis would suggest that the reclaiming of street for parking and bicycle use in this case and simplifying the downstream intersections which were traditionally many of the most congested in the City, let alone the country.
Again, the City was willing to take a risk to implement refuge islands to shadow the pedestrians and the parking. Probably an important element in the City as opposed to a less agressive community of drivers like we have in Portland.