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.  

     

Bicycle Signals Discussion at the NCUTCD Meeting

At the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices Committee Joint Signals/Bicycles meeting last night we made progress on the provision of bicycle signals in the Manual. The FHWA staff started off with a discussion of the direction they have been given by Ray LaHood, who implements policy through the FHWA Administrator Victor Mendez. The report we got from the staff was that  that "75%" of the NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide would be implemented in the next Manual. The FHWA contact seemed to suggest that it would happen even if the National Committee did not support the changes which seems to be a big change to what the National Committee is used to.

Pedestrian hybrid beacon and bicycle signal farside

One of the elements that FHWA staff and the Signals folks raised at the end of the dialogue was the problems as they saw them with the combination of stop signs and the pedestrian hybrid beacon side street display. They believe that the combination of a stop sign and a bicycle traffic signal is in direct conflict and therefore should be strictly prohibited in the MUTCD (shall statement). I highlighted that we have not had an operational problem with this configuration at our two locations and we're planning to build two more (SE 19th & Tacoma and E 53rd & Burnside). This is similar to the complaint with the Half Signals. In the streamlining effort of the Manual, it was pointed out that Half Signals are no longer strictly prohibited. The intent is that the Pedestrian Hybrid Beacon would specifically prohibit bicycle signals being part of the installation. There was also specific feedback that Portland received with how the display was using flashing red and not to use the wig wag operation (wig wag is reserved for railroad signals in all other cases).

There was also the argument that beacons should not be at intersections. The fundamental research on the topic was focused in Tucson where they have deployed more than 80 beacons and they are mostly at intersections. There has been some conversation about eliminating that should not statement based on feedback from Tucson and other communities.

Portland Signals staff had concerns related to the pedestrian countdown timer and the safety of a person (running or cycling) arriving during the flashing don't walk countdown. There are some that are not interested in the argument as engineers often think of these crossing events as singular in nature (limited walking and cycling occurs in their communities?), so the late arriving person should just wait for the next opportunity and not cross on the Flashing Don't Walk.

The other element for bicycle signals that FHWA wanted the National Committee and the Task Force to consider was the inclusion of warrants. The warrants used in the California MUTCD are captured below. The entire CA MUTCD can be found here.

The one problem I see with the warrants (this is likely why there isn't a proliferation of bicycle signals in CA) is the need for >50 bicycles at a particular location. If there's no crossing opportunity now, it will be likely to not have 50 crossings. If the anticipation or projection of bicycle volumes is allowed than this isn't as significant of a barrier.

I confirmed with FHWA staff that the City of Portland's implementation of a bicycle signal at a pedestrian hybrid beacon is still under experimental review, if this prohibition comes to pass, the City would be notified.

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. 

Innovations at Traffic Signals for Cycling: Would a Thermal Imaging Camera Improve Detection

The first person detected by the thermal imaging camera in Portland. 

I presented on the topic "Innovations at Traffic Signals for Cycling" at the most recent meeting of the Oregon Section of the Institute of Transportation Engineers. There were a few new things we had done in the past year that I felt compelled to share information about. The most recent was a Thermal Imaging Sensor. Before I go into detail on that, let's review some of the recent innovations we have implemented in the past year.
In June, we repurposed our school zone enforcement light as a bike detected confirmation light. We have installed these at two locations and the response from their use has been very positive from the user community.  One of the reminders from the meeting was something that Rick Nys, the Clackamas County Traffic Engineer mentioned. He highlighted that the County used feedback from BikePortland.org to guide their improvements of the first bicycle signal in their system. He also mentioned that the response from the bicycling community was so positive that "it makes them want to do more of these types of projects".

The other innovations that I described included the Dutch Bicycle Countdown to Green signal I have described before, but haven't found a way to bring to the U.S.



The newest innovation that we're studying is the use of a thermal imaging camera made by Flir/Traficon. Traficon was recently purchased by Flir and it is interesting to consider a company like this getting into the traffic business.

Flir cameras come from military applications

 That hasn't always worked so well for other companies, but I am hopeful that they will be in it for the long haul. The good news with this situation is that there is an existing expertise with Traficon which is a Belgian company. The company representatives that we met with during the install of this unit suggests that we should be able to do what we want to detect bikes and distinguish their heat signature from that of a car. We'll study the equipment similar to what we did with the microwave and video detection at the Broadway Bridge NW Lovejoy intersection.

Here's a summary of the presentation in pictures.

The location of the test is SE Cesar E Chavez and Lincoln, a popular
bike route that is busy during the commute periods. 

I mentioned it was busy, this was after the morning peak and
people on bikes outnumbered vehicles even on a rainy day.

The push button here is mounted so the person on a bike
can reach it, but it isn't easy. The other direction is impossible to
activate from the street.

A peek in the cabinet of the equipment, the display was temporary,
but we do have access to the images back in the Traffic Operations Center.

I am looking forward to having this studied and learning a bit more about future applications.

Traffic Signal Phasing Design - Dutch Practice

Today, after the student lecture I sat down with Theo Muller who is one of the most brilliant minds in traffic signal control in the Netherlands. He provided training on VRIGen which is a program used to develop signal timing phasing plans given the complexity of the movements for the multimodal system that is common with buses, trams, bikes, and pedestrians at so many intersections.

Signal Phasing Diagram (assuming a median) 

Incorporation of bikes, trams are something the Dutch have done because of the challenges or complexities these modes have presented as a part of large projects. The signal phasing numbering scheme is set up in VRIGen and it is used throughout the country to standardize and allow them to deal with all (most) possible options. It seems they have used every number from 1 to 100 to make the various modes work together under a standard umbrella.

Signal Phasing assuming Transit in the Median
Note: transit can turn from each direction and bikes wither would
be handled different than shown.

How is this different than the U.S.?
In the U.S., we have 8 vehicle phases, multiple overlaps, and pedestrian movements tied to the parallel vehicle and LRT is handled as a preempt as opposed to another movement. The standard signal controller is not prepared for light rail or bus crossings in both directions (east-west & north-south) running on the median. The Dutch also assume the special considerations of the use of multiple numbers to allow 2 stage crossings as a part of the bikes & peds because of their slower speeds. This also allows "following" phases to occur for vehicles so progression can be achieved through an interchange or a set of two signals, like you might have at a diamond interchange.



What common guidelines do they apply that the U.S. should adopt?
The maximum cycle length is a good place to start. 120 seconds is an eternity for peds and bikes and that value and higher is to going to result in poor compliance and high delays for public transport
Another common approach is to use snappy detector timing. The use of 1.5 seconds of extension from the upstream (advance) detector is limited to the detector placed 30 meters from the stop bar with a detector that is 12m long. They use a 2.5 gap on the stop bar detector with a 2.5 second extensin with presence mode enabled, meaning that when a vehicle is present on the detector it continues to ask for more green.
We discussed the use of leading pedestrian (or bike) intervals (LBI or LPI) and it was surprising to hear they use 2 secs. They use LBIs when there is no right turn lane exclusive for controlling the traffic separately in two separate "streams" which is much preferred in the Netherlands for safe operations that remain efficient. Notice I stated safety was first, Theo indicated that more than half of all signals are there for insuring safe conditions for all users. Our MUTCD is a far cry from that without the proper use of engineering judgement and a strong protection of future multimodal traffic growth.

What are the downsides of this approach?
There were a few things I would like to discuss more with a practicing Dutch traffic engineer. The common practice is to separate out the right turns. This clearly results in a different set of conflicts as shown here:

The bike movement is labelled 21 (on the left in the red brick area) and the right turn is labelled 6 in the graphic (to the left of the car you can see the right turn arrow). 

  

This sort of configuration represents a reduction in vehicular capacity if there is a heavy right turning traffic and the photo shows a shared left turning and through movement which results in some complications potentially. There is clearly an emphasis of bicycle movements at the intersections and in the photo you can see the pedestrian is not striped through the cycletrack. It is assumed that it is no problem for the people on bicycles to sort themselves out with pedestrians and it is clear to pedestrians that they aren't supposed to be in the cycletrack.

Bicycle Highway in South Delft adjacent to N470

There may be no better way to encourage people to use bicycles for transportation than providing separate facilities, completely free from the risk of injury. This sort of commitment would take a significant amount of effort and lucky for me in my job, we aren't quite ready to invest in that level of infrastructure for cycling in all cases. The Dutch have balanced the scales to make that commitment and the Bicycle Highways are the epitomy of this. 

     The bicycle highways (overcrossings and grade separations of paths) in the Netherlands are another . The cycletrack is all at grade with concrete separation (islands defined by curbs) defining the edges of the travelways. The red coloring indicates the cycling facilties and there is some wearing away of the markings associated with the heavy traffic movements that are occurring at this location (pictures were taken late in the evening).  This bicycle interchange near the TU Delft campus is at N470 and Schieweg. The interchange is grade separated from the N470 and for the parallel bicycle facility that connects the southern part of Delft with the Delft Zuid (South) train station.     

The bicycle signals are essentially two stage crossings for bicycle movements, carefully coordinated to reduce delay for motor vehicles and separated from pedestrians in order to keep the signal timing snappy.



The turning movements for cyclists seem fairly small and during busy periods I am unclear how they keep the main cyclepaths clear for through traffic.

The following video provides the perspective of a person on a bike approach from the west and accessing the Schieweg, the north-south street that crosses under the bike highway and the N470.

Bike Overcrossings in Rotterdam - Complete with Supersized Escalators

      

Our leisurely Sunday bike ride provided us some further insights on the lengths the Dutch will go to provide an efficient and effective connection for people on bicycles. We decided to travel south through Rotterdam to evaluate some of the treatments in and around the third largest freight port in the world.  We turned up some very nice infrastructure without really looking for it. This and the Benelux tunnel post shows what sorts of accommodation is built alongside major highway upgrades.

This portion of the ride was the south most part of our effort.

This particular facility (shown in the pictures) was built alongside the A4 & A15 freeway to freeway interchange at the intersection of Vondelingenweg and Oud Pernisseweg. The facility provides access to Pernisserpark which is a nice outdoor space next to two very busy freeway facilities in a heavy industrialized area. We were there Sunday and the traffic was constantly buzzing on the freeways with a good amount of noise, so I can imagine it is louder during the week.

The screen capture shows the GPS track that was part
of the overcrossing of the rail tracks.

The overcrossing is in the southern portion of Rotterdam in the area called Hoogvliet and continues into Schiedam to the north. The short back tracking from the north to the south resulted in backtracking to take pictures of the highway A 15 below. The tracks match closely to our use of the ramp down in the northbound direction. 

A view from the top of the structure looking back at the separation.
Rail on the left and the "elevated right turn" we just made.

The cover for the escalator reminded me of the
sand crawler vehicle the Jawas used in Star Wars. 

This is the entrance to an escalator that allows people on bicycles to make a right turn over several freight railroad tracks. Obviously, it wouldn't be desirable for a cyclist to cross the heavy rail at grade, so this escalator is a facility that gets people up to the grade where they can crossover without any conflict. It uses the old road right of way ( I am assuming) that was vacated after the A4 highway was built.  Similar to the Benelux tunnel, one could argue whether this sort of facility (I almost called it an amenity) is necessary. There are many examples of interchange ramps where there isn't special provision for cyclists of this magnitude that work just fine. I will be interested in exploring this with the guest speakers we have and I am hoping there is someone that might discuss the specifics of this type of investment.   

NACTO Bike Guide Training at the Oregon Active Transportation Summit

The Oregon Active Transportation Summit (OATS) annually offers education on a broad array of active transportation topics. This year’s Summit will be April 16-17 in Salem.

Offered on Monday, April 16th of the summit will be an intensive day-long training on the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) Bikeway Design Guide. Completing the training offers 6 professional development hours.

The NACTO Guide presents both detailed designs and examples of how best practice bikeways are being implemented throughout North America. The training—taught by Roger Geller, Rob Burchfield and Peter Koonce—will cover the 21 designs found in the guide as well as other treatments in use, but not yet covered there. The course is intended for traffic engineers, project managers, planners and anyone interested in the nuts and bolts and discussion of more recent bikeway designs.

To take the course, register here for the summit!
Registration is $50, which includes conference sessions, lunch and the evening reception. In addition to the bikeway design training is a full two-day agenda that promises a stimulating summit. If you cannot attend both days at the least please plan to stay for the evening talk and reception that follows.

A hard-copy of the NACTO Guide is available for an additional $40 when you register.

Documenting Efforts on NE 12th Avenue: 4 to 3-lane Conversion

I got an email from another colleague regarding the experience converting a 4-lane to 3-lane conversion on NE 12th Avenue. I could spend a lot of time to describe it or I could summarize blog posts that BikePortland.org had on the subject in chronological order with better reporting than I could accomplish at home in the evenings after work.

Pushback on the Plans - are signals enough? - April 28th: This was the time I got involved. There was some earlier work on the concepts, but I hadn't done a whole lot of new information.

Implementation Notice - June 2nd: PBOT implemented the signal changes with some striping modifications before the school year ended.

Moving Forward with Concerns - June 16th: A second meeting was held to discuss initial results.

Consensus with the Stakeholders! - September 29 : We studied the after when school was back in session to do a reasonable comparison.

Implementation pictorial: The completed project, we still have a few things to modify and we committed to evaluate the after before the end of the year. We haven't had any complaints that we were not able to address.

Bike Signals Presentation at 2012 #TRBAM

The CROW Manual is a great
resource for bicycle design.

Putting the finishing touches on the Bike Signals presentation and it is helpful to refocus some of the efforts for the coming months and years. Reflection on something as simple as a bike signal shows not only how far we have come, but also how much we have to do to make cycling safe in Portland.  
There are a wide variety of elements that we have used on the nine bicycle signals that we have built. The map that I have been using to inventory the system and planned indications is helpful to keep straight all of the work that is in the works.
View Portland's Bicycle Signals in a larger map

The NACTO Bike Guide presentations were very good overall. I learned quite a few things and did a bit of binge tweeting with nine tweets in about 4 hours.

Preparation for my presentation caused me to review the Guide in more depth and I found a few things that I disagree with in the signals portion, most notably the Clearance interval issue, which is something that's an ongoing debate at the Institute of Transportation Engineers and National Cooperative Highway Research Program efforts that have been worked on by VHB and Wayne State University. It's a project that originally proposed an arbitrary increase in yellow time for all cases where people on bicycles are present. All in the name of safety. I contend (consistent with the research) that the longer you make a clearance interval the more people will learn the constraints of the system and they will make decisions based on the known risk factors. The higher the clearance interval (yellow and all red) the higher likelihood for variable behavior. Higher speeds contribute to this issue and it falls back to the fundamental concept for how speeds are set in the U.S.

Offering a New Transportation Engineering Perspective on Cycling Facilities: A Response to John Forester's Letter in ITE Journal

To the Editor:

In John Forester’s letter to the editor critiquing “Physically Separated Bikeways: A Game Changer for Bicycle Mode Split” (vol. 81, no. 4), he takes credit, as he has elsewhere[i], for alerting the engineering community to the supposed danger of bikeways that are physically separated from adjacent traffic. His objection is based primarily on his advocacy for a style of bicycling effective under what most people consider the worst of conditions: a roadway shared by bicycles and high volumes of fast motor vehicles. So-called “vehicular cycling”—essentially operating a bicycle as if it were a motor vehicle—allows the small minority of people willing to operate in such environments a safe way to ride. While Forester deserves credit for developing such a style, better alternatives are now and have long been available.

There is a growing consensus among transportation professionals and decision makers that direct their work that it is the diametrically opposite of Forester’s antiseparation doctrine that results in increasing numbers of people bicycling. Creating as much separation as possible between people riding bicycles from high volumes of motor vehicle traffic improves the safety and comfort of all road users. There is substantial and growing evidence to support these views based on the recent experiences with cycle tracks in Montreal, Canada, Portland, OR, New York, Long Beach, CA, and Washington, DC that are not merely anecdotal, but are being confirmed by emerging research. A 2010 study of Montreal’s bikeways found, not surprisingly, that they were significantly safer than riding in mixed traffic, as well as enormously popular[ii]. New York City reports similar results. Research suggests that the cycle tracks in Portland, OR increased cyclist perceptions of safety (particularly those of women)[iii], a necessary step toward expanding the use of bicycles across a broader cross-section of society. Of course, European cities have long known about these benefits of cycle tracks and comparative research has shown that European countries with cycle tracks had far lower bicycling fatality rates than America[iv].


Unfortunately, Forester’s statements reflect more a personal philosophy about the appropriate relationship of bicycling to driving than they do a reasoned understanding of current research and emerging trends. Stating that “[bicyclists] acting subservient to motorists” is an “indignity”, phrasing such as “cyclist-inferiority cycling” and discussion about how people riding bicycles are “disenfranchised” from riding on the public roadways by cycle tracks, are about as relevant to this discussion as is the 35-year old study Forester cites as the basis for his critique. He was also opposed to building rail-trails in the 1980s and 1990s for these same reasons, which have proven to be groundless.

The fact is that transportation policies are advancing to support increased bicycle transportation; a growing number of jurisdictions and the professionals that serve them are finding ways to accommodate that desired growth and are achieving success in doing so. With better alternatives now available, willingly planned for and successfully implemented in cities across the country, relying on vehicular cycling—and thus relegating bicycling to only those few willing to ride in such environments—would represent a failure both of policy and engineering. The growing movement to create cycle tracks in American cities is being facilitated by the engineering community’s recognition that separated bikeways can be safe, convenient, and attractive. The 2010 publication of the Bikeway Design Guide by the National Association of City Transportation Officials offers the first national guidance on separated bikeways such as cycle tracks. We hope that many other positive steps follow.

Signed,

Robert Burchfield, P.E., City Traffic Engineer, Portland, OR

Susan Clippinger, Director, Traffic, Parking and Transportation Department, City of Cambridge, MA

Michael Gardner-Sweeney, Traffic Engineer for the City of Boulder, CO

Brian Kemper, P.E., Acting City Traffic Engineer & Signal Operations Manager, Seattle Department of Transportation

Peter Koonce, P.E., Manager, Signals and Street Lighting Section, Bureau of Transportation, Portland, OR
Dennis Leach, Director of Transportation, Arlington County, VA

Andy Lutz, P.E., Chief Engineer, City of Indianapolis, IN

Susanne Rasmussen, Community Development Department, Environment and Transportation Planning Division, City of Cambridge, MA

Bridget Smith, P.E., Deputy Director, Livable Streets, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency

Wayne Wentz, P.E., Director Transportation Engineering, Arlington County, VA

John Yonan, P.E., Deputy Commissioner/Chief Engineer, Chicago Department of Transportation, Division of Engineering

Paul Zykofsky, AICP, Associate Director, Local Government Commission, Sacramento, CA

Mia Birk, President, Alta Planning + Design

John LaPlante, P.E., PTOE, Director of Traffic Engineering, T.Y. Lin International

Rock Miller, P.E., Principal, Stantec Consulting

David Parisi, P.E., Parisi & Associates

Jamie Parks, AICP, Kittelson & Associates

Todd A. Peterson, P.E., PTOE, Senior Transportation Engineer, Parsons Brinckerhoff

Matthew  Ridgway, AICP, PTP, Principal, Fehr & Peers

William Schultheiss, P.E., Senior Engineer, Toole Design Group

Andy Clarke, President, League of American Bicyclists

Dan Burden, Executive Director, Walkable and Livable Communities Institute

Keith Laughlin, President, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy

Barbara McCann, Executive Director, Complete Streets Coalition

Randy Neufeld, SRAM Cycling Fund

Gil Penalosa, MBA, Executive Director, 8-80s Cities

Jennifer Dill, Professor, Portland State University, Portland, OR

Peter Furth, Professor, Northeastern University

Ian Lockwood, P.E., Loeb Fellow, Harvard University

Chris Monsere, P.E. Professor, Portland State University, Portland, OR

John Pucher, Professor, Rutgers University

Roger Geller, Bicycle Coordinator, Portland, OR

Zaki Mustafa, Chief of Field Operations, City of Los Angeles, CA

---

[i] Forester, J., 2001. “The bikeway controversy.” Transportation Quarterly 55(2): 7-17.

[ii] Lusk, A.C., P.G. Furth, et al. 2011. “Risk of injury for bicycling on cycle tracks versus in the street.” Injury Prevention 17: 131-135.

[iii] Monsere, C., N. McNeil, J. Dill. “Multi-User Perspectives on Separated, On-Street Bicycle Infrastructure” Paper 12-1753, Accepted for presentation at the 9th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC, 2012.

[iv] Pucher, J. and L. Dijkstra, 2000. “Making walking and cycling safer: lessons from Europe.” Transportation Quarterly 54(3): 25-50.

Transportation Safety Map - Fatalities 2001-2009

2012 Transportation Research Board Meeting Schedule

This year's Transportation Research Board meeting promises to be as busy as ever. I have gotten myself involved in five separate activities over the Conference and continue to serve on two separate Committees. This blog post is a bit of a record keeping one, so I apologize if you've happened upon this and are reading it. If you are planning to be at TRB this year, come visit me at one of these sessions.

Building Modern Urban Bikeways: National Association of City Transportation Officials' Guide and National Experience
Event Date:	Jan 22 2012 9:00AM- 4:30PM

A nice intro to the Urban Bikeway Design Guide was featured in the American Society of Landscape Architects Blog "The Dirt"

Overview of National Association of City Transportation Officials' Urban Bikeway Design Guide (P12-6095) 
     Maddox, Heath - San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency 
     Sebastian, Jim - District of Columbia Department of Transportation 
     Koonce, Peter J .V. - City of Portland, Oregon 


 Implementation and Case Studies of Innovative Bicycle Facilities (P12-6099) 
     Dill, Jennifer - Portland State University 
     Koonce, Peter J .V. - City of Portland, Oregon 
     Maddox, Heath - San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency 
     Sebastian, Jim - District of Columbia Department of Transportation 
     Freedman, Nicole - Boston Transportation Department 
     Seiderman, Cara - City of Cambridge, Massachusetts 


There's two presentations in one workshop on the NACTO Bikeway Design Guide. Those presentations will have some elements from this previous presentation I gave at Portland State's Friday Seminar in March. 


Then there are the three papers that I helped edit and contributed towards and these included the following:


  Barrier-Free Ring Structures and Pedestrian Overlaps in Signalized Intersection Control (12-2141) - C13 
     Furth, Peter G. - Northeastern University 
     Muller, Theo H.J. - Delft University of Technology, Netherlands 
     Salomons, Maria - Delft University of Technology, Netherlands 
     Bertulis, Tomas - Northeastern University 
     Koonce, Peter J .V. - City of Portland, Oregon 


Preliminary Development of Methods to Automatically Gather Bicycle Counts and Pedestrian Delay at Signalized Intersections (12-2107) 
     Kothuri, Sirisha Murthy - Portland State University 
     Reynolds, Titus - City of Portland, Oregon 
     Monsere, Christopher M. - Portland State University 
     Koonce, Peter J .V. - City of Portland, Oregon 

A Framework for Multimodal Arterial Data Archiving (12-1750) 
     Monsere, Christopher M. - Portland State University 
     Olson, Carl - Portland State University 
     Kothuri, Sirisha Murthy - Portland State University 
     Tufte, Kristin A. - Portland State University 
     Koonce, Peter J .V. - City of Portland, Oregon 


I remain active on the Traffic Signal Systems Committee and Bus Transit Systems, so I will be at those meetings as well. 

Portland Bicycle Signals

Google alerts is a pretty great at highlighting new activities on the internet. I got a request based on the City of Eugene posting the following press release about their first ever bicycle signal.

I have been keeping track of the various bicycle signals we have whether they have the stencil or are merely exclusive bicycle signals and coded them in Google maps (you can follow the link below. There are a few that are in various stages of design/planning associated with some of the capital projects that the City is involved in that are color coded as described in the google map.


View Portland's Bicycle Signals in a larger map

Turning Vehicles Yield to Bicycles Dynamic Sign



The City of Portland installed a dynamic warning sign at NE Grand and Couch in Portland during the past week. The intent was to clarify the traffic control at the intersection and to warn motorists of an approaching cyclist.

Inductive loop detection is located upstream from the traffic signal by 200 feet. We have second  detector in the bike lane approximately 60 feet downstream is used to identify and confirm that all people on bicycles are approaching the signal.

The active sign is behind the no turn on red sign and the advance ctop here on red sign.

50' from the intersection you can see the bike box and the active warning sign. The arrow in the bike lane advances.

A close up of the sign shows the information. This is the same message as the MUTCD sign with the exception of the bike lane and the bicycle (the MUTCD sign is only for pedestrians). The sign is the same size as the signal head (3' x 3')

UPDATED: Video that shows the animation of the sign prior to deployment. 

 

SW Moody Nearside Bike Signal

Bicycle scale traffic signal indications have been implemented in Portland. We purchased 4" signal heads from Gesig, a company in Austria that we were able to contact and make arrangements to procure the equipment.  That was a significant obstacle because of the small quantity order, the lack of a local distributor, and the Euro-US financial transaction (IRS forms, etc). 

The supplemental 4" signal head will be placed on the nearside pole shown above (there is also some ornamental canopy treatments on the pole) to provide a nearside installation that is consistent with the scale that a person on the bicycle needs to get an indication that doesn't blind them with the brightness of an automobile signal. The nearside indication is simply a supplemental head, supporting the 8" indication that is farside of the intersection. The initial installation shown in this picture (this was taken before the signal was turned on)  shows 12" heads that are standard, but  the contractor and the distributor of the equipment they were working with failed to read the plans correctly. 

BikePortland.org author Jonathon Maus has a really nice video on opening day. If you watch the video, this was developed prior to the turnon of the signal at SW Moody and Gibbs.

We modified a signal to the north of this location at SW Sheridan and SW Moody and added a diagonal bicycle crossing complete with green striping that indicates that the crossing is for bicycles in a diagonal direction. I especially like in the video at 2:20 the flagger conversation. 

Updated with another blog post from Portlandize.com
http://portlandize.com/2011/11/cycle-track-after-a-couple-of-weeks/

It goes like this:

Flagger: Got something new here for you, it's a pressure point, that light will turn green for you"

BikePortland: Bike only, ok, very cool

And at 3:03

Flagger 2: Go Green light, just for you!

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. 

Transportation Research Board Paper Acceptance

Sirisha Kothuri, one of the City of Portland's interns over the summer wrote up a paper describing our work to use existing signal controllers to measure delay at traffic signalized intersections. While we were at it we figured out we could collect bicycle counts as well at select locations. Well, I am proud to announce that the paper: "Preliminary Development of Methods to Automatically Gather Bicycle Counts and Pedestrian Delay at Signalized Intersections" was accepted for the 2012 Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting. The authors include Sirisha Kothuri, Titus Reyonlds, Christopher Monsere, and Peter Koonce.

I am sure it will be posted at some point and I will update the post when I find it.

Roads Going High Tech... and Bicycle Lanes Too

Today's blog from the Secretary of Transportation describes roads going high tech. At yesterdays, TransPort meeting (the Intelligent Transportation Systems Subcomittee of Metro's TPAC) we learned about how the Oregon DOT is going to implement some queue warning signs and additional technology to highlight where highway traffic is stopped and to reduce the speed limit accordingly. It's an exciting development for improving safety and improving our highways (specifically Highway 217 and ) as we seek to do more with our existing infrastructure. This specifically should reduce the potential of wasting capacity that can be restored if motorists are aware of the change. One can debate the extent of the improvements, but putting information in the hands of engineers can yield societal benefits. 

Not to be outdone, we're working to pull together information on bike lanes in a similar fashion. The link below shares where the map is and the progress on where we're counting and monitoring use of the system.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=201784094409028558690.0004a3e54739207228bb4

UPDATED: I recieved a comment about how we're detecting bikes and that's found here: http://koonceportland.blogspot.com/2011/09/automated-bicycle-counting.html