They have done this project in conjunction with the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy and have a “Report a Problem” tool to allow you to suggest changes when the route Google produces need changing. Based on listserv and forum discussions going on today, there are already several Austin specific changes that will need to be made including most obviously the inclusion of the Hike & Bike Mopac bridge and the Shoal Creek trail system.

Editor Note: As an update to the passage of the Master Bike Plan, Annick Beaudet, the Bicycle Program Manager with the City of Austin in Department of Public Works, has provided this update on the implementation of the plan.

Colored bike lane on Dean Keaton East of IH 35.

It is my pleasure to write about my experience riding the new facilities recently installed as part of the City’s experimental bicycle facility study, in process and in partnership with the University of Texas Center for Transportation Research.

This past Sunday I headed out on an urban tour of many of our new bike lanes and of the new, experimental facilities.  I’ll note that two of my fellow riders were beginner riders, so it was a perfect opportunity for direct input on how new bicyclists would react to both the new bike lanes and the other facilities.

Sharrows being painted on Guadalupe St downtown.

We headed north from Barton Springs Road and Lamar Boulevard, through Town Lake Park, across the Pfluger Bridge, along the Town Lake Trail and the Lance Armstrong Bikeway to downtown.  In downtown, we took the new Shared Lane Markings, or Sharrows, along Lavaca Street to Martin Luther King Blvd (where there are new bicycle lanes), to Red River Street, and then to Dean Keaton Street.  On Dean Keaton, the green bicycle lanes made a positive impression on us all.  Wow, what a difference.  We headed north on Speedway to 43^rd Street, experiencing the Bike Box at the intersection of 38^th Street and Speedway (where we all made a bet of how many bicyclists travel through that intersection on a daily basis, the guesses ranged from 400 to 2750, UT will be giving us those counts at the end of the study, so stay tuned for the answer).  Like the talk on local bicycle forum web sites, we also debated a few minutes as we waited for the light, on how to use the facility. We found that we all had different riding styles and behaved differently not only as we rode along the road, but also at intersections.  It is my hope that with better facilities added to our toolbox in the United States, more bicyclists will begin riding, causing motor vehicle drivers to expect to see bicyclists in the roadway.  Eventually everyone will get better at understanding how to share the road

I’d like to give a shout out to the staff in not only the Bicycle Program, but the Transportation Department (ATD), and the Parks and Recreation Department (PARD).  Both departments have been working very hard this year to help our City to become more bicycle-friendly.  With the assistances of PARD we will be piloting a mirror at the Shoal Creek Trail and Lance Armstrong Bikeway intersection, to further ameliorate the improvement made at that location recently

One of the first bike boxes at 38th and Speedway.

In 2009 the City of Austin installed 20.7 miles of parking free bicycle facilities, more than doubling the 8.1 miles we installed in 2008.  In the third quarter of 2009 alone we installed 8.5 miles of bicycle facilities exceeding the total for any previous year.

Last, but not least, I’d like thank TXDOT staff in the North District Office  who recently  made some incredible context sensitive improvement to the Barton Springs Road and Mopac area ( they extended the City’s bicycle lanes and added sidewalk along the frontage road from Barton Springs Road to RR 2244).

Have a wonderful winter, do some long rides in the cool weather, commuter more, enjoy the holidays, be safe, and let’s continue to work together towards a Platinum Bicycle Friendly Community.

The bridge over Shoal Creek at 3rd Street will be closed from Monday 11/9/09 to Friday 11/13/09.  The project team will be providing a connection to a 72” water line that runs directly adjacent to the bridge.

Those with questions or concerns can contact Barrera at (512) 974-7142 or nadia.barrera@ci.austin.tx.us.

From today’s post:

Today was my first day to ride on Anderson Lane. They resurfaced and restriped Anderson and they put in a new bike lane! Anderson is pretty busy and traffic is fairly fast so I have never ridden on Anderson with the traffic. But I cross Anderson twice every day on my way to and from work. I had to wait and wait and wait for an opening in traffic every night (morning traffic isn’t so bad), but now I can just go to the light and ride a few blocks in the bike lane on Anderson to my turn. Cool! Thank you City of Austin!

Heather has been writing for the past couple years, but I’m embarrassed to admit that I’m just finding her blog. It’s a great write up of Heather’s training and races (she apparently competes in just about every local  triathlon) with lots of picture. Check it out.

Image Courtesy of Bike Portland.

Advocates for reverse-angle parking make several arguments:

It’s safer to pull into traffic pointing forward, with the driver getting a clear look to the left for oncoming traffic.

It’s safer for passing bicyclists. While a cyclist would lose the advantage of seeing brake lights of a car backing out, the driver in a reverse-angle parked car would be less likely to pull out and hit a bicycle.

Given the position of opened doors in a reverse-angle parked car, children or dogs exiting would be funneled toward the sidewalk rather than toward passing traffic.

A trunk adjacent to a sidewalk is safer to unload than one thta is facing traffic.

Getting the bike lane withou having to worry about getting doored is a big boon. The City will also begin charging for this previously free parking leading hopefully to more people riding.

To Shoal Creek Trail users:

There will be a full trail closure sometime this week (the week of July 20th) on the 3rd Street Bridge over Shoal Creek for the installation of a 24” waterline next to the bridge.  We work with the contractors to make sure that the duration of these critical trail closures are a brief as possible and only enacted when absolutely necessary.  Signs will be in place around the trail showing the closure location and alternate routes.

Let us know if you have any questions.

Thanks,

Nathan
Engineer Associate
City of Austin, Public Works
Neighborhood Connectivity Division, Bicycle Program
(512) 974.7016

Seattle is a lot like Austin in many ways. Both cities have natural beauty and a strong environmental movement to defend this asset. Both also give a lot of lip service to this movement but fall way short of actually implementing these ideals. We seem to like the idea of being green but don’t want to make the changes and sacrifices to truly make our cities sustainable. Similarly, in the cycling community there is a conflict between the mainstream, more recreational focused Cascade Bicycle Club and those wanting more radical change. I have seen a similar dynamic with the Austin Cycling Association here as well.

When it comes to making biking a form of transportation equal to others, Seattle is leaps ahead of us though. While no Portland bike nirvana, bike lanes and sharrows abound everywhere creating space on the road for cyclists. I did about 100 miles of riding throughout the city and found only a handful of problem intersections for cyclists. The driving culture is quite different in Seattle with drivers going out of their way to yield to cyclists and pedestrians. In fact, you have to be careful if you are just standing on a street corner as you can bring traffic to a screeching halt when drivers think you are trying to cross. That is something I wish we could export to our car-is-king state. It certainly makes riding on the street very pleasant and much more welcoming to the novice.

Not that you need to do much riding on the street. The best thing Seattle has done for cycling is create hundreds of miles of bike paths throughout the city. By creating car-free connections to major points in the city, Seattle has lowered the perceived safety barrier for cyclists. This allows those less comfortable in traffic including children to still get places by bike and also provides a place for people in the neighborhood stroll, walk the dog, or jog as well. I think these paths are key to creating the kind of volume of cyclist I saw during rush hour.

As we look at possible additional bike paths, I think here are some key points to learn from this. First of all, the bike paths go somewhere, not just in a circle. This helps serve both recreational and transportation needs for the path making it an asset for more of the community. Also since bike paths use relatively little space, we can use strips of land or right of way in many cases. Seattle’s trails sometimes cuts through unused spots of industrial land to connect to neighborhood. Not every inch of a bike path has to be scenic to be useful. Finally, all of their paths are paved. We have used packed granite paths for the most part, probably as a cost savings, but having paved paths makes a real difference in creating thoroughfares for all types of bikes, not just mountain bikes and hybrids. Again, this puts the focus on transportation over recreation but still maintains the dual use.

As you see the hundreds of cyclists on the trails and streets, you can see that Seattlites take their cycling for transportation seriously. The road bike is king with lots of touring bikes and European style city bikes as well. Despite the natural setting, I saw very few mountain bikes or their spawn, the hybrid. Without having read my Transportation Bike Picker, the cycling masses have gravitated towards bikes that are practical for transportation.

In fairness, Seattle has been seriously plugging away a at this stuff longer than we have and are working to improve all the time. In my family’s neighborhood, there were new sharrows in the main street since my last visit. We have a great Bicycle/Pedestrian department that are working feverishly to improve our infrastructure. I think we should take what works there, especially the bike paths, into consideration as we implement our improvements.

Ahhh summertime.  Street resurfacing methods cure better during the summer because the process involves settling of the aggregate in the asphalt.  The summer heat helps the aggregate to settle more evenly.  That means that your Bicycle Program staff is working like crazy to take advantage of all the new striping possibilities which are afforded by simply street maintenance.  Look for new bicycle facilities in your area over the coming months.

In the last couple of months we have installed a few of new bicycle facilities.  So, get out and ride them, and let us know how they work.

• A climbing lane on Martin Luther King Boulevard headed eastbound from Lamar to Pearl Street.  There is also an improved sidewalk for those of you who like to walk your bike up the hill.
• Bicycle lanes on Lacrosse Avenue from Natick Lane to Escarpment Boulevard.  A concerned citizen submitted this request, and since there was existing bicycle lanes on both sides of the gap, and the roadway was wide enough to simply add a five foot bicycle lane, this gap on Lacrosse Avenue was eliminated.
• Bicycle lanes on William Cannon Drive from IH-35 to Pleasant Valley Road.  This roadway is constructed of concrete.  The Bicycle Program worked with the Signs and Markings Division to pay for a water blasting type  lane stripe removal vehicle to remove the existing stripes and add new ones that included bicycle lanes.
• Bicycle lanes on Latta Drive from Convict Hill Road to Islander Drive and from Nairn Drive to Davis Lane.
• Dedicated bicycle lanes (without parking) on Mary Street from Congress Boulevard to the Union Pacific railroad tracks (near Lamar Boulevard).  With the cooperation and feedback from the Bouldin Creek and Zilker Neighborhood Association, and various stakeholders, the Bicycle Program and the Transportation Department were able to work out a parking and bicycle facility solution that met the needs of all users of the roadway.  This is a great route to So Co, Stacy and Little Stacy Pool, and soon will facilitate family bicycle traffic to the new Twin Oaks Library.

Besides facilities, we are working kick start a new promotional campaign.  We’ve begun to look at how other cities promote cycling and we will be looking to put a campaign that promotes cycling for transportation in place for the next fiscal year.  We have begun showing a public service announcement featuring Lance Armstrong on Channel 6 (keep an eye out for it).  However, this version is only phase I.  We will be improving the current announcement with the production of phase II that will add some really nice Austin bicycling footage.  Thanks to Lance for parntering with us on that.

Research for innovative facilities is continuing successfully.  The Steck Avenue reconfiguration from Shoal Creek Boulevard to Burnet Road after study is underway.  Stakeholders are invited to a meeting to discuss the reconfiguration at Pillow Elementary School Cafeteria (3025 Crosscreek Drive, Austin, TX 78757) at 6:30 PM on September 1st.   The purpose of this meeting is to receive comments and feedback from all users of the roadway on what they like or don’t like about the new configuration, which went from 4, 10 foot motor vehicle lanes, to 2 10 foot motor vehicle lanes, a 10 foot center turn land and 2, 5 foot bicycle lanes.

Additionally, the “Sharrow”, colored bicycle lane, bicycle box, and bicyclists “use full lane,” research by the Center for Transportation Research (CTR) is going well.  The research team is busy watching video of bicycle-motor vehicle interactions at the chosen locations before the devices are put into place.  The Bicycle Program hopes to have these devices in place before school starts at which time CTR will conduct its “after” research studying how the devices alter bicycle-motor vehicle interactions.

Stay cool out there, and keep on riding.

Whoa, look at all that room! Bicyclists and parked cars, neither the twain shall meet on westbound Mary Street

Recently, I’ve been helping Austin CarShare get caught up on service of their fleet. I bike from car to car and while I was coming home today, I ran across this grand, spankin’ new set of bike lanes on Mary Street in Bouldin just south of the river. One of the few upsides of our ridiculously wide suburban streets is that they are often big enough to accommodate a lane of car and bike traffic each way PLUS on-street parking. What’s great about this implementation is that the bike lane is made distinctive from the on-street parking by being placed further out in the street instead of right next to the curb. This means its very unlikely that you’ll have to go out into traffic to get around parked cars as was implemented earlier in another part of Bouldin. Well done to Annick and her crew.

Got any new bike lanes, paths, or facilities in your neighborhood or on your commute? Send us a picture and a short description and we’ll share it with everyone else.

This week the City of Austin completed work on a small but crucial piece of the development along Cesar Chavez.  The crosswalk connecting the Town Lake Hike and Bike Trail to the north side of Cesar Chavez at Sandra Muraida Way is now installed and open for business.

The concrete path extends from the bottom of the “helix” of the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge and allows safe crossing and better access for those continuing on to the newly completed portion of the Lance Armstrong Bikeway that runs along the north side of Cesar Chavez from San Antonio Street to Stephen F. Austin Blvd

Additional bicycle and pedestrian routes will be added in the area with the completion of Sand Beach Park in 2009 and the Pfluger Bridge Extension project in 2010.  Ultimately there will be a variety of routes to take bicycles and pedestrians from south of Lady Bird Lake to the Market District and beyond.