On 3/6/2016 12:05 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 3/5/2016 9:09 PM, Mike A Schwab wrote:
On Saturday, March 5, 2016 at 7:40:11 PM UTC-6, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 3/5/2016 10:53 AM, AMuzi wrote:
Three items of note today:

separate lanes
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/c...304-story.html


From the article: "... the Clybourn curb-protected lane, a state
project, pegged at roughly $700,000..." If that's "between Division
Street and North Avenue" as in the first photo's caption, that's for
just 0.8 miles of roadway. Seems pretty expensive!


--
- Frank Krygowski

http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago...t?oid=20305324


Held up for three years by a staffer for political reasons. City
supported them, Governor Quinn supported them, but a staffer kept them
from going through.

I'm sorry, but that article reads like distorted propaganda.

First, there's the introductory tug at the heartstrings, that if only
this evil IDOT person hadn't asked for safety data before constructing
cycletracks, that poor Bobby Cann would be alive today. It's repeated
later in the article, and highlighted by a ghost bike photo.

But the crash that killed him happened at an intersection! Cycletracks,
whether behind concrete curbs, parked cars or plastic posts, do NOT
increase safety at intersections! If anything, they tend to surprise
motorists who must cross them. See this, for one example:
https://vimeo.com/23743067

Second, there is the continuing assertion that politics would be the
only reason that anyone would object to the cycletracks. But IDOT was
asking for three years of safety data. That's hardly unreasonable!
Cycletracks are the hot, fashionable "innovative" street treatment that
this Streetsblog site (and others) now say we MUST have. But the most
prominent bike facility design manual, by AASHTO, has for decades listed
a about a dozen reasons why such facilities are likely to be bad ideas.
AASHTO is an engineering organization, and has no particular politics.
It looks at traffic interactions, vehicle motion, driver capabilities
and expectations, etc.

The author claims there's no reason to ask for safety data, because
there's data claiming cycletracks add safety. He does NOT admit that
there's also data showing cycletracks add danger! In fact, the only
true before-vs-after study of cycletracks (in Copenhagen) showed very
significant increases in crash rates. (Jensen, "Bicycle Tracks and
Lanes: A Before-After Study",
http://vehicularcyclist.com/copenhagen2.pdf )

And speaking of Copenhagen, even the rabidly pro-facility website
"Copenhagenize" is adamantly against two-direction cycletracks on one
side of the road.
See
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2014/06...cle-track.html


Another example is Davis, California, one of the most famous American
cities for bike facilities and bike use. Its bike mode share has been
extremely high since the U of California campus there exploded in size,
and made it near illegal to have cars on that campus. The little, flat
town with a perfect climate began building lots of bike facilities,
trying lots of designs. But they abandoned cycletracks early on, because
they proved dangerous. See http://john-s-allen.com/blog/?p=1927

Less well known, in Columbus Ohio during the 1970s, officials added a
cycletrack to one of the streets bordering the OSU campus. (A cycling
friend of mine lives within a few blocks.) That cycletrack lasted just
a couple years before it was ripped out. Why? Because of a big
increase in crash rates!

I think it's very likely that the engineers at IDOT were well aware that
cycletracks are not magic. They were certainly aware that one would not
prevent a fatality at an intersection - the very place that cycletracks
remove "protection" and increase confusion. They were probably
justifiably outraged at Streetsblog's 3000-person attempt at traffic
Engineering By Petition.

But Streetsblog isn't really about engineering. It's about paint and
path, by whatever means necessary. That's their mission, and that's the
behavior you get with True Believers.


Oh, and for the anecdote fans:
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/...nue-tinkering/

--
- Frank Krygowski