Part of me agrees with Dina.  Ever since Christophe Le Canne was killed on the Rickenbacker Causeway in January, I have come to view bicycling as a dangerous activity.

I love biking; it is part of who I am. I used to be fearless and after my stint in the Peace Corps I biked with 2 friends from Guatemala to Panama. Bicycling brings me great joy, but I no longer feel safe biking in Miami. What I feel is vulnerable. This is particularly true on our causeways, where bicycle lanes are placed next to cars which are moving at 45-75mph without any sort of hard or soft barrier to protect cyclists (i.e. Rickenbacker Causeway and MacArthur Causeway).  When I do bike now, I choose roads where the design speed of the roadway does not exceed 25-30 mph.  Even when bike lanes are present, such as the Coral Way bike lanes, I do not use them because cars are moving at 45-50mph. I prefer taking a side street were traffic moves slower.

Perhaps I am just getting old. Or perhaps now that I am married I am aware of the tremendous loss I would leave behind if I suffered the same fate as Christophe Le Canne. But the lack of proper bicycle infrastructure in Miami has been forcing me recently to drive my bicycle up to Oleta River State Park so that I may get the exercise I enjoy.  I feel defeated that I have been relegated to biking in a park.

In the interest of full disclosure, I still ride my bike (in my suit) to work everyday. Although it is only about 6 blocks away I have way too many close calls on a regular basis.

Is this the way we must live? My hope is that we can develop streets for all users in South Florida.

Good job County Public Works!

Today, I want to announce a sea change. People across America who value bicycling should have a voice when it comes to transportation planning. This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized.

We are integrating the needs of bicyclists in federally-funded road projects. We are discouraging transportation investments that negatively affect cyclists and pedestrians. And we are encouraging investments that go beyond the minimum requirements and provide facilities for bicyclists and pedestrians of all ages and abilities.

To set this approach in motion, we have formulated key recommendations for state DOTs and communities:

• Treat walking and bicycling as equals with other transportation modes.
• Ensure convenient access for people of all ages and abilities.
• Go beyond minimum design standards.
• Collect data on walking and biking trips.
• Set a mode share target for walking and bicycling.
• Protect sidewalks and shared-use paths the same way roadways are protected (for example, snow removal)
• Improve nonmotorized facilities during maintenance projects.

Now, this is a start, but it’s an important start. These initial steps forward will help us move forward even further.

Awesome. This is exactly the sort of smart transportation planning we have been advocating for. Transit Miami applauds the change and looks forward to seeing it implemented. If the recent success of the TIGER stimulus grants are any indication of the federal commitment to complete streets, this latest proclamation is yet another step in the right direction.

The association is seeking true stories from Floridians and visitors that benefit from using any of the 28 public transportation systems in Florida. Riders can tell their positive experiences using public transit by submitting a short video, a photo and caption, or a short essay.

The public is invited to be creative and tell FloridaTransit.org what you are doing with all the money you save by taking transit. What are you doing with the time on board relaxing or being productive while your counterparts waste time and stress out in traffic congestion?  Are you on board as a green lifestyle choice or as a patriot because transit helps cut America’s addiction to foreign oil by 4.2 billion gallons of gas a year.

It reads:

I call upon the residents of the City of Miami to join me in the observance of this important occasion that promotes an elevated quality of life; further, I urge the embrace of partnerships and programs that encourage bicycling as a physical activity.

Mayor Tomás Regalado, City of Miami

City Spotlight Series:

Could this be a little motivation to take a second look at implementing parts of the People’s Transportation Plan with some combination of heavy rail/light rail/ and commuter rail? It’s not too late….

The project in question proposed a typical section with on-street parking on both sides, wide sidewalks, and two 10′ travel lanes, with a design speed of 25 mph. The intent was to integrate bicycles into the flow of traffic, as speeds of bicycles and motor vehicles would be similar. This makes sense because bicycle lanes are not a one-size-fits-all feature, but should only be installed on the right roadways.

Let’s ask ourselves why bicycle lanes exist in the first place. Sure, they create a designated space for bicyclists to use. But why do we need that? The primary purpose of bicycle lanes has been to maintain motorist travel speeds. Bicycle lanes get the slower-moving bicycle out of the way of the automobile. They also keep bicyclists from getting startled when impatient drivers come up behind them and lean on the horn or perform other road-rage fueled criminal acts.

Some people say that bicycle lanes provide extra safety. This is a debatable point that I won’t start into other than to say that a bicycle lane feels safer on high speed roadways. I think that our own recent experiences with the Rickenbacker Causeway and other roadways proves that bicycle lanes don’t necessarily equate with safety. Bicycle lanes provide a perceived safety benefit to the bicyclist, that much is true.

Perhaps having the symbols on the pavement encourages more cyclists to ride, but shared lane markings as found in the 2009 MUTCD provide similar pavement symbols. So we can’t really count that one. Can you think of anything else that bicycle lanes do for the cyclist? Check out some of the lists of advantages or benefits of bicycle lanes, such as this PDF, and most of the benefits are for automobiles. That particular list has 16 benefits, and only one or  two apply to bicyclists. The CRA representative mentioned that in another published list of 21 benefits of bicycle lanes, only two applied to the bicyclists. So the motorists get most of the benefits out of the bicycle lanes.

Now, I’m still in favor of bicycle lanes on higher speed roadways. When automobile speeds are 30, 35 mph and up, the benefits listed above, while still few, are worthwhile. I think most of you would agree with that so I won’t argue that point. But what happens to those benefits when speeds go down to 25 mph or lower? Maybe the road rage can still occur, but if motorists are really going 20-25 mph or lower they are not as likely to be bothered by a bicyclist in front of them going 15 mph or so. Is there still a perceived safety benefit to bicycle lanes when motorist speeds are so similar to bicyclists speeds? If you’ve ever ridden in places such as Old Town Key West, you would probably agree that the roads are quite comfortable to ride on. My wife, who is not comfortable riding on the roads in Fort Lauderdale, had no problem riding in Key West in the same lanes as the cars.

There are other advantages to not having bicycle lanes, or disadvantages to bicycle lanes. If you are not familiar with the issues that arise with bicycle lanes, read some of them at Bicycle Driving or Bicycle Universe. One example is bicycle lanes next to on-street parking. The widest car doors can stick out 3.5′ into the bicycle lane, making riding in the bicycle lane clearly more dangerous than riding in the automobile lane. The crash rates of bicyclists getting”doored” are much higher and much more deadly than bicyclists getting hit from behind. Another example is bicycle
lanes getting used when they should not be, such as a bicyclist turning left. Lately I’ve been having several coworkers who see me riding to work ask if my making a left turn from the left vehicle lane was proper or legal. They and many others, motorists and bicyclists, are so stuck on the idea that bicyclists belong in the bicycle lane that they cannot fathom that someone would ride outside of it.

The lower the motorist speed, the more the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. Some studies might be useful to determine at exactly what speed it is better to combine bicyclist and motorist traffic. Until those studies are performed, we can go on experience. In my experience, I am comfortable using the automobile lane when motor vehicle speeds are around 25 mph. At what automobile speeds are you comfortable using the same lane as the automobiles? Let us know in the comments.

I’m not familiar with the details of the roads in Bayshore that were under discussion on Monday. But for those of you who are, think about whether bicycle lanes are the appropriate treatment for those roadways. Don’t automatically assume that we need bicycle lanes on every road. Every project requires good, site-specific design. If we get set on one way of doing things and refuse to change for an appropriate situation, we are no better than the bureaucracies we so often fight against.

First picture by flickr user Willamor Media. Second by Richard Drdul.