Oct

3

Two Wheeling it in the City: Thoughts about bicycle safety

Filed Under Bicycling, Copenhagen, Safety, Seattle, Streets For People, Transportation | 2 Comments

A child riding along a cycle track in Copenhagen. Note the traffic calming design of the side street: the sidewalk continues across the junction with special paving to make drivers aware they are entering a pedestrian/bike area.

Learning about the tragic deaths in the bicycle community that have happened recently in the Pacific Northwest gives me goose bumps.  I know that when I decide to ride to work – nearly 12 miles each way on the shoulder of a highway where cars speed by at 50 miles per hour – I’m taking a risk.  Anyone takes a risk when commuting to work, no matter what mode of transportation they select.  However, my road bike doesn’t feel as safe as riding high inside my Honda CR-V with the seat warmers on and NPR keeping me company.  If one thing goes awry during my bike commute, I’m likely to wind up in the hospital or worse.  When I began riding to work, most people were genuinely concerned for my safety.  I can’t imagine letting my son ride on the roads I ride unless there are significant changes to our region’s infrastructure.  And that’s part of the reason I ride – to show support for cycling as a mode of transport despite its marginalization.  Yet, learning of the loss of life of the cyclists in this region gives me pause.

A mom and daughter riding in Copenhagen. When will roads in my town be safe enough for my child?

Safety is a big barrier to bicycle commuting in America.  Cyclists in the US face a far greater risk of death when choosing to ride than in more bike-friendly countries.  According to a recent piece in The Economist, you are three to five times more likely to die while bicycling in the United States than in bike-friendly countries like the Netherlands, Denmark, or Germany.  Safety is often cited as a major factor in why people do not ride in America.  So it’s not surprising that Census data shows less than 1 percent of Americans commute by bike.

Amsterdam cycle lanes are usually separated from moving vehicles.

Amsterdam streets are designed to fit all road users into the public right-of-way: pedestrians, cyclists, trains and buses, and cars.

And I was not one of that fraction of a percent who ride to work until recently, even with my degrees in urban planning and my devotion to use my car as little as possible.  It wasn’t until I moved to Copenhagen, Denmark that I realized the potential of bicycles as a mode of transportation.  In Copenhagen, you can’t really ignore cycling.  It’s a respected way to get around – about 50% of all Copenhagen residents who commute within the city’s boundaries get to work on bicycle.

Typical bike facility in Copenhagen.

What is there to learn from cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam that might help address the enormous gap in safety between riding in the US and bike-friendly countries in Europe?  One major difference is that bike-friendly cities in Europe have set out to create a network of bike lanes that is mostly separated from vehicular traffic.  In Collection of Cycle Concepts put out by Denmark’s Road Directorate, a manual for traffic engineers and planners, they state simply:  “The road administration has a choice: either car speeds must be adapted to the conditions, or conditions must be adapted to car speeds.  On cycle routes where cyclists and cars use the same traffic area, a desired speed for cars of up to 40 kph is suitable….If car speeds are higher than 40 kph, traffic calming or separation of the types of traffic is advisable” (page 50).  Forty kilometers per hour is equivalent to about 25 miles per hour.  Michael Wang, the Seattle cyclist who was killed on Dexter Avenue (a heavily used cycle route) was on a bike lane separated from vehicles traveling 30 miles per hour by a painted line.

From the Collection of Cycle Concepts, this visually describes the Danish perspective on traffic volumes, speeds, and appropriate bike facility design.

Alan Durning wrote about the connection between car speeds and pedestrian deaths in a recent post. A UK study from the mid-1990s reviewed vehicular speeds and the chance of pedestrian death.  When cars are traveling at speeds of 20 miles per hour, the likelihood of pedestrian death is 5 percent.  Add ten more mph, and pedestrians have a 45 percent chance of death.  At 40 mph, there is an 85 percent chance of death.  And I’m riding on a road posted at 50 mph with no separation between cars and me except for a fog line.  Yikes.

I think it’s obvious that in the US, cycling is a riskier endeavor than in bike-friendly cities and countries in Europe.  But there is also another component that keeps people off the roads:  the sense of safety or security.  This is obviously linked to safety statistics, but it is also more subjective.  The City of Portland did an interesting survey a few years ago that asked why people chose not to ride.  As with most surveys that asked this question, the choice to ride or not to ride hinged on concerns about safety.  Based on the survey results, four categories of riders were created, as shown in the below graphic.

Strong & Fearless (Less than 1%), Enthused & Confident (7%), Interested but Concerned (60%), No Way No How (33%)

The study concluded that Portland’s impressive increase in bicycle commuting numbers resulted from encouraging more “Enthused and Confident” riders to get on bikes by adding bicycle facilities to more city streets.  This group will ride on the road occasionally, but prefers bike facilities like lanes and bike boulevards.  However, there is gigantic potential if the city can convince those “Interested but Concerned” riders to get on two wheels.  This group would consider riding, but not if it requires mixing with cars on busy city streets.

There is actually a bike lane here - the SUV is parked mostly within it. The problem with painted bike lanes is there isn't much to keep cars out. While a bike lane between parked and moving cars is a good step forward, it won't work for many would-be-riders (Flickr, planetgordon.com).

I think the “Interested but Concerned” mentality can be summed up best by pointing to Alan Durning’s words:

What if cities had no sidewalks and everyone walked on the road? Or, for urban recreation, they walked on a few scenic trails? What if the occasional street had a three-foot-wide “walking lane” painted on the asphalt, between the moving cars and the parked ones?

Well, for starters, no one would walk much. A hardy few might brave the streets, but most would stop at “walk?! in traffic?!”

Fortunately, this car-head vision is fiction for most pedestrians, but it’s not far from nonfiction for bicyclists. Regular bikers are those too brave or foolish to be dissuaded by the prospect of playing chicken with two-ton behemoths. Other, less-ardent cyclists stick to bike paths; they ride for exercise, not transportation. Bike lanes, in communities where they exist, are simply painted beside the horsepower lanes.

People react reasonably: “bike?! in traffic?!” And they don’t. “It’s not safe” is what the overwhelming majority say when asked why they bike so little.

Biking between moving cars and parked cars is a typical situation in the US (Flickr, Steven Vance).

Increasing the numbers of riders also appears to make cycling safer and encourage more people to give bike commuting a chance.  Research is showing that cities with high figures of bikes on the road also have, on average, lower rates of traffic fatalities – for all road users.  Researchers Norman W. Garrick and Wesley E. Marshall provide a compelling argument that the “safety in numbers” phenomenon that many cities lust after is best sought by making changes to street design “to create bicycle friendly streets that will make it comfortable enough for the average Jane and Joe to take up bicycling.”So, the question becomes how to encourage people who don’t currently ride to start bicycling – not just as a hobby, but for transportation. Cities with bicycle facilities that are dedicated to riders – not placed randomly throughout the city and then only located between moving and parked cars – have more riders.  An interesting post in the New York Times by Nancy Folbre makes a case that bicycle infrastructure is an important component in compelling people to ride – many of the “top 10” cities for bike infrastructure also top the list for numbers of bike commuters.

Recent research provides support for focusing on separation of cyclist facilities.  Harvard researcher Anne Lusk found a 28 percent lower injury rate for cyclists riding on separated cycle facilities compared to a similar street without separation.  The separated bike facilities also had about 2.5 times as many riders.  In New York City, protected bike paths are increasing bike modal share and safety.  Both women and men are using separated bicycle lanes at more equal rates, whereas roads without separation (even the same road before redesign) are used predominately by men.

It’s interesting that changes in infrastructure are being met with gains in both ridership numbers and diversity.  But infrastructure improvements are just half the battle.  Changes to the “culture of cycling” are also paramount.  Europeans don’t view bike riding as a hobby or limited to child’s play.  Instead, it’s a “serious form of urban mass transportation.”  Bike riding in the US is usually for the road-bike-using, spandex-wearing elite – not everyday commuters in work slacks going a speed that won’t merit a shower at the end of the ride.  I have long felt a little scared of hopping on my bike and sharing the bike lane (or more likely the road shoulder) with these cyclists.  I didn’t want to get in their way, with their toe clips and bike computers.  The typical US cyclist is often stereotyped as “an exotic species – macho, ultra-fit, almost entirely young, white, and male, clad in lycra or spandex, who ride like madmen all over city streets.  Some of us admire them, some of us revile them, but most of us can’t imagine joining their ranks.”

Making riding in the US safer will require work on at least two fronts.  We need to implement plans for networks of bicycle facilities.  We need to push for more research to show what works and what doesn’t.  We need to add infrastructure to city streets to give bikes a place on the road.  This needs to be informed by research on when separation of cyclists and cars is essential.  This will encourage those riders who are “Interested but Concerned” – a giant piece of the pie of potential riders – to try commuting on two wheels.  We need to push for solutions that encourage women, children, and elderly riders to take to the streets.

I am convinced about the importance of planning and infrastructure improvements when comparing a cycling culture like the Netherlands with the US.  Side-by-side, here are the numbers:

Country The Netherlands United States
Miles of separated cycle tracks 18,000 miles 20 miles
% of commuters on bike 25 percent Less than 0.5 percent
% of bike commuters that are women 55 percent Less than 25 percent

Infrastructure improvements will naturally help develop a culture of cycling in the US and a greater diversity of riders.  As more people are riders and drivers, I think that cycling will become less marginalized in the US.  My fear is that bike crashes like the ones lately will scare more potential riders away.  My hope is that the community who would like to see riding as a respected and mundane form of urban transportation will stay on their bikes – eyes wide open, lights flashing, florescent vests on – and keep pedaling to a better future.

Feb

17

Copenhagen’s Potato Rows

Filed Under Copenhagen, planning, Streets For People, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

The Potato Rows - shared streets where people are prioritized.

A daughter and father enjoying the afternoon.

A recent blog written by Justin Martin of SvR Design caught my attention and brought back some fond memories of Copenhagen. I decided to pull out my external hard drive and find my own photos of Copenhagen’s “Potato Rows” – a community of townhouses in the Østerbro neighborhood that was built in the 1800s as housing for workers and is now one of the most popular and highest-priced addresses in Copenhagen (oh, gentrification).

Examples of private open spaces buffering homes from the public street.

The Potato Rows, or Kartoffelraekkerne in Danish, features narrow streets that are utilized as a shared space between people and cars. The townhouse homes all have small gardens or courtyards that face the street, with front porches where neighbors can enjoy their private outdoor space. The private courtyard space has landscaping and short fences to buffer residents from the street activities and provide privacy, but there is a visual connection between the street and yard. When I visited the Potato Rows on a sunny afternoon, many neighbors were sitting on front steps reading a book or just enjoying the sunshine. Others were taking advantage of street furniture within the public rights-of-way.

Chalk-filled streets with people walking down the middle are the "norm" in this neighborhood.


American planners know the advantages of density, the need for a proper transition from private to public space, and the importance of encouraging homes to face the street. But, to me, the Potato Row’s shared streets are what really makes the community stand out. While the streets have “sidewalks” that are slightly above the road, most people walk down the middle of the road. This is because the sidewalks are usually where cars park or where the many street amenities, including benches, play structures, picnic tables, and landscaping, are placed.

Streets for play.

Examples of amenities that double as traffic-calming elements.

A family strolls down the middle of the street.

On these streets, people are prioritized.  This is reinforced by street furniture, play structures, and landscaping that are all placed in the streets themselves. These amenities take traffic calming to a level that I’m sure most American fire marshals would find completely unacceptable. But, the residents of the community seem to approve. And I think that is an important factor. As Danish planner and architect Jan Gehl says, places must be designed with people in mind and creating human-scaled communities is crucial. The Potato Rows stands out because of “the vibrant street life, sense of community and the walkability of the neighborhood,” making it one of the most sought-after locations in town.

—–

More images:

Exit condition where the road abuts a busier neighborhood collector street.

A "sidewalk" where play equipment and benches are placed.

A cat-approved street.

Apr

26

I ♥ Copenhagen

Filed Under Bicycling, Cities, Copenhagen, Sustainability, Transportation | Leave a Comment

Note: Ryan Miller is a Seattle University student majoring in Political Science. He is currently studying abroad in Copenhagen and will be writing blog posts for Great City about his experiences and impressions of the Danish Capitol (and possibly other locations around Europe).

Danes and the Dutch – So near, yet…..

I was privileged enough during my travels to visit Amsterdam – the “other” cycling capital of Europe. I was only there for a day, but my time there was enough to let me compare Copenhagen’s and Amsterdam’s policies in an attempt to see which city does a better job accommodating cyclists.
One of the first things I noticed when I arrived in Amsterdam was the sheer number of bicycles parked in the city. It was simply mind boggling. Although the number of people actually riding bikes seemed no different than Copenhagen, parked bicycles simply dominated the landscape in a way Copenhagen cannot match. In fact, the need for adequate parking in the city is so bad that I managed to find this 3-story bicycle parking garage filled to capacity within a few minutes exploring*.

*In the interests of full disclosure, this oft-photographed facility is immediately outside the main train station in Amsterdam, but even so the sheer number of bikes there was remarkable.

I was also struck (almost literally) by the way the Dutch ride. Unlike the Danes, with their immense respect for conformity and order (as documented earlier) which spills over into their cycling, the Dutch are a tad more, let’s say, “individualistic” in how they ride.

Basically, the Dutch ride bikes the way Romans drive Fiats….

As such, the kind of strict traffic rules the Danes have embraced are seemingly non-existent with the Dutch. For cyclists in Amsterdam, stoplights and pedestrians appear to be no more than mere suggestions to possibly slow down (maybe, if it is convenient). It is a remarkable, if not slightly terrifying, difference in cycling culture.

Perhaps as a result of this Dutch cycling culture, Amsterdam has a radically different infrastructure for their cyclists. As opposed to Copenhagen, which consists almost exclusively of paired, one-way cycle tracks, Amsterdam is filled to the gills with completely separated (2-way) bicycle pathways. I am not entirely certain of the rationale for these facilities other than to scare motorists and pedestrians into getting as far away as possible from bicycles, although the way the city is designed does leave the occasional clue.

Copenhagen, which despite being an old city still has rather wide streets, the vast majority of Amsterdam’s “streets” are no wider than the average sidewalk in Downtown Seattle. This narrowness undoubtedly contributes to making Amsterdam a cycling capital, because the streets themselves keep cars out, leaving residents little choice but to walk or ride bikes. Having no cars on these streets additionally makes it politically much easier to convert them to bicycle-only pathways.

Amsterdam, perhaps more so than Copenhagen, became a cycling city out of necessity. As such, I have an even harder time thinking that we can directly “export” their cycling policy to the United States any more than we can Copenhagen’s. Our cities are just too different. Even if American vehicles were to disappear (not likely), there is so much real estate left over that the Amsterdam approach doesn’t seem applicable. While there are many elements of both Dutch and Danish bicycle design practice worth looking at in the U.S., I feel it has to reflect both our physical setting and how Americans want to ride their bikes.

Still, the Dutch (unlike the Danes) don’t take all day to make a left turn – there’s something to be said about that.

Apr

23

I ♥ Copenhagen

Filed Under Bicycling, Cities, Copenhagen, Sustainability, Transportation | Leave a Comment

Note: Ryan Miller is a Seattle University student majoring in Political Science. He is currently studying abroad in Copenhagen and will be writing blog posts for Great City about his experiences and impressions of the Danish Capitol (and possibly other locations around Europe).


Left Behind at Lefts

Perhaps this is just me being picky, but I save a special brand of disdain for taking left hand turns (by bike) in Copenhagen. Unlike in the United States, where making a left hand turn merely involves signaling and turning, the Danes have adopted an entirely different system. In Denmark, one must cross the street as if you were going to proceed normally, signal, stop, manually back your bike out of the cycle-track, wait for the next light to change, and then finally continue normally (See illustration below.)

The Copenhagen Two-Step
Sketch credit to Between Yellow and Blue – http://betweenyellowandblue.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/copenhagen-to-two-wheels-part-1/

There are good reasons Copenhagen has adopted these measures, most notably that cycle-tracks and Danish traffic law do not allow cyclists to move over to the left turn lanes that cars use. As such, if they attempted the kind of left hand turn you are accustomed to in the States you would be darting across not only traffic moving in the opposite direction, but also any traffic moving in the same direction as you while you are in an intersection, which would be understandably unsafe and chaotic. However, this “two-stage” or “jug handle” turn does have its downsides.

First, you are waiting two cycles of a light to make a traffic maneuver that cars can accomplish in one cycle. It hardly seems like you are accommodating cyclists by forcing them to wait twice as long as cars to do a relatively simple maneuver.

Additionally, guess what the law in Copenhagen requires cyclists to do in intersections that have no cycle-tracks? The exact same thing. This bewilders me to no end. I can understand the practical problems cycle tracks create in regards to left hand turns which necessitate the two-stage turn, but when there is no cycle-track, why are cyclists still required to make this style of turn?

This style of turn is not even remotely useful for situations when a cyclist needs to make a left hand turn outside of a controlled intersection, especially when on a street with cycle tracks (for example, turning left onto a side street, notably one at a T intersection). The Copenhagen traffic code offers two possible remedies to the solution. One can either go to the next controlled intersection and make two separate two stage turns (although I have seen the maneuver made using only one by not crossing the street the first time) to make a U-turn or you can stop on the side of the cycle track and “wait until it is safe to proceed” then cross the street. Mind you, this second option is not feasible on larger, multi-lane streets, as there will rarely be a time when the lanes in both directions are clear.

The stopped bicyclist heading toward you in this photo must make a left turn by backing into the blue pocket on the left and waiting one aditional signal phase before proceeding. (Photo – Phil Miller)

Having waited for the second signal phase, these bicyclists continue on with the aid of an advanced signal. An American making this turn in the usual fashion would be a half mile away by now… (Photo – Phil Miller)

As a slight aside, when I was looking for a good illustration of what a “two stage” left looks like, I found this video from BikePortland.org describing how cyclists should adopt a Copenhagen style left hand turn in favor of the city’s plan to have riders do the EXACT SAME THING without crossing the street (Mind you, in the video, the creators claim the city’s plan requires riders to dismount their bicycles, later in the accompanying article it is clarified by Tri Met that they do not have to, contrary to what the video proclaims).

http://bikeportland.org/2009/03/03/oregonian-is-copenhagen-left-a-better-way-to-turn-on-portland-mall/

I find it interesting how the Oregonian paints the “wait” for the signal with the Tri Met (Portland) plan to be entirely unreasonable, yet the same waiting period with the “Copenhagen left” is strangely seen as just fine.

But I digress.

Surely I shall see the light soon. Maybe in about two signal cycles…

Feb

16

I ♥ Copenhagen

Filed Under Cities, Copenhagen, Events, Innovation, Sustainability, Transportation, walking | 2 Comments

Upcoming Event: Seattle’s Public Life – How it Can Become the Most Walkable City in America

Hell_SoholtGreat City is pleased to co-sponsor the following upcoming lecture by Helle Søholt of Gehl Architects in Copenhagen!

Time: 6:00pm

Date: Tuesday, February 23rd

Location: Seattle Art Museum (Enter at First & University Street in Downtown Seattle near the Hammering Man Sculpture (the main entrance will be closed). Click for Map

Cost: Free

RSVP: Please RSVP via email to info@i-sustain.org or PublicLife@downtownseattle.org

Seattle has just completed the most in-depth study of public spaces Downtown ever conducted in a U.S. city. Don’t miss this free forum about how to turn Down­town into a world-class pedestrian-friendly experience.

The forum will feature findings from nearly three years of re­search in Seattle presented by Helle Søholt, managing partner of Gehl Architects. The City of Seattle and the International Sustain­ability Institute retained Gehl to audit Downtown’s streets, alleys and public places with students from UW’s Green Futures Lab.

The Copenhagen-based Gehl firm has worked on every continent and in more than 400 cities around the world. Søholt is a founding partner with Jan Gehl and has extensive experience world-wide in urban design including master planning, public life surveys, urban quality analysis, development of strategy plans, public space plans and the design of public spaces.

Sponsored By: AIA Seattle, The City of Seattle, The Downtown Seattle Association, GEHL Architects, Great City, The International Sustainability Institute, The Scan|Design Foundation, and The University of Washington Green Futures Lab

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