Bike lanes – in the general sense of “road space for use by cyclists” – have been around for quite a while. There is a Wikipedia article on the history of cycling infrastructure which says:
“The history of cycling infrastructure starts from shortly after the bike boom of the 1880s when the first short stretches of dedicated bicycle infrastructure were built ….”
But bike lanes have had a difficult history – at times, both motorists and cyclists objected to them. The same Wikipedia article says that In the 1930’s local branches of a UK cycling organisation held “mass meetings to reject the use of cycle tracks and of any suggestion that cyclists should be forced to use such devices”.
Today they are very much in fashion, and road designers have available a large number of standards and guidelines on their design. New problems are that there are so many different standards that it is difficult to get an overview of them; and they do not use the same terminology (even between documents published in the same language). Here are just a few terms for bike lanes taken from some English-language design standards / guides (seethe list of references below).:
Here are some terms used to describe different types of bike lane:
Separated bike lane (SBL)
One-way SBL Pair
Two-way SBL
Bicycle facilities
Shared lane markings
Shoulder bikeway
Conventional bike lane
Buffered bike lane
Cycle Track: Oneor two-way, at grade, protected with parking
Cycle Track: One or two-way, raised with mountable curb
Cycle Track: One or two-way, curb separated
Multi-use, off-street path
Bicycle boulevard
On-road bikeway
Buffered Bike Lanes (buffered from parking)
Buffered Bike Lanes (buffered from vehicles)
Shared travel lane (25 mph)
Separated path
Cycle track
Raised bike lane
Shared use path
Multi-use trail
Shared streets Cycle‐specific Infrastructure on Shared Streets
‘Bicycle Streets’ / Mixed Priority Treatment
Vehicle Restricted/‘Pedestrianised’ Areas
Home Zones
Segregated streets
Mandatory Cycle Lanes
Hybrid Cycle Lanes
Advisory Cycle Lanes
Simplifying method (a): structured listing
How can we prepare an overview of cycle lanes, so that designers can pick the design best suited to their project? There are at least four different ways:
a) By defining a structured listing of bike lane types
b) By “good practice” style sheets
c) By standardising terms
d) By defining bike lane types
For (a), a possible starter “structured listing” is included below. Probably it can only be developed further if we understand what the terms mean, and we can only do that if we understand how they are defined. For notes on (b,c,d) see the next blog posts.
References
• Ref. 986 ODOT Highway Design Manual Chapter 13 Pedestrian and Bicycle (USA 2012)
• Ref. 1937 Cardiff cycle design guide (UK 2011)
• Ref. 2372 Massachusetts separated bike lane planning and design guide 2015 (USA 2015)
• Ref. 2472 Washington County Bicycle facility design toolkit (USA 2012)
Notes
The first figure is from Massachusetts separated bike lane planning and design guide 2015 (USA 2015)
Comparative Geometrics 