The Google Streetview below is Brokaw Rd, in San Jose. It is a fairly typical high-speed arterial in San Jose. It crosses four freeways, and the official speed limit is 45mph (with predominant speeds considerably higher). Though it has Class II bike lanes, there is just a trickle of bike traffic.
Silicon Valley has one of the highest automobile mode-shares and worst traffic congestion in the nation. It also has one of the most disfunctional transit agencies. For those looking for alternatives to the car, bicycle ought to be logical choice. The flat terrain and perfect climate ought to provide ideal habitat for utility cycling. But thus far, cycle mode share is negligible.
The Brokaw bike lane shows us why.
Riding alongside high volume and high-speed traffic is nerve shattering. Class II bike lanes are great for slower streets, but the minimal buffer they provide is of little help for freeway-style arterials. Even worse are the many driveways into the strip malls, any one of which is opportunity for driver to commit right-hook across the bike lane. As a result of these hazards, the facility fails to attract any cyclists beyond the hard-core helmet- and lycra-wearing sports enthusiasts.
One key element of cycling planning in Holland is the use of physically-separated bike paths. These vastly increase the comfort level, attracting all levels of bicyclists. A recent project in New York City imitated this concept. The Sands Street approach to the Manhattan bridge is a real innovation: a first-of-its-kind center-median, physically-separated bikeway. Wow.
Imagine something like this running down the center of Brokaw. And other Silicon Valley arterials. It eliminates the right-hook hazard at driveways. The traffic signals are already installed at each intersection. And there is more than enough right-of-way.
The Sands Street project is just the latest in a string of quality bike and ped projects in New York. At the risk of sounding sexist, it is probably no accident that these kinds of projects originated with a woman in charge of NYC Dept. of Transportation (Janette Sadik-Khan).
Transportation engineering (and the cycle advocacy groups) have been historically male-dominated professions. These idiot male engineers tend to design facilities like the one on Brokaw, which are fine for lycra-clad racers, but not so good for more risk-adverse female cyclists.
No surprise, then, that a recent Scientific American article, reports that even in so-called bike-friendly cities, the vast majority of utility bicyclists are male:
In the U.S., men’s cycling trips surpass women’s by at least 2:1. This ratio stands in marked contrast to cycling in European countries, where urban biking is a way of life and draws about as many women as men—sometimes more. In the Netherlands, where 27 percent of all trips are made by bike, 55 percent of all riders are women. In Germany 12 percent of all trips are on bikes, 49 percent of which are made by women. “If you want to know if an urban environment supports cycling, you can forget about all the detailed ‘bikeability indexes’—just measure the proportion of cyclists who are female,” says Jan Garrard, a senior lecturer at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, and author of several studies on biking and gender differences.
Women are considered an “indicator species” for bike-friendly cities for several reasons… studies across disciplines as disparate as criminology and child rearing have shown that women are more averse to risk than men.
[...] from the Streetsblog Network: Systemic Failure wants to get bike lanes out of the gutter. Tucson Bike Lawyer wonders if drivers only get charged [...]
I agree with this in sentiment but I think the problem is that the “idiot male engineers” designed roads in Silicon Valley for cars and added the bike lane as an afterthought. If the goal were to design a safe bike lane I think even the knuckle draggers can pull off something respectable when they want to. I think the transportation problem is less about the male-female ratio in traffic engineering and more about moving away from 20th century American car culture, which is exemplified in Silicon Valley.
[...] from the Streetsblog Network: Systemic Failure wants to get bike lanes out of the gutter. Tucson Bike Lawyer wonders if drivers only get charged [...]
[...] social equity issue. There's nothing elitist about it. More from the Streetsblog Network: Systemic Failure wants to get bike lanes out of the gutter. Tucson Bike Lawyer wonders if drivers only get charged [...]
[...] from the Streetsblog Network: Systemic Failure wants to get bike lanes out of the gutter. Tucson Bike Lawyer wonders if drivers only get charged [...]
I wrote about Chicago’s bicycling statistics, divided by sex. An article on BikePortland.org and Let’s Go Ride A Bike (Dottie wrote about the same Scientific American article you quote) prompted me to look into the Census Bureau’s information.
The American Community Survey from 2008 recorded 1.5% of men taking a bike to work, and only 0.5% of women riding their bikes to work (for Chicago only, higher than the nation as whole).
And right now I’m doing research on safety and bikeways in the Netherlands (another topic you touched on). You’re right: separated bikeways mean safer cycling. But, it’s that along with drivers being liable for all collisions and educating schoolchildren.
If you want to learn some basics about how to use Census information, check out my article:
http://www.stevevance.net/planning/2009/09/what-the-census-says-about-bicycle-commuting/
You wrote as if Silicon Valley has a single transit agency (“one of the most dysfunctional”). Doesn’t SV have more than a handful?
Maybe their coordination and integration, or lack of both, is the dysfunctional part.
VTA (Valley Transportation Authority) operates the bus and light-rail system. VTA is also a partner of the Caltrain commuter line.
Technically, VTA is more integrated than most because the agency manages the county’s system of freeways and expressways, and is supposed to be implementing a countywide bike network.
But in practice there is no coordination at all. VTA will expand freeways in the same corridor that it proposes building rail lines. It has ripped out bike lanes to put in trolley tracks. It has built bike paths as mitigation for freeway project, then sold off the bike paths to private developers, who then put up a fence to keep the cyclists out.
New York’s MTA might also act like that. It’s a single agency responsible for bridges, tunnels, tolls, buses, and heavy and commuter rail.
Not imposing higher tolls keeps its buses running on empty, or catering to motorists keeps bicyclists running into pedestrians on the upper level of the Brooklyn Bridge.
(Okay, I’m not an expert on all things New York, but maybe it’s time the state legislature let go of the MTAs and VTAs of the country.)
In Chicago, all of the transportation agencies are supposed to have better coordination, but they’re independent. So at least if the the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority expands a road next to a Metra railroad, they did it independently and not because they dislike their cubicle neighbors.
The toll-free bridges in New York City are not owned by the MTA; they are owned by the city but require state approval to add tolls. Clearly, this is a problem- motorists can often avoid paying the toll by choosing the free bridge over the tolled bridge.
The state won’t let go of the MTA or come up with a logical solution to the region’s traffic problems for three reasons: income (campaign contributions from unions and others interested in the status quo), the need for a convenient scapegoat (the MTA), and plain stupidity.
[...] from the Streetsblog Network: Systemic Failure wants to get bike lanes out of the gutter. Tucson Bike Lawyer wonders if drivers only get charged [...]