Stair Channels are a common feature in the Netherlands and other bike-friendly countries. So why don’t we have them in the US?
Actually, we do. The BART system has implemented them at several stations, most recently the Ashby BART station as part of a station retrofit. Chicago has them also. But those efforts, while well-meaning, have been underwhelming. American channels are tiny and situated too close to the wall.
The problem is planning code and ADA leaves little room to design a proper stair channel. Make the ramp stick too far out from the wall, and the regulations say you’ve created a “tripping hazard”. Not wanting lawsuits, transit agencies did the best they could under the circumstances.
That CTA ramp looks like a re-purposed architectual element, and IIRC it is.
[…] how complex intersection markings are helping ease the tension between cyclists and drivers. And Systematic Failure explains why American stair channels (for transporting bikes into underground transit stations) […]
Better than nothing. The one at the 16th st. BART station works fine for me.
These should be all over. Low hanging fruit.
Would the pictured Dutch channels—located between stairways and away from the walls—also constitute an ADA “tripping hazard”?
The Dutch ones would not be a tripping hazard. But they’d be quite hard to retrofit onto an existing staircase, many of which are already narrower than what modern building codes allow.
The Millennium Park bike station (aka, McDonald’s Cycle Center) in Chicago has a better bike channel, but it’s still too close to the wall and too steep. Found a picture online:
The problem in the USA is, with so much obesity there are more ADA users than cyclists. Note how many handicap parking places there are, compared to bike racks.
I don’t have good photos, this is from a colleague, but apparently Denver is installing bike gutters (the alternative name) in association with their fastracks project.
This is at the Lutherville Light Rail station in Baltimore County Maryland:
One thing I’ve found while using one (on the north end of the under-bridge passage on the Golden Gate Bridge) was that it felt more difficult to push the bike up than it did to lift and carry it. I think it was because it was hard to get the right leverage to push straight from behind, so you had to do it at an angle, which is obviously much harder. It was a long and steep staircase (the Dutch example shown seems like a much easier grade). It also felt impossible to rest halfway for fear of it sliding down–easier when I had it on my shoulder.
This may be less of an issue for shorter and/or gentler slopes.
One thing I’d appreciate is a small ramp near the top and bottom of the stairs, so I don’t have to bend down to lift up the bike. Could be an architectural element. Usually, lifting is the most strenuous part for me, while carrying it is not that hard.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!
Give Alai a cigar!
The primary reason why American bicycle ramps always seem to fail is that they are often retrofitted onto stairs with steep slopes. The position of the ramp, while important is a secondary part of the problem. I’ve biked all round Europe, mostly in Germany, and I’ve seen 80 year-olds push heavy European town bikes up train station stairs with little problem because the stairs were built from the start with slopes that are less steep than what is standard in the US. The ramps built into the stairs are also very effective to roll luggage and even baby strollers up and down.
Why do the Dutch place them in the center?
Here’s a photo I took:
We have 4 elevated stations being designed for phase 2 of the Expo rail line. They have provided one elevator per station and stairs, with no channels. I am on the Expo BAC and we were told that add in bike channels for the elevated stations would cost $1 million per stairs. Yet they want to attract bicycling customers.