neil

Well, the bike is just as individualistic as a car - one of the three primary benefits over public transit - and the thing about cycle "superhighways" is that they are bicycle infrastructure, not multi-use infrastructure.

Speeding roadies are a function of traffic. Just as speed demons in cars are neutered in rush hour traffic, so too are speed demons on bikes. They'll be a problem until you get enough traffic to force them to slow down.

They could work, but would require political commitment. Without enough of the electorate cycling, political commitment will remain lacking. Chicken and egg.

tjspiel

Keep in mind that the picture is only that, - a picture. That trail is not part of my normal commute but I do take it from time to time. When I do, I usually encounter plenty of other riders though I would never call it congested like the Greenway (in the first picture) can sometimes get.

In your first post you mentioned that "serious" bike riders are often derisive of bike paths. Why is that? My guess is because they can't ride as fast on the paths as they can on the street. Divided and less congested lanes allow cyclists to move faster.

A few weeks ago, myself and some other "serious" riders were in a pace line on that trail going at about 27 mph. We had plenty of room to pass slower traffic and it was very nice not having to worry about bikes coming the other direction. Remember, this trail is designed to get people from downtown out to the suburbs, not to travel a couple miles within the city.

You are right, one nice thing about bikes is that they don't take up a lot of room. One bad thing is that cyclists tend to move at very different paces. It's tough to be stuck behind some slow riders if you've got a lot of ground to cover and have the ability to go faster. So if a city is designing a trail and has the room to accommodate cyclists moving at different paces, why not take advantage of it? It's also shortsighted to build for today's needs only to wish you had more capacity 10 years from now.

One area that I will strongly disagree with you on is the idea that separate paths for peds is overkill. We are spoiled in that a large percentage of our "MUPs" have separate paths for peds. Once you mix peds and cyclists, both the peds and the cyclists are better off if the cyclists stick to the streets.

gna

As modernjess says, it's hard to say what the mileage is--here's one of many maps just for Minneapolis: https://www.minneapolis.org/sites/def...pls-Trails.pdf
The county has a map with both bike lanes as well as trails (not the easiest to read): https://hennepin.us/files/HennepinUS/..._Route_Map.pdf

I haven't even mentioned St. Paul, which is somewhat lacking but has some infrastructure, too.
FWIW, I sometimes visit my parents 15 miles away. Of the 15 miles, maybe 1 mile is on quiet side streets, 2 miles in a bike lane in St. Paul. I can cross the entire city of Minneapolis and almost the entire way to their house in the suburbs on bicycle only routes.

acidfast7

Sure, it's becoming more wealthy, like the US.

You can still ride in the street if you want to race on the commute into work. Personally, I prefer the camaraderie in the pack ... I'd rather strike up conversations with ladies than be a loaner. Now, if I'm looking for a workout that's something different ... but when I'm just on the way to work, it's casual so I can see things/talk with people (maybe the people where you are, are not so friendly? Maybe there's nothing to see?)

work4bike

My commutes have always been longer than 10 miles, one location was 25 miles (one way), so unless I wanted to leave at 3 am I had to learn to ride fast. I guess, over the years, it molded me into the cyclist I am today.

acidfast7

That's exactly my point. We are molded by the type of commute we have. In Copenhagen, between 37 and 50% of total trips to work are by bike. When you see sidewalks full of people on bikes, it's becomes much more accessible to the standard non-cyclist. That's how you get so many people into it, by making it easy/fun and establishing a camaraderie. When you're at a stop light with a ton of people on bikes, it's nice to strike up a conversation. I can't wait to have kids on the back and front seats of my bike as it will make for some interesting conversations

cyccommute 

I'm as serious a cyclist as you'll ever run across and I, personally, don't have a problem with bike paths. I know which sections of all of our local paths that are likely to be congested and I ride accordingly. I also know which areas aren't congested and choose those if I want to ride fast or even take the roads. Thankfully, the miles of congested area are vastly outnumbered by the miles of open areas.

The problem with building contraflow paths is the the amount of money that is needed and available. Let's face facts, bike paths are usually very low priority items in local, state and federal funding streams. Building 3 or 4 miles of contraflow paths can very well impact other bikeway plans to the point of keeping them from being built. You may have something that addresses a need for 10 years in a specific location but if it comes at the cost of other locations, you haven't gained much. And, from a political standpoint, it gives ammunition to those who would like to not fund bike projects, if the traffic isn't there to fill the paths 24 hours a day.

I think you misunderstood. It's not the peds/bike path separation that I consider overkill, although it would have to be location specific. It's the contraflow bikeway that I consider to be overkill. A wider bikeway would probably serve the need rather than two separate paths.

tjspiel

Sorry, a wider bike path is not as nice a separate lanes. When you want to go fast, it's nice to know you aren't going to get clipped by somebody trying to pass who is coming the other direction and misjudges your speed.

I do agree that costs need to be taken into consideration, but they had the land and although I don't really know, I doubt that having 3 strips of asphalt as opposed to one really wide one was that much more expensive. It might have in fact been easier in some spots to not have to clear a single wide area.

The Cedar Lake Trail was one of the first cycling infrastructure projects to take advantage of Federal money. Rather than being viewed as government waste I think it is seen by most people in the city as something that makes Minneapolis a more livable community and if anything has lead to a willingness to spend more money on bike projects. The first leg was completed in 1995, - it's not something new and I doubt the money that was spent on it has prevented work on other projects.

Personally, I'd rather spend money on good infrastructure that will get used well into the future rather than on marginal infrastructure that won't or is dangerous. I can think of a couple of recent projects where they would have been better off leaving things as they were rather than making a bunch of compromises to keep costs down and motorists happy.

cyccommute 

Three different alignments of paving are going to be more expensive than 2 because of the grading needed for each paving job. If there are bridges needed that raises the cost significantly. When I was involved at a city level with planning bikeways (in the mid 90s), a mile of 11' wide bike path cost around $100,000 (about $140K today). A single bridge was between $250,000 and $400,000. The three lanes of Cedar Lake Trail in your picture cost a pretty chunk of change and certainly had impacts on other parts of a bikeway system.

I've ridden many, many miles on bikeways that are the standard 11 feet in width and I've never had a collision with another cyclist. I suppose it can happen but I believe it is rare.

Please don't misunderstand, I don't look on this as 'government waste'. I support using Federal funds for bicycle transportation. Colorado has been diverting some of its transportation dollars to bicycle facilities since the 1960s and Denver, in particular, has be very visionary in developing them. I'm just saying that if the choice for limited funding...and funding is always limited and choices always have to be made..is between overall mileage and having two contraflow lanes, I'd prefer that the overall mileage be chosen.

genec

Careful with that bike superhighway = bike path... I have seen decent bike super highways... they are wide enough for at least 2 cyclists either way, have a stripe down the center and have wide radii turns that allow use at higher speeds. Bike paths on the other hand tend to be narrow, maybe only wide enough for one cyclist, tend not to have stripes, and often have sharp turns that limit cyclist speeds... further, often have posted speed limits. There are vast differences.

Around here the only real bike highway I know of is used by "serious cyclists" for training... because they can do about 10 miles at their fastest speeds. (yup it is only about 10 miles long... that's all we have)

Here are some pics of the local bike highway... note the on and off ramps, and the width.

There is little bike traffic in these pics as these were taken late in the day a short while after this bike highway was first built.

tjspiel

My original intention wasn't really to debate the merits of the trail's design. It was only to point out that bicycle "superhighways" aren't a novel concept unique to Denmark or even Europe.

However since we've gone down the path of merits I will make one final post on the matter. I could just as easily make the argument that because I've never been involved in a collision on a street which made no special allowances for bike traffic, that we don't need separate bicycle infrastructure at all.

As far as cost goes, the cost of the first two phases of the Cedar Lake Trail was 1.6 million. 500,000 of which was raised from private funding sources. This cost less than the 3 million spent on re-striping and signage for Hennepin / 1st Ave bike lanes (the total distance of which is probably less than 1 mile). It is also less than the 5 million spent on a bike/pedestrian bridge or the whopping 9.8 million spent on the final phase (and mile) of the Cedar Lake trail which is a traditional single path with striping. It goes through some thorny urban corridors which is why it cost so much.

It's a myth that there is a single bucket of funding available for bike infrastructure and that spending money on one project automatically means that there is less money available for another. And I again would argue that the success of that project likely led to more money being made available for other projects. It's also likely that the unique design of the trail is part of why they were able to secure the funding they did.

BlueShoe

Why are there no cyclists in these pictures? It looks like a great place to ride. Is this in or near San Diego?

--Oops, I see your explanation now. It was shortly after the bike highway was completed. So I guess the cyclists had not discovered it yet.

FanaticMN

Cedar Lake trail was also built over an almost flat railroad bed that used to have multiple thru lines-- some of it was over an old switch yard. Point is, the right-of-way was huge and they could pretty much run the lanes wherever they wanted to in that section.

The Greenway was more constrained, and gets more congested.

Heres a video that gives a good feel for it:

https://www.streetfilms.org/minneapol...ood-for-bikes/