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Bicycle Lanes
About Bike Lanes
Many people in Cambridge choose to use a bicycle to get around. Some do it for convenience, others for exercise, and yet others because it is economical. More and more people in Cambridge - and throughout the United States - are traveling by bike. The City promotes bicycling - along with walking, public transportation and carpooling - as an environmentally friendly form of travel and a part of its official plan for reducing air pollution. Every person who is on a bike takes up less room on the street, reduces congestion, decreases parking demand, and decreases air pollution. It is important that our roads not only accommodate people who bicycle but invite them to do so.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can we make our streets better for cycling?
There are several ways to improve streets for cyclists, and designs for how streets are retrofit will be done on a case-by-case basis. Some streets – usually residential streets – will benefit from traffic calming measures, which also can enhance the traveling environment for bicyclists, as speeds will be low and cyclists can more comfortably share the road with motorists. Marked bicycle facilities – bike lanes – are usually the appropriate choice for wider arterial streets. The following discussion explains what bike lanes are, how they function, and what their benefits are.
Why put bicyclists on the street; why not on sidewalks or on bike paths?
Bicycles are legal vehicles and bicyclists have the same rights and responsibilities as motorists in traveling on any street in Cambridge. Sidewalks are for pedestrians, and in most cases, are not the safest place for bicyclists to ride in Cambridge. Bicycle paths, such as the path along the Charles River, are good facilities for some trips, but have limited usefulness for most. Someone traveling from North Cambridge to East Cambridge, for example, would not use the river path. Streets by their very nature serve bicyclists in the same way they serve every other user: they get people where they want to go. The street system is already in place and streets provide access to virtually all destinations: homes, businesses, shops, schools, parks, etc.
What are bike lanes and who is permitted to use them?
Bicycle lanes are marked lanes in the public right-of-way that are by law exclusively for use by bicyclists. Bike lanes in Cambridge have bicycle symbols and arrows, which emphasize the correct direction of travel. The use of diamond symbols, which signify an exclusive use lane, is being phased out following national standards.
Motorists are not allowed to travel in bike lanes and are subject to a $100 fine if they do so. They are allowed to cross the lanes to turn or to park.
Cyclists are still permitted to travel in the regular vehicle travel lanes even when a bike lane is present. Cyclists should signal and make sure they have the attention of the people behind them before moving into the vehicle travel lane from a bike lane. Motorists should be aware that cyclists may merge into their lanes in front of them, e.g., to avoid an obstacle or to make a left turn.
Why is it important to stripe bike lanes?
As bicyclists will be traveling on city streets, those streets can be made safer and more comfortable for everyone by providing bike lanes. Bike lanes:
- support and encourage bicycling as a means of transportation.
- help define road space
- promote a more orderly flow of traffic
- encourage bicyclists to ride in the correct direction, with the flow of traffic.
- give bicyclists a clear place to be so they are not tempted to ride on the sidewalk
- remind motorists to look for cyclists when turning or opening car doors
- signal motorists that cyclists have a right to the road
- reduce the chance that motorists will stray into cyclists’ path of travel
- make it less likely that passing motorists swerve toward opposing traffic
- decrease the stress level of bicyclists riding in traffic
Implementation of Bike Lanes
The City policy on the implementation of bicycle lanes is derived from the policies and ordinances of the City Council, the Growth Policy Document, and the work of the Bicycle Committee. The policy is supported by federal, state and local policies, directives and ordinances together with national guidelines and best engineering practices. In 1992, the Cambridge City Council enacted the Vehicle Trip Reduction Ordinance for the development of a more livable city through the reduction of automobile use and the promotion of non-polluting forms of transportation. The ordinance establishes the Bicycle and Pedestrian Mobility Program, which, among other things, is required to "design and implement a program to encourage greater use of bicycles as alternatives to single-occupancy vehicles within the city." The overall goals of the bicycle program are to promote cycling and to enhance safety.
Go to Cambridge Traffic Regulations Related to Bicycling
Promoting Cycling
National and international evidence to date has demonstrated that the most important way to promote bicycle transportation is to provide bicycle facilities – safe and clear places where people can ride, including bicycle lanes. A major study sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration, for example, demonstrated that bicycle usage in urban areas is directly proportional to the percentage of arterial streets with bike lanes. US cities with high bicycling populations have 70% more bike facilities per roadway mile and six times more bike lanes per arterial than those with low bicycling populations. Two further studies since have confirmed these findings, noting that bicycle commuting increased in direct proportion to the miles of bike lanes (bike lanes were the strongest variable in predicting bicycle commuting).1
Cyclists' Preference for Bicycle Lanes
Bicyclists have clearly stated their preference for marked bicycle lanes on roads and streets in numerous studies throughout the US.; Here are a couple of examples.
- A bike commuter route choice study in Austin, TX, showed that the presence of bike facilities was the second most important factor in how cyclists choose routes (the most important factor was length of trip, supporting the fact that cyclists prefer shorter more direct routes to their destinations rather than longer circuitous routes, even if they have to travel on busy streets rather than quiet streets). Bike lanes were preferred over wide outside lanes even when on-street parking is present.2
- A 1999 paper to the Transportation Research Board concluded "given the stated preference of bicyclists for bike lanes in prior surveys, along with the increased comfort level found on bike lanes found in the development of the Bicycle Compatibility Index [also for FHWA] use of this facility is recommended at sites where there is adequate width for a standard 1.2m (4-ft) bike lane, in that bike lanes are more likely to increase the amount of bicycling than wide curb lanes."3
Bicycle Level of Service
A statistically calibrated Bicycle Level of Service model was created based on real-time perceptions from bicyclists traveling in actual urban traffic and roadway conditions. The study revealed that pavement-surface conditions and striping of bicycle lanes are key factors in the quality of service for bicyclists. The striping of bike lanes was substantially more meaningful than a wider outside lane alone.3
Enhancing Safety
Bicycle lanes have improved safety, in terms of both the number and the severity of crashes in cities throughout the US and internationally. Bike lanes have reduced crash rates for all users – bicyclists, pedestrians and motorists. Bicycle lanes also have been associated with safer bicyclist behavior – less wrong-way and sidewalk riding and more obedience to traffic controls (e.g., stop signs). For example, a national study comparing streets with bike lanes to those without found that 15% of cyclists on streets without bike lanes rode on the sidewalks, vs. 3% on the streets with bike lanes. In addition, on streets with bike lanes, 81% of cyclists obeyed stop signs, vs. 55% on streets without.
Go to Additional Information about the Safety Benefits of Bike Lanes
Where Bike Lanes are Created in Cambridge
The premise of bicycle transportation planning is that all roads are bikeways (except limited access highways), but the kind of facility or designation will vary depending on the street type, use (e.g., amount and type of motor vehicle traffic) and existing conditions. Bicyclists, like automobile drivers, want to get to their destinations by the most direct route available. Therefore, all the major arterials in the city are places where safe bicycling should be encouraged. This is important also because many destinations - stores, restaurants, transit stations, schools, etc. - are located along arterials.
On many streets, particularly on urban arterial and major collector streets, the appropriate facilities for bicyclists are bike lanes. Federal and state design guidelines prescribe bike lanes for urban arterials. Bike lanes are also appropriate on minor collector or local streets, especially if traffic speeds and/or volumes are higher than normally encountered. Bike lanes may also be important on minor streets to connect existing bike lanes or to extend bike lanes to desirable destination points.
The Hampshire Street Bicycle Lane Study
In 2003, the City of Cambridge embarked on a major study to evaluate the influence of bike lanes and other pavement markings on how motorists and bicyclists travel on the road (using Hampshire Street as the study site). The study was particularly focused on how far away bicyclists travel from parked cars, since the threat of being hit by a car door opening suddenly is a serious one.
The study found that when bike lanes or other pavement markings were present, bicyclists traveled further away from parked cars than when no markings were present.
On-street surveys of bicyclists and motorists were also conducted. Bicyclists overwhelmingly favored bike lanes, with 90% of them preferring the lanes, and another 5% preferring a line marking. Motorists were highly likely to identify the bike lanes as a reason they noticed bicyclists.
Click
here to read a paper describing the study. (283 KB)
The study has been published inTransportation Research Record, Journal of the Transportation Research Board,
No. 1939, “Bicycles and Pedestrians; Developing Countries,” 2005 (www.trb.org).
Footnotes
- Jennifer Dill, Bicycle Commuting and Facilities in Major Cities, Transportation Research Board, 2003.
- Monique Stimson, Analysis of Commuter Bicyclist Route Choice Using Stated Preference Study, Transportation Research Board, 2003.
- William Hunter, Bruce Landis et al., “Real-Time Human Perceptions: Toward a Bicycle Level of Service,” Transportation Research Record 1578.
For More Information
For more information about bicycling in Cambridge, please contact Cara Seiderman, cseiderman@cambridgema.gov, at 617/349-4629. The Community Development Department TTY line is 617/349-4621.
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