DENVER | Transportation Thread

[dmintz]

Originally Posted by DenverInfill

It doesn't just end. Northbound, you cross Colfax and ride through the plaza in front of the Webb Building, which takes you to 15th Street and directly at the end of Cleveland Place, where a bike lane picks up and takes you to the Mall, which as a new marked connection across Broadway to hook you up with the 16th Avenue bike lane that heads off to the east.

They should really continue the contra-flow lane on 14th st for half a block to connect with the sharrows on court place. the side walk there is wider and less crowded and flows more intuitively from the cycle track than looping around colfax.

when bikers feel safe riding in the streets they tend to obey traffic laws.

Just to back up this statement which so many posters here found ridiculous, here is a photo of 9 bikes waiting at a stop light in NYC in the protected bike lane on first ave. this would have been unheard of two years ago before they installed the lane-


9 cyclists in bike lane waiting at red light by ddartley, on Flickr

[dmintz]

BTW, I had dinner on platte street friday night and there were more bikes parked along the street than cars- at least two bikes locked to every parking meter plus many more locked to fences and street signs. it's getting harder to argue that accommodating bikes as transportation downtown would have a negative economic impact by increasing traffic and discouraging suburban drivers.

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Hmm, I think over the pond, cycle track is much broader.

Yeah. Here's a picture from that Irish pdf:



That's just a bike lane. Not even a very good one.

I'm told the original Dutch usage basically just meant "marked place for bikes." Even if American usage accepts what's on Bannock as a cycle track (which I will admit is at least arguable), it's still clearly a much more specific term here than it is in Europe.

[DenverInfill]

Not to belabor the Bannock Street cycle track issue... but I will. The other day I was out on 14th Street taking photos of the streetscape project for an upcoming blog, and decided to check out the corner where the cycle track ends. Here's what I found.

At the northeast corner of Bannock and Colfax, the northern/downtown side of the crosswalk that's at the end of the Bannock cycle track, is this sign:



A few feet away, closer to the Webb Building, is this sign:



At the other end of the Webb Building, at 15th and Cleveland, looking back towards Bannock, is this sign:



Using awholeparade's photo from a few pages back, I've circled these two signs, visible even from where he was standing. I suspect they'd be even more visible if you were actually at the crosswalk, or crossing over it.



I do agree, however, that they need one additional sign, about where the "Cycle Track Ends" sign is, that says something like "To Downtown, cross Colfax, stay right and follow signs". I've heard that the city is going to be totally redoing their bicycle signs, basing them not on the letter-number route system, but more on a wayfinding/destination system. This will include many new and better signs in the downtown area.

photos 1-3 by me, photo 4 by awholeparade, modified by me

[Wizened Variations]

I rode the light from DUS Light today.

Four horrendous curves on the route between DUS and the Colfax overpass have been removed. And thank G*d for that... (as someone that has been a 'property man' I understand why they were created as they were in the first place, and, I am VERY GLAD to see them go.)

The two that remain- those on either side of the Invesco Field Station- remain horrid. The north turn from the Station was and is so bad, that an astute observer can see a kink where the radius of curvature suddenly changed (and believe me, it never had to).

But, the ride was smoother overall, and, both curves on either side of the east-west portion of the line that replaced the old West Auraria Station are very well done. Smooth as silk. Very nice job.

The exit from the DUS Light station is smooth, and, I have no doubt once their bosses are no longer hanging around (you would have thought today was something special because it was), the two car trains are really going to scoot between DUS Light and Pepsi Center stations.

I did notice one thing that I have not read anywhere about the DUS Light Station: the station is going to be colder during the winter months than
the old Union Station light rail station used to be. Buildings block the sun! Looking at the angles, November through February are going to be mighty chilly as one waits in the Station, considering light angles and sunset, sunrise times. I suspect that by 2014 or so, people will tend to bunch up at the north end of the Underground and then rush to the train once the train pulls west from the storage tracks and parks at the concourse.

I also noticed that when the Underground opens, people are going to try for the 2nd and 3rd cars for trains leaving the station, as those cars will be closest to the Underground entrance (the 16th Street Mall buses, on trains arriving, will encourage people to travel in the last car inbound).

The slow moving freight trains are noisy, and, the place will definitely be noisier than the old location. Makes me sympathize with those condo dwellers on the lower levels of buildings abutting the heavy freight rail.

So, considering what those who were ordered to do what they had to do, did, the less than ideal compromise was executed with both style, and taste.

Nice job.

[Cirrus]

I expanded the bikeway typology discussion into a blog post at DenverUrbanism, and also ran it on BeyondDC and Greater Greater Washington.

[bunt_q]

Should I move the debate/my responses to the Denverurbanism comment section, you think?

Dan, do you still get those New Urban News emails every week or whatever? There was an article in there this morning about Vancouver's cycle tracks. - http://newurbannetwork.com/article/despite-critics-vancouver-will-keep-its-cycle-tracks-15152 I'm surprised how controversial they appear to be in Vancouver of all places.

What's the story with that Helsinki study they discuss? This - A recent study in Helsinki showed that it is safer to cycle on streets amongst cars than on two-way cycle paths along streets (Figure 2). - is unexpected. Although I suppose I could see this - "the risk of a crossing accident is 3-times higher for cyclists coming from a cycle path than when crossing on the carriageway amongst cars. ... Right-turning drivers focus their attention mainly on cars from the left on the major street, and 'forget' the cyclists approaching from the right."

Who is that Pasanen fellow? Bicycling's Wendell Cox?

[Cirrus]

We've done a lot of studies on cycle tracks here since DC started putting them in and have definitely found that they are much safer, and induce much higher bike riding. The turning issue they identify does exist, but is vastly less important than other issues. Maybe in Helsinki the streets are so safe for cyclists already that the turning problem with cycle tracks is a bigger negative there. That's conceivable, I suppose. Definitely not the case here though.

For the record, here's how we handle intersections: The bike lane itself shifts over as it approaches an intersection so that car drivers can see if there are any bikes approaching in it. Then in the intersection itself you get sharrows and dashed lines.




We could do better than that if we'd add some green paint, like so (2 minute rendering FTW):

[bunt_q]

That's on the left side of a one-way street. I like how that works, but that is probably the ideal. Do you guys have any, just like that, with the parking row separation, but on the right side , and/or on a two-way street?

What street is that? Enormous ROW for a one-way. That's nice.

[Cirrus]

We don't have any on two-way streets yet, but New York and Montreal should. I'll have to reply in more detail later. I have to get back to work - ironically enough, I'm working on planning for what will be our first one of these on a two-way street.

The width of the street is part of the reason this was put there. As you might imagine that street was basically turned into a highway in the 70s. Now we're trying to calm it.

[Cirrus]

Here are some examples of right-side and/or two-way street cycle tracks. Linked so as not to clutter the thread too much:

Montreal example 1
Montreal example 2
Montreal example 3
Montreal example 4
Montreal example 5
Florida example
Portland example (with illegally parked car)
New York example

[dmintz]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

For the record, here's how we handle intersections: The bike lane itself shifts over as it approaches an intersection so that car drivers can see if there are any bikes approaching in it. Then in the intersection itself you get sharrows and dashed lines.

This looks like it would work great on broadway south of downtown. Denver moves suggested this for further study and I hope someone is aware of this design possibility.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by dmintz

This looks like it would work great on broadway south of downtown. Denver moves suggested this for further study and I hope someone is aware of this design possibility.

Interesting. That would forever end the chance of surface transit down Broadway. Reminds me of the conflict between mountain bikers and wilderness advocates - people who you would expect to be on the "same side," but who in the end, aren't. And god forbid somebody supports both. You must choose, you must take sides.

Headline: Cyclists team up with local businesses (read: on-street parking proponents) to kill light rail on Broadway.

I remember all too well the arguments back then... I am sure that is a great picture for cyclists to show - it shows minimal disruption, parking preserved.

IMHO, we should do a cycle track down Logan, which was never a good transit corridor, even though it cropped up as a candidate, and save Broadway for transit when the time is right.

[The Dirt]

What's wrong with Lincoln for bikes, as opposed to Broadway?

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by The Dirt

What's wrong with Lincoln for bikes, as opposed to Broadway?

One less lane, probably. Same problem we had with the light rail on Lincoln.

[CharlesCO]

Broadway is an opportunity waiting to happen. I sent some time in the area around 1st last week, and it's developing into a great culture hub in Denver. With the Hi Dive, El Diablo, and all the eclectic shops in that stretch it's the home of Denver's hipster culture, perfect for window shopping pedestrians. But when there's five lanes of automobiles going 35 MPH that can never have to stop at the appropriately timed lights, it may as well be a freeway. So much could be done to that corridor, whether it be bike lanes, a streetcar, and/or expanded sidewalks.

[dmintz]

well, if i had to choose it would be streetcars over bike lanes, but i'm sure there is space enough for parking, bikes, traffic and streetcars (which would share lanes with cars). I also feel local businesses are somewhat more enlightened now and would welcome the pedestrian traffic a cycletrack (and streetcars) would bring, even at the expense of some parking. logan would have been great for bike lanes except the raised median placed there does not leave any more space for bikes.

I live two blocks from 1st and broadway and agree that it can be intimidating crossing so many lanes of high speed traffic. I love the old photo showing streetcars passing by the mayan theatre- http://www.roachphotos.com/cityscapes.html

[Cirrus]

Broadway has enough width for 5-7 lanes (average of 6), including parking. It gets about 30,000 cars per day. That makes it considerably wider than most other streets that have comparable amounts of traffic, in Colorado or anywhere else. Based on that, I think you could take 2 lanes without missing a beat, and taking 3 might very well not hurt too much if you were careful about how you did it. Frankly, Broadway needs to be calmed a lot if it's going to become the urban pedestrian spine that I assume we all want it to be. Transit lanes on one side and a cycle track on the other would give you an excuse to add nubs at intersections and dramatically narrow the pedestrian crossing width. Long story short: I am not willing to concede that there isn't room for both transit and bikes on Broadway. Maybe there isn't, but at best it would need to be looked at.

But for the sake of argument, assuming there isn't room for both, I'd reserve Broadway proper for the transit since transit users are really pedestrians. I'd either put a cycle track on Lincoln or convert Sherman to a bike boulevard.

[wong21fr]

I do think that the opinions of the shopkeepers along Broadway have changed considerably since the Central Corridor idea was proposed. However, it's like the residents along MLK spurning a LRT corridor: hindsight is a bitch.

I'm willing to be that a lot of Broadway businesses are judging the impact of reconstructing Broadway south of I-25 as a test of how much construction disruption can be tolerated. The parking is another story, but that's also an area where opinions seem to have rapidly changed. With streetcar funding being somewhat of a pipedream it would be nice to see the existing transit land be better utilized and turned into semi-separated BRT lane at least from DT to the Broadway Station.

[dmintz]

on a different note-
In the last two weeks both 6th avenue and alameda were resurfaced. Neither road seemed to be in particularly rough shape. I'm wondering who makes the decision on which roads to work on and where the money comes from, city or state? With funding so tight these days it seems that transportation funds should be better spent.