Bicycle Planning, Best Practices, and Count Methodology
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This page intentionally left blank 2 Acknowledgements Prepared for: Puget Sound Regional Council The University of Washington’s Department of Urban Design and Planning’s transportation- planning studio would like to thank the following for their assistance and provision of data: Elizabeth Goss Washington State Department of Transportation Kathy Leotta Washington State Department of Transportation John Lindsay City of Olympia Rocky Piro Puget Sound Regional Council Vince Prince Seattle Department of Transportation Jessica Stein City of Bellevue Kerry Tarullo City of Olympia Prepared by: Noa Ginger Andy Hong John Murphy Danielle Rose Peter Schmiedeskamp Amanda Snypp Eiji Torikai Faculty: Alon Bassok This page intentionally left blank 4 Table of contents Executive summary ....................................................................................................................................... 9 1. Policy, design, and indicators of bicycle use ...................................................................................... 13 1.1. Planning and policy best practices .............................................................................................. 13 Planning Process ................................................................................................................................. 13 Examples of effective projects/plans .................................................................................................. 16 Encouragement/education ................................................................................................................... 18 Design ................................................................................................................................................. 18 Identifying gaps .................................................................................................................................. 20 Policy .................................................................................................................................................. 20 Policy case studies: Davis, CA; Cambridge, MA; Arlington County, VA ......................................... 22 Implementation/funding ...................................................................................................................... 23 1.2. Bicycle facility design ................................................................................................................. 24 Off-road facilities ................................................................................................................................ 24 On-road facilities ................................................................................................................................ 27 Other facilities and tools ..................................................................................................................... 36 Other innovative/emerging practices .................................................................................................. 38 1.3. Factors influencing bicycle use ................................................................................................... 42 Selection of primary indicators ........................................................................................................... 44 Summary of literature on selected primary indicators ........................................................................ 45 1.4 Best practices annotated bibliography .............................................................................................. 50 2. Content analysis .................................................................................................................................. 57 2.1 Bicycle and pedestrian facilities policy analysis ............................................................................... 57 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 57 Review of bicycle and pedestrian plans .............................................................................................. 57 Discussion ........................................................................................................................................... 59 2.2 Bicycle and pedestrian facilities policy content review .................................................................... 62 Bicycle and pedestrian components in comprehensive plans in metropolitan cities .......................... 62 Bicycle and pedestrian components in comprehensive plans in core cities ........................................ 66 Bicycle and pedestrian components in comprehensive plans in large cities ....................................... 73 Other transportation plans ................................................................................................................... 84 3. Bicycle counts and analysis .................................................................................................................... 99 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 99 5 About the counts ..................................................................................................................................... 99 Approach ................................................................................................................................................. 99 Variables for the models ....................................................................................................................... 100 Hypothesized model .............................................................................................................................. 101 Data processing ..................................................................................................................................... 101 Suitability of counts by day of the week ............................................................................................... 102 Seasonality ............................................................................................................................................ 103 Prediction of other time periods from peak counts ............................................................................... 103 Suitability of counts by day of the week ............................................................................................... 107 Interpolating other time period bicycle volumes from peak counts ...................................................... 113 Implications for future bicycle counts .................................................................................................. 115 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................. 117 Appendix A – Regression runs and diagnostic plots ................................................................................ 123 Appendix B – code for analysis and data processing ................................................................................ 147 Parse and aggregate PSRC bike counts spreadsheets into a data file ................................................... 147 Collect historical data from Weather Underground .............................................................................. 149 Convenience functions for statistical processing in R .......................................................................... 150 6 List of figures Figure 1: Bicycle level of service in Urbana, IL ......................................................................................... 17 Figure 2: Bike lane design guidance (San Diego Association of Governments, 2010). ............................. 19 Figure 3: Recommended trail width (WSDOT, 2010b). ............................................................................. 25 Figure 4: Trail type matrix (Portland Parks and Recreation, 2009). ........................................................... 26 Figure 5: Bicycle boulevard street markings (Marr Consulting Services, 2008) ........................................ 27 Figure 6: Bicycle signal at shared-use path crossing (Burden, 2000). ........................................................ 28 Figure 7: Forced right-hand turn at bicycle boulevard (Marr Consulting Services, 2008). ........................ 29 Figure 8: Bicycle boulevard diagram (AASHTO, 2010). ........................................................................... 29 Figure 9: Street section for bicycle lane design (AASHTO, 2010). ........................................................... 30 Figure 10: Bicycle lane in Nashville, TN (RFM Transportation Consultants, 2008). ................................ 31 Figure 11: Cycle track in Portland, OR (City of Portland Bureau of Transportation, 2010). ..................... 31 Figure 12: Cycle track in New York City (New York City, 2009). ............................................................ 32 Figure 13: NYC cycle track diagram (New York City, 2009). ................................................................... 33 Figure 14: Cycle track in Copenhagen (Rose, 2010). ................................................................................. 33 Figure 15: Sharrow on downhill travel lane (City of San Diego, 2009). ...................................................