6th Ave Protected Bicycle Lane Updated Design Concept

Businesses will always find it "highly undesirable" to remove parking. That is literally the story in every city that does this and It is one couched in flawed human psychology. In almost every case data suggests protected bike infrastructure increases customer traffic to the businesses which sacrificed a couple parking spots, increasing their overall revenues. Thus the planning decision being so heavily based on what a few businesses believe is undesirable (especially without a test implementation) appears at face value a "half assed" planning approach I'm sorry to say.

You end up going against the entire point of the project when you only make half of it safe for all users, at the behest of a few businesses. Please remember the importance of a fully connected protected bike network that actually provides a viable alternative to driving.

Thank you,
Catherine

Hi Adrian,
We started with a design that included protected bike lanes between 5th St and 7th St, but we heard pretty clearly from business owners that removing on-street parking was highly undesirable from their perspective. I understand that you'd prefer a protected bike lane. In this case, we needed to make a compromise to address the needs and preferences of the users and stakeholders. Sorry it feels "half assed" to you!

Good question Elise. Toole Design Group, who is a national expert on bicycle facility design and the author of national design guidance on protected bike lanes, took a close look at sight visibility at each intersection along the project. We tasked them with making sure people driving and biking could see each other from all approaches/directions while keeping as much on-street parking as possible. They are feeling pretty confident that this design will maintain sight visibility for all users at intersection approaches.

I agree with Marie. I live on this corner and you have back in spaces drawn on the NE corner of 4thst/6th ave, which is a permitted area. If you remove this block from the permitted program it will make it exceedingly difficult to park in our designated permitted spots….that we pay yearly. Additionally, the traffic will have an awkward flow to it as the rest of the street has parallel parking.

Hi Mark,

I totally see what you're saying here, and in a world with no funding or stormwater constraints I'd love to see wider, continuous raised medians with planting areas. What you're proposing would require extensive construction, and our budget assumes we will not modify the locations of existing curbs. We also have a good amount of stormwater flowing down and across 6th Ave when it rains, so the narrow raised medians with openings that maintain existing water flow patterns is what works in most areas. There are some areas where only the flexible posts will work due to stormwater flow. We will place the flexible posts strategically so that they align with parking areas where passenger-side doors will not strike them. They will be placed in a buffer area that is wide enough that if car doors open, they will not swing into the bike lane.

Thanks for this feedback Adam. We've been disappointed with the durability of the zebras. So far the K71 posts on Silverbell are holding up fairly well.

Thanks Adam. What you're saying makes sense! Creating a connected network of low-stress bikeways is certainly something we're working toward, one step at at time. One thing we're working on is completing the path connection on the east side of 6th Ave from the underpass to 7th St, which will make both investments more usable. That's something we hope to implement on a similar timeline to this 6th Ave project. The shared use path on the west side of 6th Ave that begins at 7th St is open now, but for the moment it ends at the Stone overcrossing. When Downtown Links is complete (summer of this year) that path will take people over Stone, where they can connect to the (under construction) 9th Ave-Castro Bike Blvd (to the north) and eventually the Church Ave Complete Street Project, which includes protected bike lanes. Appreciate your patience as we work to connect the network!

Thanks for this feedback Marie. We know the neighborhood is sensitive to losing on-street parking on 6th Ave, so the thought here was that we might be able to add some additional parking on the side streets. But if this is not desired it doesn't have to be part of this project.

Good question Chris. We considered doing this, and in fact staff recommended proceeding with the design you are suggesting to the committee that oversees the implementation of project funded by Proposition 407 (the funding source for this project). The Proposition 407 Bond Oversight Commission felt strongly that installing a curb-protected bike lane was the better option, and cited the comfort and safety of people biking, as well as the desire to stay consistent with the project description included in the voter materials, as the driving factors. They gave us direction to proceed with a curb-protected bike lane between Speedway and 6th St, so that's what we're doing.

As for our experience on University Blvd, I am not aware of any evidence demonstrating that the pilot parking-protected bike lane between Stone & 6th Ave resulted in more car/bike crashes, nor is it accurate to say that it was restriped as a result of increased car/bike crashes. The City decided to consistently apply the double-buffered design on University primarily due to loss of on-street parking needed to maintain sight visibility with a parking-protected design along a street with very short blocks. The project on University was a pilot, and we learned a few lessons that we have applied to this project.