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City officials, state officials and a whole slew of bike riders gathered this morning at the South Campus Gateway to unveil the first “sharrow” street marking that will remind motorists and cyclists to share the roadway along High Street. 188 more of these markings will soon be added to High Street between Morse Road and Nationwide Boulevard as a part of the City’s Bicentennial Bikeways Plan.
“We are investing in signage, bike racks and other infrastructure to make Columbus streets safer for cyclists and motorists to share the road,” said Mayor Michael B. Coleman. “Making Columbus a great cycling city is good for our environment and improves our quality of life.”
The City of Columbus is committing $10 million toward bikeways projects in 2010, which include the creation of new bike lanes, shared sign routes, nine miles of new bike trails, and design work for a new pedestrian/biking bridge to connect North Bank Park to Franklinton.
Following today’s sharrow unveiling, the riders took to High Street for the start of Bike To Work Week. More photos from the event are below:
More information can be found online at www.sharetheroadcolumbus.org.
So is this just a mark on the road or is it an actual bike lane?
Mark on the road.
Well that’s a good thing right?
I mean how could that not make more people aware that there are bikes on the road, Wouldn’t this mentally train people into remembering to be watchful of bikes if they see it often? Sort of like conditioning
My opinion (as if anyone cares) is that we should have a well thought out network of bike routes (made up as much as possible by side streets or streets where traffic generally doesn’t exceed 25MPH) marked with signage AND sharrows. For those areas where there’s really no way to get to, say, downtown without getting on a street where speeds regularly exceed 35MPH, bike LANES may be a useful option there (even better with signage, with blinking lights.) Bike Trails are nice, but I don’t think they should be the priority, since how may people live and work right next to a bike trail (OK…everyone at OSU and Battelle, I know.)
I’m pretty much there with you Jed. You can see what such a network would look like, including the trailways, with the map I’ve created here. Google is a little wonky with the maps, so page through and bear with it. If anyone has some GIS skills, I would love some help getting the map to work better.
I think developing the trailways is important, though, as they are often the only way around a particular gap in connectivity. Tied into the side roads, these can provide pretty broad coverage of Columbus by bike.
The problem with solving mode split with infrastructure is that it ignores a whole range of individual ideas and actions in the cities where numbers are higher. New York for instance has an active PSA campaign to create awareness, cyclovia style events shutting down streets on the weekends, active work in the elementary schools, extensive mass transit. There is a culture that accepts that a bike is part of traffic and a viable alternative to get around. Columbus isn’t quite there yet and simply painting a chevron on the road won’t get us there.
Does anyone know…the numbered green bike route signs I occassionaly see around town…are those “active” bike routes? Where can I get a list of them? They seem to be a bit of a hodgepoge. ???
They are pretty sporadic and I believe part of the BBP is to update and make those clearer.
It’s a good example of something pretty basic that should be a focus of the city for improvement. Potentially changing street signs to a contrasting color, better way-finding signage and an online resource of these routes would be good starts and easily implemented solutions to connect Columbus across the board.
“I’m pretty much there with you Jed. You can see what such a network would look like, including the trailways, with the map I’ve created here. Google is a little wonky with the maps, so page through and bear with it. If anyone has some GIS skills, I would love some help getting the map to work better.”
I like your map and agree with the approach of creating a network of bike boulevards or comfortable residential side streets. I think this can go a long way to increasing numbers and accommodating slower, less daring, would-be cyclists.
There is one limitation of that approach though. It is the fact that most destinations are on major streets. If you want to go to the store, chances are you have to get on High Street or some other commercial street at the end of your trip. It may be difficult to get people to take non-recreational trips if they we don’t solve the last mile (or last two blocks, or whatever) problem.
Which is why I am not totally against sharrows or other provisions. I just don’t agree these are the right first steps.
Besides, if you were to dig a little deeper on the map you could probably find that you can take side road x north to side road y and get right to High within 10-15 feet of your destination, you can easily walk the bike that last 10-15 feet. Pearl Street running adjacent to High would be a good example. I took this down the other day from our office and it was probably far quicker than using High and getting caught against lights and buses.
^Assuming there is a complete street grid. It becomes a problem outside the urban core.
It’s always good to see more support from the city for biking.
John,
Right now I think the money is better spent focusing on the urban core where the streets and the infrastructure currently exists and where the population is most likely to use a bike beyond recreation. If you look at the maps it is very possible to connect a large portion of Columbus within 270 through side roads and trails. We just need the input, support and promotion.
Connecting into the suburbs is necessary over time but will take substantial investment in infrastructure. The better investment is connecting the urban core to the suburbs through transit, which more are likely to use and will begin the cultural shift necessary to make bike and transit more accepted.
They should go ahead and get the other 188 painted….I just rode over the one today.
Kbear919 Says: They should go ahead and get the other 188 painted….I just rode over the one today.
I don’t think it’s stopped raining long enough in the past 2 days to do any outdoor painting. ;)
I want to try these sharrows out.
Pearl? It’s littered with potholes that make for a very unpleasant ride. Same goes for several other side streets in Italian Village. One beer at St James cost me $20 after factoring the three tubes (flat, pinched, fixed) because of the shitty condition of those side streets you like so much. Still, there are somde good ones we should highlight for an instant bike boulevard system. It won’t be a complete network, but instead with one or several neighborhoods, which means more accessibility. A great example are the several residential streets that will take you from Goodale Park to Harrison West to OSU to Old North Columbus to Clintonville. The only thing missing is way-finding signage. Doing that for all urban neighborhoods would be very inexpensive and doable in a very short period of time.
Still, all major urban streets should have the right-lane sharrows and signage, rather than one, which is just more of Columbus’ baby step syndrome. Some, like Sullivant, have one travel lane in each direction and vastly underutilized parking lanes that could easily be turned into sharrowed and signed lanes.
Ride around the potholes?
In all seriousness, to get more people on bikes the solution is not to immediately stick them on High. The solution is to create a well connected network that allows someone to start rec riding on the trails, dip their toes in the water by utilizing side streets and gradually move to being more confident and skilled to use the main roads as needed.
I agree with lifeonteowheels about getting novice riders (like myself) off High Street. Last summer the husband and I rode our bikes from 5th to the North Market each weekend. We cut through all the side streets in Vic Village until we hit the park, and then up Park Street to the Market. Similarly, Neil Ave with its “temporary” 25 mph speed limit and one lane is a great connector, so if I were biking to Betty’s for example, I could go from Neil to Buttles and then cross over on High.
I do agree that side streets should be highlighted (with color-coded bike boulevard street name signs and way-finding signs) and they should be well lit (potholes are hard to see in the dark). Heck, I didn’t start off on High either.
But this is the problem with any cycling infrastructure in this city: the leaders are not taking expert cyclists seriously. Numerous expert cyclists attended Alta Planning meetings for our bikeways plan and it’s clear that all criticisms were ignored and they were going forward with what they had already come up with. Keep in mind that if High was a bit wider they would have put in bike lanes as their preferred treatment.
I can’t tell you how many times drivers in the Short North pull out a bit into the lane without looking first and a bike lane offers 0 protection. I prefer to control the lane so that I’m able to react and have room to maneuver out of the way: can’t do either in those door-zone bike lanes. But, of course, those never result in the death of someone, let lone more than once.
It was riding on side streets that mentally prepared me for short rides on High and then advancing to streets like Broad. If some people don’t want to advance, then that’s their choice. However, forcing all cyclists to the edge of the road on streets other than High compromises the proper vehicular cycling techniques that cyclists acquire on side streets because that’s all thrown out the window when you use a bike lane. Expert cyclists like myself who won’t use bike lanes for safety reasons will only see an increase in harassment by motorists as is the case elsewhere since every normal lane where a bike lane is present is now officially “theirs” since “ours” is in the form of a designated lane.
this is great but def still not good enough. just bc there are stop signs doesn’t mean people adhere to them. bike riders need a separate lane in my opinion. manuevering parked cars in 1 lane and a heavy traffice in the other down High St is why i will never ride a bike w/o a separate lane.