Green Lanes Bring Bicycling Into the 21st Century
from OnTheCommons.org:
Green Lanes Bring Bicycling Into the 21st Century
With positive results for the economy, the environment, our health and our commutes
June 5, 2012 | by Jay Walljasper
[font size="1"]Bikers try out the new Green Lanes in Austin, Texas. Even in the auto-centric Sun Belt, the number of people on bikes increases when they are offered some protection from rushing traffic on busy streets. (Photo by effalar under a Creative Commons license from flickr.com)[/font]
You can glimpse the future right now in forward-looking American cities—a few blocks here, a mile there where people riding bicycles are protected from rushing cars and trucks.
Chicago’s Kinzie Street, just north of downtown, offers a good picture of this transportation transformation. New bike lanes are marked with bright green paint and separated from motor traffic by a series of plastic posts. This means bicyclists glide through the busy area in the safety of their own space on the road. Pedestrians are thankful that bikes no longer seek refuge on the sidewalks, and many drivers appreciate the clear, orderly delineation about where bikes and cars belong.
“Most of all this is a safety project,” notes Chicago’s Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein. “We saw bikes go up from a 22 percent share of traffic to 52 percent of traffic on the street with only a negligible change in motorists’ time, but a drop in their speeds. That makes everyone safer.”
Klein heralds this new style of bike lane as one way to improve urban mobility in an era of budget shortfalls. “They’re dirt cheap to build compared to road projects.” ....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://onthecommons.org/magazine/green-lanes-bring-bicycling-21st-century
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