Bicycle Infrastructure

Roads - Rails - Sidewalks - Bikeways
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Re: Bicycle Infrastructure

Postby Minneapolisite » May 17th, 2014, 9:59 am

Hey, it could be worse...

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Re: Bicycle Infrastructure

Postby seanrichardryan » May 17th, 2014, 10:08 am

Wow. That is ___ something.
Q. What, what? A. In da butt.

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Re: Bicycle Infrastructure

Postby MNdible » May 17th, 2014, 12:25 pm

I've got no beef with this project, but do have to stand up for Steve Brandt, who is about the best journalist in town, and writes great tough stories about all sorts of topics. Oh, and if I'm not mistaken, he's also a driving force behind the 40th Street bike trail.

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Re: Bicycle Infrastructure

Postby ProspectPete » May 17th, 2014, 3:23 pm

I posted this on a different thread, but it's worth sharing here.
http://www.amusingplanet.com/2014/01/ho ... cycle.html

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Re: Bicycle Infrastructure

Postby Orbi » May 17th, 2014, 9:30 pm

That is awesome...feel like I may have seen it from the train from Amsterdam to Paris. I have a vague recollection of seeing something similar but couldn't figure out what it was at the time. Anyway, too bad we cann't have an elevated bike path traversing the whole Hennepin-Lyndale triangle mess.

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Re: Bicycle Infrastructure

Postby Tyler » May 17th, 2014, 9:40 pm

I've got no beef with this project, but do have to stand up for Steve Brandt, who is about the best journalist in town, and writes great tough stories about all sorts of topics. Oh, and if I'm not mistaken, he's also a driving force behind the 40th Street bike trail.
Maybe it's the editors fault? No matter who the author is it reads like libertarian/suburbanite click bait.
Towns!

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Re: Bicycle Infrastructure

Postby mattaudio » May 18th, 2014, 7:48 am

A few of Steve's articles have come across as Souch-ey on bike topics.... I remember how inflammatory the articles were regarding Park and Portland.

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Re: Bicycle Infrastructure

Postby gpete » May 18th, 2014, 9:15 am

I like Steve. Check out this tweet of his from a couple weeks ago: https://twitter.com/brandtstrib/status/ ... 7442770944


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Re: Bicycle Infrastructure

Postby mulad » May 19th, 2014, 6:11 am

Some new refuge islands have appeared on Rice Street at Charles Avenue in Saint Paul, which I presume is part of the Charles Avenue bicycle boulevard project. I haven't tried biking along Charles yet to see what else they've done, aside from the intersection at Snelling.

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Re: Bicycle Infrastructure

Postby mattaudio » May 19th, 2014, 7:30 am

Refuge islands rock. So much better than hawks, etc. Just take one lane at a time, and it channelizes conflict points so drivers make eye contact. They are very humanizing, and hawks are very dehumanizing (IMOObv)

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Re: Bicycle Infrastructure

Postby eazydp » May 19th, 2014, 10:46 am

Refuge islands rock.
Yes. The 17th Ave Bike way aka the Southern Bike connection did nearly everything right which 40th St did wrong. The refuge islands on 42nd and 46th are a fantastic experience on a bike. These need to become the default. The only issue is sometimes cross bound traffic get confused and yields to you (which is fine, I guess), or just slows WAAAAY down then speeds off in a huff.

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Re: Bicycle Infrastructure

Postby tabletop » May 19th, 2014, 11:50 am

Yessir! I've spotted the refuge islands on Hamlin, Lexington, Western and Dale. I would assume they're on Victoria, Pascal and the others further west as well.

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Re: Bicycle Infrastructure

Postby ProspectPete » May 19th, 2014, 2:55 pm

Does anyone have any idea of when that tunnel on the west end of Bridge 9 will be completed? Also, looking at an aerial view is looks like the trail will continue cutting between parking lots come out near Izzies. Does anyone have more info on this?
I rode by last night and looks like there was a lot of construction activity well under way.

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Re: Bicycle Infrastructure

Postby Minneapolisite » May 19th, 2014, 8:10 pm

That is awesome...feel like I may have seen it from the train from Amsterdam to Paris. I have a vague recollection of seeing something similar but couldn't figure out what it was at the time. Anyway, too bad we cann't have an elevated bike path traversing the whole Hennepin-Lyndale triangle mess.
We could and according to the price conversion based on London's planned 10 route elevated bike path it would only cost as much as the Nicollet-Central streetcar if we did an elevated greenway triangle from Lake Calhoun up along Hennepin, Lake and Lyndale connecting to the Loring Greenway. The difference being that would put us on the map. A streetcar does not.

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Re: Bicycle Infrastructure

Postby NickP » May 20th, 2014, 9:47 am

Refuge islands rock. So much better than hawks, etc. Just take one lane at a time, and it channelizes conflict points so drivers make eye contact. They are very humanizing, and hawks are very dehumanizing (IMOObv)
What are hawks in this context? I've also heard porkchop and was curious about that as well. Thanks for the insight. :)
Nick

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Re: Bicycle Infrastructure

Postby mulad » May 20th, 2014, 10:32 am

A HAWK beacon (High-Intensity Activated crossWalK). I don't like them at all -- I'm sure they're better than the push-to-cross signals with flashing yellow lights, but I prefer to see regular traffic signal heads used rather than HAWKs.

This page has a good diagram showing the signal phasing: http://www.merriam.org/index.aspx?NID=170

They're normally off, which saves on electricity, but I worry that it trains drivers to go through dark signals (ordinarily you're supposed to treat a dark signal like a stop sign). Of course, they call it a "beacon" rather than a "signal".

From off, it goes to flashing yellow, solid yellow, then a double solid red, at which time the pedestrian signal shows a "walk" symbol. When the walk phase is ending, and you get a flashing "don't walk" symbol, the red balls begin alternating like a railroad signal, and finally when the don't walk sign goes solid, the red lights go dark and drivers can proceed.

Here's a video of drivers doing it wrong at a roundabout:


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Re: Bicycle Infrastructure

Postby FISHMANPET » May 20th, 2014, 10:34 am

If I encountered one of those as a driver I would have no earthly idea what to do.

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Re: Bicycle Infrastructure

Postby mattaudio » May 20th, 2014, 10:36 am

The traffic engineer's approach to safety...

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Re: Bicycle Infrastructure

Postby mulad » May 20th, 2014, 10:53 am

A roundabout is probably a doubly-bad place for a HAWK. It was just one of the only videos I could find that didn't have tons of voiceover and needless explanation, and also had the proper railroad-style flashing lights (some earlier implementations had the red lights flash at the same time, rather than alternate -- I suppose they decided that was bad because of the "dark signal equals go" problem).

Here's one with the older phasing in Portland. Combined with a bicycle signal that also goes off...


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Re: Bicycle Infrastructure

Postby grant1simons2 » May 20th, 2014, 11:48 am

This sounds crazy but what if there were sensors on the other side that could detects if the bike has gone across. It would make these a lot more efficient.


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