So, I saw a post on CityLab about bike maps as metro-style maps, showing mainlines and stations (where the stations are points of interest) here.
I challenged myself to make a map like this for where I live, the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, "The Research Triangle". I used only existing or "committed" (under construction or soon-to-be) trails that were either paved or the equivalent of a gravel road or better. The combined segments had to be at least 5 continuous miles long and were allowed to include some on-road connections if there were dedicated bike lanes or on a low-volume, neighborhood street (Walnut Creek on Little John Road the latter, Lochmere bike lanes between Speight Branch and Swift Creek the former).
I also show some Existing/Committed greenways, plus Smith Creek Greenway--some of it is committed, but I have to research if all of it to downtown Wake Forest is.
Anyway, it tells a few stories. You decide what they are. For me it was why aren't Apex (or Garner, or RTP, neither shown on the map) connected? What about a bikeway from Chapel Hill to Durham? There are two routes pointed from Raleigh to Durham that don't follow through: Reedy Creek that parallels I-40 and Crabtree that would parallel US 70 if it continued west. I think Crabtree will bend back toward Morrisville if it actually follows the creek, though. Reedy Creek does lend credence to the idea of a high-speed bikeway along (or at least parallel) to I-40.
I challenged myself to make a map like this for where I live, the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, "The Research Triangle". I used only existing or "committed" (under construction or soon-to-be) trails that were either paved or the equivalent of a gravel road or better. The combined segments had to be at least 5 continuous miles long and were allowed to include some on-road connections if there were dedicated bike lanes or on a low-volume, neighborhood street (Walnut Creek on Little John Road the latter, Lochmere bike lanes between Speight Branch and Swift Creek the former).
I also show some Existing/Committed greenways, plus Smith Creek Greenway--some of it is committed, but I have to research if all of it to downtown Wake Forest is.
Anyway, it tells a few stories. You decide what they are. For me it was why aren't Apex (or Garner, or RTP, neither shown on the map) connected? What about a bikeway from Chapel Hill to Durham? There are two routes pointed from Raleigh to Durham that don't follow through: Reedy Creek that parallels I-40 and Crabtree that would parallel US 70 if it continued west. I think Crabtree will bend back toward Morrisville if it actually follows the creek, though. Reedy Creek does lend credence to the idea of a high-speed bikeway along (or at least parallel) to I-40.
Great map of the potential/incipient spines of a minimum protected bike network. Make the obvious off-road continuations, and flesh out some protected facilities along key streets. Then with some key road diets and protected intersections = done
ReplyDeletePaul, you could interlace this greenway spines map with a map of the road-c0located transit/bike corridors - the ridgelines (roads) and valleys (greenways) would probably create a nice mesh.
ReplyDeleteRaleigh needs to grow a spine (in the transit sense). Let's ditch the rail notions of the last few decades already and just augment the incipient corridors where people can already *just not almost* function car-free. Hillsborough Street + New Bern Ave between Blue Ridge and Wake Med is an obvious one. Enrich the corridor to make it possible to live, work, eat, play, & errand .. then once it's working for that spine, run a new outpost / offshoot from there. Always incremental change building on what's working and recovering one area at a time, iteratively, not attempting to fix the whole mess at once and spreading the resources ineffectively too thin.
So interestingly enough, when the Dutch starting investing in bike infrastructure, ridership on the local (as opposed to regional/express) buses went *down*. It turns out that the bike is time competitive for short trips, and offers more flexibility of schedule when there is a safe network to ride on. Heck, I can beat the 301 and the 305 bus trip if you include walking time to the bus stops from my house, and that is with a 10+ mile commute. I've made it in 43 minutes, and the bus + walk is over an hour.
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