NACTO Urban bikeway design guide available online

The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) has released online a design guide for the design of non-standard and creative bike facilities. The guide shows a variety of setups such as bike boulevards, bike-specific traffic signals, intersection treatments, and the like. NACTO member cities are
Atlanta
Baltimore
Boston
Chicago
Detroit
Houston
Los Angeles
Minneapolis
New York
Philadelphia
Phoenix
Portland
San Francisco
Seattle
Washington DC,
and Austin, TX is an associate member. Are there places in Tennessee that can benefit from some of their ideas?

Mini Adventure Series

A new addition to the Mini Adventure Series has just recently been released. The series, by Knoxville locals Elle Colquitt and Jon Livengood, provide a series of invigorating recreational bike rides. The first book of the series describes rides on the back roads of the Knoxville area, the second is for off road mountain bike trails throughout the state, and the third is on the back roads of the Chattanooga/north Georgia area. That book also has urban routes listed. Elevaton gains and distances are included along with cue sheets.

Bridging the Gap - Must Read ABW Report

Hot off the presses this afternoon, Bridging the Gaps in Bicycling Networks: An advocate's guide to getting bikes on bridges is your first step in securing these critical links within your community's transportation network. Click here to download your copy.

Rumbles again

On a recent ride we encountered this bit of rumbling along TN SR 290 in Bedford Co between Chapel Hill and Shelbyville. The part in Marshall Co was not rumbled, had the same shoulder and same traffic. The part in Marshall Co felt perfectly safe but the part in Bedford Co did not. The bit of shoulder that was left was too narrow to ride, especially when there was a multi foot drop off from pavement to grass. After almost falling when being chased off the travel lane by a horse hauling truck and trailer having to move back to the right to accommodate oncoming traffic, we searched and found a usable side road. This road has no special merit except for being direct and easy to follow and in the future I will avoid 290 entirely. However it does highlight several issues.

Tennessee State Bike Route Survey

. . The Tennessee Department of Transportation is currently gathering information for an update to the state bike route network, and is inviting citizens to complete a short online survey regarding their experiences bicycling Tennessee’s highways.  Input from the survey will help guide the department in developing a comprehensive bicycling network that will assess state routes with respect to bicycle suitability and determine future action items pertinent to the furtherance of the goals of TDOT’s Bicycle and Pedestrian plan.

. . In 2005, as part of PlanGo, TDOT’s Multi-Modal Long Range Transportation Plan included a Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan element that recommended a statewide bicycle system.  Since that time, the department recognized that changes in infrastructure and data collection necessitate an update to the existing bicycle route network.  In order to provide meaningful connections to cyclists’ destinations, TDOT invites the public to participate in the online survey by new deadline October 30, 2010.  Below is a link to the survey:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TNBikeSurvey

Say "Goodbye" to signed Bike Routes!

State and local engineers, planners, administrators, and elected officials are concerned about incurring liability for injuries suffered by bicyclists riding on public roadways designated as bikeways, and those concerns may also result in hesitation to create additional marked bikeways.

Read Legal Research on Liability Aspects of Bikeways

Call For Help on Musical heritage Trail

This post actually belongs on the State Route Blog but needs as much publicity as possible. Jessica Wilson has requested our help in sorting out sites appropriate for the Musical Heritage Trail. She has planned to get a list of sites from musical historians that we could assess for inclusion into a cycle route. The historians quite naturally have other priorities but did point us in the right direction.  This may be better anyway since our knowledge of cycling conditions will allow some winnowing of sites on the first pass.

Please examine the list of sites on the link in Jessica's email quoted below and from that and your personal knowledge of your part of the state, submit sites each of you consider appropriate for inclusion on a Bike Route With a Musical Heritage Theme.  Don't limit yourselves to sites on the list. I notice Trinity Village is not listed and though not my cup of tea, it is a big deal to some of my out of town guests.

From Jessica Wilson:

Do you think you guys at BWT could start researching a list of musical heritage sites?  The historic preservationists folks were extremely tied up for the next couple of months, but said they would be more than willing to look over a list that we developed and add any other sites they knew of.  My former boss at the Center for Historic Preservation edited the TN Encyclopedia of History & Culture, and this would be a great jumping off point.  http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/

There's even a section on music.  http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/showcat.php?cat=Music&dcat=Music

What would be great is if we started looking at each entry and seeing if we can pinpoint a coinciding site on a map that can be accessed by cyclists.

Jessica L. Wilson, TDOT Bicycle & Pedestrian Coordinator

US Bicycle Route and Music Heritage Trail

Recently, I sat in on a meeting with bicycle advocates from Bike Walk Tennesse, Outdoor Chattanooga, Elle Colquitt from Mini Adventure Series, transportation consultants from RPM Consultants, and the Tennessee bicycle and pedestrian coordinator, Jessica Wilson, to talk about a myriad of opportunities for Tennessee bicycle routes, including a Music Heritage Bike Trail from Memphis to Nashville. . . .
. . .This will make route development much easier as will the work by an extraordinary bike route developer named Bruce Day. . .
. . .Another state is primed for implementation. As they say, "Tennesse is America at its best!"

Click here to read Adventure Cycling Blog, plus a picture of FOGBEES on first Red Boiling Springs ride taken by Ed Thomas.