Montgomery County "Road Code" Legislation

"The Montgomery County Council is considering sweeping changes to it's "road code", the part of county law that sets road design standards." From the MoBike website.

The changes represent a paradigm shift that could be very detrimental to cyclists and cycling.  The proposed standards dictate absolute lane widths (rather than minimum and maximum lane widths) that are not compatible with safe cycling on major roads.  Lane widths would be required to be 10.5, 11 or 12 feet depending on roadway type (excluding gutter). If a road is master-planned as a "signed shared roadway" bike route, only one extra foot of width would be added. Gone is any true notion of "shared roadway" in this calculation.  Also, shoulders would be prohibited except on certain open-section (curbless) roads where only 2' shoulders will be allowed (except on highways).  Bike lanes and shared use paths would be built where called for by the master plan.  The new standards would apply to all new or reconstructed roads.

There was a hearing in January (sorry, I can't read everything) on this subject at which MoBike gave testimony and asked the council to slow down and give stakeholders time to weigh in. They discussed problems with the road width limits...

The proposed lane width standards, 10.5' or 11' on slower roads and 12' on faster roads, are simply too narrow to be considered bike-friendly on arterial or collector streets. Most bikeway design literature, including the county's Countywide Bikeways Functional Master Plan (CBFMP), recommends that shared lanes be 14' wide excluding gutters. 14' allows cars to safely pass cyclists in the same lane, and 15' is necessary on higher speed roads.

Narrow lanes certainly have their uses. Narrowing inside lanes is often an excellent way
to create space needed for wider outside lanes, shoulders or bike lanes. A road with a 10'
inside lane and 14' outside lane (in each direction) is generally much better for cyclists
than a road with two 12' lanes. In fact we recommend that 10', not 10.5', be the minimum
lane width, to allow greater widening elsewhere.

The lack of paved shoulders...

shoulders are an easy and common way to accommodate cyclists on many roads, and they serve other useful purposes as well. Even where the legislation calls for shoulders (on certain curb-less roads), it stipulates that they be only 2' wide in most cases. While 2' shoulders might be better for bikes than no space at all, they aren't wide enough to allow a road to be called bikeable.

I could go on copying the whole thing almost but, if you have time, you should read it. It's quite an elegant statement including this nice quote...

The AASHTO Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities states:

"All highways, except those where cyclists are legally prohibited, should be designed and constructed under the assumption that they will be used by cyclists.Therefore, bicycles should be considered in all phases of transportation planning, new roadway design, roadway reconstruction, and capacity improvement and transit projects."

There's no statement of the outcome of that meeting - or if there even was any - but it's something to keep an eye on. In general road planners should be given the flexibility to make reasonable decisions about safe and complete designs, and this code change seems to take that away.

Comments

[Nancy]

Where's that photo of the 2' "bike lane" from? Not from this area, is it? The only thing I like about it is the dotted line used to mark the lane. Bike lanes should be marked with a dotted line, to indicate permeability in both directions. [Bikes often must leave the bike lane and cars often must enter the bike lane, to make turns.]

Most bike lanes in Montgomery County are useless, crappy afterthoughts created from leftover space after the regular travel lanes have been made. I like to call them "piecrust" lanes after the edge of the crust you trim off when you put the dough in the pie plate and get rid of the part hanging over the side. [What, you don't make pie?]

[washcycle]

Richmond Rd, Victoria BC

http://www.flickr.com/photos/luton/301590454/

The photographer of the photo here takes a lot of cool bike facilities photos.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/drdul/

[Contrarian]

I'm glad that MoBike is out there paying attention and standing up for cyclists who want to ride on the roads, unlike some local advocacy organizations who care only about building more bike specific facilities (cough WABA cough).

From reading MoBike's testimony, I gather that this proposal is actually well-intentioned. The idea is to make the streets more pedestrian friendly by making them narrower, which reduces vehicle speeds and shortens crossing distances.

I find that narrow lanes of 10' are much better than sort-of-narrow lanes in the 12-13 foot range. When a lane is narrow, motorists can eyeball it and see there is not enough room for both of you, and realize that they are either going to have to go around or wait, although they may not be happy about waiting. When lanes get a little wider a lot of motorists will think they have enough room to pass without leaving the lane, even when they don't, and that's where things get hairy and tempers get short.