Kind of outside my service area, but...
[City officials] agreed [January 14th] to help pay for the Downtown Bicycle Network, a $1.2 million grid of routes.
The network will include what is expected to be the city's best bike lane: a 2.6-mile stretch of Maryland Avenue called a "cycle track," [a.ka. a Protected Bike Lane (PBL)] in which bicyclists will be protected from traffic by a buffer of parked cars.
On Wednesday, the Board of Estimates approved spending about $300,000 to help pay for the project. Money from a federal program will cover the rest.
[City Transportation Director William Johnson] expects construction to begin as soon as winter is over, with completion by the end of the year.
The spending approved Wednesday includes $240,000 for Toole Design Group LLC to help to create the Maryland Avenue Cycle Track, a north-south bike lane, and five connecting east-west lanes on Centre, Monument, Madison, Preston and Biddle streets. The project was initially slated for completion last year, but was delayed while city officials did additional traffic analysis.
The board also approved $52,000 for McCormick Taylor Inc. to do other work on the network.
Baltimore has 100 miles of on-street bike lanes, though few are protected by buffers and many stretches are not connected. The city also has 39 miles of off-road trails. The city is working to create another cycle track on Mount Royal Avenue and to launch a bike-sharing program.
I have been on a couple of rides through Baltimore and been amazed at how poorly thought out the current downtown trails are. Sort of like, "Well, we can't skip downtown, so let's just label any old thing a trail." Glad to see they weren't content with the situation either.
Posted by: Pseudoprime | February 04, 2015 at 09:43 AM
Agreed with pseudoprime. The problem is less a single lane, than their connectivity. The other serious problem is trash as a hazard.
Posted by: SJE | February 04, 2015 at 12:56 PM