Libraries of the future

Libraries of the future will further develop their social and community aspect. Already in rural areas libraries often offer access to broadband that is not available or utilized within the home. This public access to all sorts of technology and knowledge will continue to be an equalizer and excellent alternative for those who do not have the financial means and/or desire to have these technologies in the home or at work.

In addition to quiet, focused work spaces, libraries will offer spaces that allow and even encourage people to interact, converse and learn about each other, contributing greatly to the community aspect of the library. Whether people rent a book from the library, use a library computer, or bring their own books or laptops, people will find future libraries great places to study, to relax, to collaborate and to read. The sense of place, community and belonging amongst others that a library can provide will never be replicated by technology.

Already, in coffee shops and cafes such as Starbucks, all over Boston, people have shown that they not only enjoy doing work and relaxing in the company of others, but that they are willing to pay for it. I personally spent many hours in the library of my university relaxing and reading the newspaper in the comfortable chairs and sofas provided. I hope that in the future, libraries will continue to be a place in which I can meet new people and old friends, start and develop relationships, and of course further educate myself on my community and the world around me.

How they do it in Copenhagen

Basically turning parking lots into public space and lowering speeds. I guess it's not complicated! Good video

NYC Cycling report has some good stuff!

I just saw in this blog post that a Rutgers University team has released a report entitled Cycling in "New York: Innovative Policies at the Urban Frontier". I just read over most of it and there's some very good stuff in there.

Here is a summary of what I found most interesting:
- The percentage of female cyclists on any certain bike route seems to be proportional to the degree of separation from big vehicle traffic. (pp 6-9) (Also check out this article)

- Page 28 mentions traffic calming as a cycling facility that is absent in most U.S. cities. Traffic Calming is certainly a pedestrian and family friendly facility as well. In residential neighborhoods, traffic calming slows traffic to a human speed (20 mph or preferably even less), increasing safety, reducing car-bike speed conflicts and encouraging walking and biking for short routes.

- Page 13 notes that one big contributor to increased bike safety is the "safety in numbers" effect. I personally believe that most if not all safety benefits of bike lanes are a result of the increased number of bikers they do seem to encourage. I think it is extremely important to remember that many of the safety benefits of bike lanes come from the non-bike lane aspects. This includes narrower (and thus slower) big vehicle lanes. Many of these benefits could be had otherwise, for better or worse.

- Further in, the report goes into detail about bike parking. Obviously, if one does not have a safe and secure place to park a car or bike both at home and at every or most possible destinations, that person will be unlikely to use a car or bike or at least to drive to that destination. So bike parking is critical. However my own take is that maps showing the locations of bike parking are somewhat useless unless they aim to point out the more advanced facilities, such as those with maintenence stations, rooves, showers or etc. How often do people utilize a map of car parking locations? I think a better strategy is to come up with a level of service rating. This might be one bike rack in front of each store front. Or maybe two bike racks per each car parking space. Then it would be easier to remember that Davis Square or Hanover St, for instance, will have a rack nearby.

Anyway those are my thoughts, I don't mean to diminish the other points made in the report, but I think the ones I just pointed out are super important when it comes to encouraging bicycling.

Reducing Traffic Lights 1: Modern Roundabouts

I mentioned in a previous post entitled "The evils of traffic lights" that I'm not a big fan of traffic lights. I think reducing the number of them in our cities can encourage more pedestrian and bike friendly places.

One way to do this in some cases is to install Modern Roundabouts where there had previously been a stop sign or traffic light. The key here is to not confuse Modern Roundabouts with traffic circles and rotaries, which is what primarily exist in Massachusetts. The main differences between them are the overall diameter of the circle and the typical speeds in the circle as well as entering and exiting speeds. A well designed modern roundabout will never see cars traveling higher than 25 mph in the vicinity and many keep speeds to less than 20 mph within the roundabout.

For a good video of what I'm talking about check this out.

The best examples are single lane roundabouts. They are the smallest, slowest moving and the most simple type. Traffic in these commonly moves at around 15mph around the roundabout, which is a very bike friendly speed.

Some people might not like these because there seems to be limited opportunity to draw bike lanes or paint in green. But bicycles can be easily accommodated by adding a bike bypass path outside of the roundabout wide enough for pedestrians and bikers to share. However with single lane roundabouts, these are probably unnecessary. Simply a sign saying "bicyclists use full lane through roundabout" would more than suffice.

By removing traffic lights, speeds would be reduced and the tension resulting from the temporal nature of traffic lights would be eliminated.

Some art from people who do that

Hey I thought this was pretty neat so here's a link:
Envisioning Future Urbanism

Basically they just photoshop images and make buildings bigger and streets narrower. But it's cooler than that. I like the bottom one, Lancaster Blvd. the most.

How Bike Lanes can teach people

I haven't posted much lately, sorry about that. I'll try to keep this one short. Basically I just saw this video on StreetFilms (at this address) and wanted to point it out:


Obviously the point of this infrastructure is to demonstrate to bikers how to avoid crossing railroad tracks at an obtuse angle, which can cause a crash. At the same time, it indicates to auto drivers that bikers are more likely to take the lane in that spot and makes them more aware of the danger.

What I would like to see is sharrows marked at intersections indicating the correct positioning for every possible bike turn, left, straight and right to teach both car drivers and bikers where bikers should be positioned for any certain turn.

One way streets in Somerville

I took a Zipcar out this morning to drive to the other side of town to pick up some paint at an Advance Auto Parts. I ended up going the wrong way on one way streets twice during the round trip (which lasted no more than 40 minutes total). I didn't go more than 50 feet either time before realizing it and turning around.

Now of course I like to think of myself as a halfway decent driver so it made for a frustrating morning. How did I manage to make this same mistake twice? The answer is that Somerville absolutely has TOO MANY ONE WAY STREETS.

Seeing as I have a decent idea of the layout of the city, I know that Broadway, Highland, Summer, Holland/Elm and Somerville are the primary NW-SE routes in the city. Occasionally people aren't either going towards Boston or away from Boston and need to go NE or SW. The primary streets that run NE-SW in Somerville are College, Willow, Cedar, Lowell, Central, School, Walnut and a couple others. The NE-SW streets are the main issue.

On my trip, I started going SW on Central St, thinking I could take it all the way to Somerville Ave (since it goes all the way to Somerville Ave). However it turns out that Central St. is one way in the wrong direction between Somerville and Summer. So wrong way on one way #1 was crossing straight over Summer St. to continue on Central. Ooops, but no big deal, just turn around and take a right on Summer instead.

Wrong way on one way #2 was taking a right turn from NW on Summer onto Cedar. Seemed logical, since my destination was AT THE OTHER END OF CEDAR and I know that Cedar is two ways (although I obviously forgot that it changes at Highland) in certain parts. Although the first two wrong moves were pretty low key no big deal events, in this case the person behind me laid on the horn on green (and I interpreted that to mean YOU'RE NOT STARTING FAST ENOUGH, since I had already gotten that beep once on the trip). In turning my head to look and wave hello, I missed the sign (I probably would have missed it anyway) and started down the street until some very nice walkers actually used the english language to inform me I was going the wrong way. While I know they were not impressed by me, I certainly appreciate that they yelled out.

So that was in while driving an automobile. Having to take a longer path isn't really a big deal in a car. However the frustration I experienced today was a good example of how one way streets generally make it more difficult to "get around". Shouldn't the major roads in the city get me where I want to go?

Now that was in a car. On a bike following the one way rules can be considerably more frustrating. From my apt. to the nearest 24 hour supermarket in a straight line is about six tenths of a mile. The google walking directions are pretty much direct and the trip becomes eight tenths of a mile. On a bike however it's complicated.

To get to the supermarket by bike, I can go in a fairly direct route. By going the wrong way on a quiet one way street for about two hundred feet, I can basically take the most direct path, 0.8 miles. I can even avoid going the wrong way on a one way street and it only adds a tenth of a mile to the trip. However I would then have to take Highland Ave, one of the main streets in the town and certainly the least bike friendly on this particular trip.

To get home, because of the one way streets, despite the many roads I really only have one route option. That option is basically an entirely different route than the one I take to get to the supermarket. It takes me on two primary, busy roads, Elm St and Willow St, neither of which are particularly friendly to newbies, slower or less confident bikers despite bike accommodations on both.

This combination of not being able to return the way I arrived and having to take bike unfriendly streets turns what should be an ideal bicycle shopping trip into one that is unlikely to be made by very many bikers.

Because of this, Somerville will not truly be bike friendly until more streets are available for safe two way biking.

Bike Friendly w/o Appearing Bike Friendly 2: Traffic Calming

Earlier today I rode through the Back Bay to The Pour House. More specifically, I crossed the Mass Ave bridge and continued to take a left on Boylston St. For those that don't spend much time in the Back Bay, most of the streets are three lanes one way and most intersections are controlled with lights. There is no bike infrastructure anywhere to be found. When the light turns green, even a competent and strong vehicular cyclist must crank the pedals as hard as he can just to try to keep up with traffic. The worst part is knowing that every driver around has their foot heavy on the gas pedal, in a hurry to wait at or possibly beat the next light. It is certainly an uncomfortable situation, even before the cyclist has to make a left turn. Beginners and most intermediate cyclists will certainly avoid this area or choose to use the sidewalk.

What can be done to make this area more bike friendly? Traffic calming. By that I mean a couple things. The first would be raising the intersections to the sidewalk level, forcing drivers to slow for the sidewalks even when there are no pedestrians. In the back bay, raised crosswalks could be added mid-block on the long side of the block. Second, chicanes or slight bends could be added in the road to eliminate the drag strip feeling in this area. The combined effect of these treatments would make it much more difficult to accelerate hard out of every light when in a car. It would also lower the top speeds cars attain on the road without seriously impacting average travel time through the area.

Those two effects would combine to make bicycles fit into traffic much better. Bikers would no longer need to strain just to keep up. There would be less road rage since the speed and acceleration difference would be smaller. The improved pedestrian crossings would increase pedestrian traffic and safety. Drivers would be forced to play nice with pedestrians and likely with bikers as well.

There would also be a few nice side effects. By lowering the top speed and bringing it more in line with the average speed and the street grid, the sound and pollution effects of stopping and accelerating hard would be reduced. This would be especially nice for people enjoying the mall on Commonwealth Ave, and for residents of the area. Pedestrians would certainly take advantage of improved and mid block crossings. The increased bike and pedestrian traffic combined with lower vehicle speeds would also likely be a boon for businesses in the area, even though they are certainly already doing well.

In the near future, I will attempt to create a series on my strategies for making Boston Bike Friendly, neighborhood by neighborhood. The first will likely be the Back Bay.

Bike tracks and turn lanes in NYC

New York City has taken the initiative to install bicycle tracks on a number of the streets as you can check out in this video:

But if you look closely at 0:30, 0:52 and 1:05 in that film, you'll notice the straight through bike lane is to the left of the left turn pocket. I believe NYC is installing bike traffic lights in these locations so that the obvious conflict is avoided. However, at one point early in the film, a taxi is parked in the bike path in the intersection, obviously confused as to what to do. Bikers are riding in front and in back of him because they feel like they should rule the world and pedestrians are doing what they do in NYC.

I don't feel that installing a second roadway and signaling network will ever be as effective in the US as it is in Holland. I believe many if not all of these situations can be effectively avoided by rearranging the bike and turn lanes as shown below. I would like to see the bike track and turn path cross before the intersection. This would certainly require well thought out designs to allow drivers and cyclists sufficient time, visibility and slow speeds to make this work. The benefits would be the cyclist is then placed in a correct position at the intersection, and bike traffic lights are no longer required since the regular lights would function just fine (except for the issues they pose for cyclists anyway, which I'll cover in another post).

Awesome