London’s Cycling Design Standards: A Model for NYC?

2:27 PM EST on November 13, 2006

As New York City begins fulfilling its commitment to build 200 miles of new bicycle lanes over the next three years, the question will increasingly arise: What kind of bike lane should go where? Currently, DOT seems not to have any set of guidelines to answer that question. So, take a look at how the City of London does it.

Transportation Alternatives' bike program director Noah Budnick pointed me to the London Cycling Design Standards book. It is a remarkable document and, perhaps, a great model for New York City to follow.

The chart below can be found in Chapter 4, page 62. With vehicle volume on one axis and speed on the other, it establishes a general set of rules for when a street should have a physically-separated, "segregated" bike lane versus when bikes should mix with "calmed" motor vehicle traffic. Note that London has long-since stopped debating whether or not physically-separated bike lanes are a good and necessary thing.

Aaron Naparstek

AARON NAPARSTEK is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparsteks journalism, advocacy and community organizing work has been instrumental in growing the bicycle network, removing motor vehicles from parks, and developing new public plazas, car-free streets and life-saving traffic-calming measures across all five boroughs. Naparstek is the author of "Honku: The Zen Antidote for Road Rage" (Villard, 2003), a book of humorous haiku poetry inspired by the endless motorist sociopathy observed from his apartment window. Prior to launching Streetsblog, Naparstek worked as an interactive media producer, pioneering some of the Web's first music web sites, online communities, live webcasts and social networking services. Naparstek is currently in Cambridge with his wife and two young sons where he is enjoying a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He has a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Naparstek is a co-founder of the Park Slope Neighbors community group and the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. You can find more of his work here: http://www.naparstek.com.

London’s Cycling Design Standards: A Model for NYC?

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