Raleigh 2030: Brown vs. Board of Education for Bikes?

January, 26, 2009 , by Aislinn

Plans for sometime in Raleigh’s future: Light bluish or greenish = bike lanes. Brown and green = greenways. Purple = sharrows. Grey = major streets without bike facilities.

The small army of city and county officials who are in charge of drafting the Raleigh 2030 Comprehensive Plan have been dealing with a mountain of issues and information. The Bike Facilities Map looks like the work of a strung-out spider with a box of rainbow sharpies. There are bike lanes planned for thoroughfares throughout town, but close to the center Raleigh will not be following the example of Berlin or Amsterdam, with their dedicated bike lane systems. Raleigh is going a more American route, believing separate-but-equal to be false (and difficult to fund).

Sharrows will be a common bike accommodation on roads near downtown. Sharrow sounds like a cross between narrow and shared-with-cars, which doesn’t seem like safe - or fun - biking. Eric Lamb, manager of the Transportation Services Division of Raleigh’s Public Works Department, sort of confirmed this. Sharrow means a bike emblem with chevrons painted onto the lane of traffic. There is no bike-car separation, just a repeated reminder to cars to share the road, and a cue to bikes to move into the center of the lane and away from dangerous opening car doors.

The Raleigh Bike Facilities map proposes sharrows instead of bike lanes on approximately 50% of downtown streets, an area where it seems bike traffic will be relatively heavy. Lamb said this is because biking downtown is already pretty pleasant due to the low speed limit making bikes easily integrated into traffic. The existing buildings - and desire for street parking - limit street width so there’s often no room to add a lane.

Sharrows are also used to connect different sections of a bike lane. I asked about the sharrow sections of Hillsborough Street: cars drive quickly and often seem impatient to pass bikers between NC State and downtown, and some of that section of road is going to be completely redesigned anyway, so why not add a bike lane? The answer: Lamb said the project currently involves removing road width, so adding bike lanes along the entire length of Hillsborough Street isn’t feasible.

Sharrows are a somewhat new idea, in line for approval by the Federal Highway Administration. Effectiveness studies have been done by several cities, and according to San Francisco’s Shared Lane Marking Full Report, sharrows increase the distance between bikes and parked cars by three to eight inches, and increase the distance between motorists and bicyclists by two feet. NC State has the only sharrows in Raleigh so far, along Dan Allen Drive.

Bike bloggers are solidly on both sides of the fence. Some see sharrows as an inexpensive alternative for roads where bike lanes would never be approved, and safer because bikes ride in the center with the exact same traffic status as cars (a status they have always held, but rarely exercise). Lamb cited one Cary cyclist who calls bike lanes “segregation lanes”. Others see sharrows as a lame move by politicians to make their city look more bike friendly without having to make a large investment - or give up any space for cars. Some cyclists argue that bike lanes also increase bike ridership.

The Comprehensive Plan does not include a hard timeline or funding element, so it’s impossible to say when any of these accommodations will be finished. Completion of some improvements will hopefully happen when particular roads come up for resurfacing. Eventually, it seems, our downtown will look a little more like those at the turn of the previous century - though instead of Model Ts and horse carts it will be cars, bikes, and pedicabs all using the same pavement.

The Raleigh 2030 Comprehensive Plan is available for comments until January 31, 2009.

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