Safety First: Codifying Solutions for Better Biking Infrastructure
Cities across America are slowly shifting away from previous car-centric transportation models to now include more space to accommodate a growing population of cyclists. But as we make more space for cyclists it becomes increasingly important to have a sort of national code on biking infrastructure to avoid making cycling lanes into a laboratory of irregularity and questionable safety. Codifying these practices will also help make the cycling experience more uniform across America no matter what new city you visit or live in.
Thankfully the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), has come out with the first national design standard for protected bike lanes that has received endorsements from the Federal Highway Administration along with other state agencies. What’s innovative about NACTO’s work is that they provide transit engineers with proven solutions to safer biking lanes, allowing them to avoid reinventing the wheel and mitigate risk. Although not yet perfect, NACTO’s codifying of design standards will play a more pivotal role in years to come as we fight against increasing cyclist deaths and try to incorporate other modes of transportation — such as scooters — into our city mobility conversations.
Since NACTO’s standards were created collaboratively they can better accommodate the diversity of cities in America. But to truly scale nationally, it will need to increase its collaboration efforts with other transit advocates across the country to incorporate a variety of point of views and solutions. As a result, technological platforms aimed at collaborative work and dissemination of ideas will help find problem areas in transit in other parts of the country and as well as identify possible solutions that can one day be incorporated into the standard.
But as we wait for better guidelines to be published, we must not forget that we as citizens need to keep pushing our government officials for better cities to one day achieve Vision Zero.
