Stay In Your Lane: Navigating Austin’s Bike Paths
Bikeability is a vital aspect of any healthy city. As the U.S. continues to urbanize, densely populated cities are devoting more attention to bike shares to support active transit modes and healthy pursuits. But the best way a city can encourage their citizens to ride bikes is through infrastructure. Some consider Austin to be a bike-friendly city, but it isn’t. With a measly 52 out of 100 Bike Score (Walk Score, 2018), Austin is categorized as having minimal bike infrastructure. Although Austin is heavily car-dependent, we have the necessary bike infrastructure. If Austin wants more to become a robust and healthy city, it needs to improve bike infrastructure to separate cars from cyclists. Safety, which translates into how comfortable a cyclist feels while riding in a bike lane, is the most decisive factor for if a person chooses to ride their bike. There are a few methods in Austin used to develop bike lanes and a corresponding level of “comfort” for each.
After reading peer-reviewed journal articles about bike safety, buffer zones, and degrees of “comfort,” I wanted to go out into Austin to experience the various types of bike lanes myself. I concentrated my bike ride to the Downtown Austin area because it contained a dense cluster of bike lanes and allowed me to experience four different bike path types in the same area. Austin distinguishes its bike roads by varying levels of “comfort,” as noted in Figure 1. During my bike ride experience for this article, I traversed three different bike path types: High-Comfort, Medium-Comfort, and Low-Comfort Roads (AustinTexas.Gov, 2017). My route consisted of Low-Comfort along 5th St, Medium-Comfort along Rio Grande St, Congress Ave, and Red River St, and High-Comfort along 3rd St. After riding through each, I stopped to note aspects of the path that made me feel more or less safe.
As mentioned above, safety is a crucial factor for cyclists judging whether or not they are willing to ride their bike. Perceived comfort is a qualitative factor often used in peer-reviewed journal articles and often reflects the level of safety for bike lanes. Figure 2 below displays a few types of buffers used in bike lanes. Austin’s Low-Comfort bike paths certainly lived up to their title. Riding down 5th Street was both a pain and a terror. There were no buffers, there were no lines, there was nothing to keep the metal death machines from hurting me. Bikes were made to ride alongside cars in the right lane. It felt as if I wasn’t meant to be there; cars would quickly swerve around me at any chance. For me, my most significant fear while riding is being “doored,” which is when a driver does not see an oncoming cyclist in their rear or side view mirror before opening the door. This leaves the cyclist with no time to react before colliding with the car door. I worried if drivers wouldn’t pay attention and either door me or pull out in front of me. Sure, they’d be fine, but I wouldn’t. As soon as I had the chance, I evacuated the Low-Comfort Road. Thankfully, Medium-Comfort Roads were much more reassuring after that experience.
An appalling increase in perceived rider comfort is seen when comparing a bike lane with no buffer, to a bike lane with a painted white line (McNeil, 2015). That’s it? This seemed odd to me that having a simple white line could make cyclists feel so much safer than without it. From a logical standpoint, I realize that nothing about a white line can protect me as a cyclist from getting hit by a car, but as a human with basic instincts and safety concerns, I know it will help most drivers maintain their lane. With added buffer space and more distance/obstacles between cyclists and cars, perceived comfort goes up for both current and potential cyclists (McNeil, 2015). In Figure 2, you see a few examples of painted buffer spaces, but Austin doesn’t quite make it to that level. For designated Medium-Comfort Roads, Austin has a single painted white line to delineate car and bike spaces. In Austin, every bike path that runs North to South in Downtown Austin from Rio Grande to Red River is designated as a Medium-Comfort Road (Figure 3). Similarly, most of Downtown Austin’s bike paths are Medium-Comfort Roads and the type of bike lane most cyclists encounter. These consist of a painted white line bounding separate spaces for bikes and cars. As a cyclist, I appreciated having a separate area, but during my ride, I was afraid of cars veering into my lane or reversing from their parking spaces into me.
In Downtown, there was one High-Comfort Road for bikes on 3rd Street. A haven as it would appear, with a multitude of cyclists riding along either side of the street. While riding along 3rd street, I had a concrete median to my left separating me from car traffic. It was surprising to see a unique traffic light signal just for bikes. I felt very comfortable along this path, but I made sure to note any factors that didn’t seem safe. One such factor was if a cyclist rode close to the left edge, they could be doored by cars parallel parked along the bike median. Other potentially unsafe encounters I experienced were pedestrians who walked into the bike lane without checking for oncoming cyclists and cars who either ignored or did not see cyclists as they crossed the intersection with a green bike traffic light. Overall, these concerns were of little consequence compared to those of Low-Comfort Roads.
I think it is significant that there is only one bike lane in Downtown Austin with a concrete median to protect cyclists. Though I had rarely taken notice of how safety and comfort affected my traveling decisions previously, during this ride, I found myself continuously wanting to return to the High-Comfort Road. The most apparent characteristic of each bike path was also the most telling. The density of cyclists was dependent upon the quality of the bike path. As described above, 3rd St was teeming with cyclists on either side of the road. Amazingly, I found myself in a small pack of cyclists at each traffic light as we waited for our bike signal to turn green. The Medium-Comfort Roads were also heavily trafficked but did not sustain numbers close to the High-Comfort Road. Unsurprisingly, I was the only rider on the Low-Comfort Road. After my experience, I don’t plan on riding along it again.
Because most of the bike lanes in Austin are Medium-Comfort Roads, they also serve as the largest potential for improving bike lane infrastructure. Another notable jump in perceived comfort is seen when comparing bike lanes with a painted white line, to bike lanes with flexiposts along the edge between cars and cyclists (McNeil, 2015). Though most safety measures used to increase rider safety and comfort are considerably expensive, flexiposts are a relatively cheaper option (Aziz, 2017). Simply adding these as an additional buffer method to the bike lanes would significantly increase safety, perceived comfort, and ridership in Austin.
Austin should expect more bike lane infrastructure to be built over the next few years. Currently, Austin is working on CodeNEXT, a plan to redo zoning for the first time in thirty years (CodeNEXT, 2017). The new zoning plan has considerable initiatives for developing active communities and encouraging multi-modal transit, essentially more bikes. Hopefully, later planning and infrastructure discussions will keep perceived bike safety at the forefront of the discussion.
Bike lane infrastructure may often be overlooked, but it is the most crucial factor for supporting citizen cyclists. If cities invest in bike lane infrastructure to develop more High-Comfort Roads, cyclists will feel safer and have a higher level of perceived comfort. This will result in more people who choose to ride their bikes. Biking is a great example of active travel modes, and more bike lane infrastructure reduces all-cause mortality rates (Schepers, 2015). If Austin and other cities want to be considered a healthy city, they must support bike lane infrastructure. Safety first.
References:
AustinTexas.Gov (2017). Transportation, Biking in Austin, Austin Bike Map. Retrieved from: http://austintexas.gov/page/austin-cycling-101.
Aziz, H. A., Nagle, N. N., Morton, A. M., Hilliard, M. R., White, D. A., & Stewart, R. N. (2017). Exploring the impact of walk–bike infrastructure, safety perception, and built-environment on active transportation mode choice: a random parameter model using New York City commuter data. Transportation, 1–23.
CodeNEXT. (2018). AustinTexas.Gov. Retrieved from: https://www.austintexas.gov/department/codenext.
McNeil, N., Monsere, C. M., & Dill, J. (2015). Influence of bike lane buffer types on perceived comfort and safety of bicyclists and potential bicyclists. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, (2520), 132–142.
Proposed Zoning Map District 9. (2017). CodeNEXT, AustinTexas.Gov. Retrieved from: http://austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/2017-09-13_Proposed_Zoning_D9-small.pdf.
Schepers, P., Fishman, E., Beelen, R., Heinen, E., Wijnen, W., & Parkin, J. (2015). The mortality impact of bicycle paths and lanes related to physical activity, air pollution exposure and road safety. Journal of Transport & Health, 2(4), 460–473.
Walk Score. (2018). Scores for Austin. Retrieved from: https://www.walkscore.com/TX/Austin.
