Tag: bike path

The best bicycle infrastructure in the country…is in Florida?

When it comes to transportation, most agree that things work best when every mode gets their own exclusive right of way. Mixing cars, buses, bikes, pedestrians, and trains results in poor or dangerous experiences for all. The speeds of the various modes aren’t the same, which generate conflict, and the patterns of travel are different as well.

As such, many bicycle advocates look with envy at cities or countries that have invested great deals of money in keeping the transportation modes apart. Being able to bicycle to work, or the store, or to dinner, completely separate from cars, on a direct trail? Yes please. It’s safer. It’s more pleasant. It’s FUN. Even substandard improvements, like 8-foot trails that spill out onto sharrows are major victories in places like New York. A protected intersection? Groundbreaking. Click to read more!

Fresno might get its first protected cycle track!

I’ve been angrily hammering away on an article about the proposed Smart and Final project, but fortunately I found something in this weeks City Council Agenda that has temporarily soothed my nerves:

=&0=& and the preparation of a feasibility study for a Class I bicycle trail along the Herndon Canal and Mill Ditch canal banks and to authorize the Public Works Director or designee to sign and execute the standardized agreement on behalf of the City (Council District 1, 3 ,4 and 7)=&1=& which promote active transportation and provide a right-of-way designated exclusively for bicycle travel adjacent to a roadway and which are protected from vehicular traffic. Types of separation include, but are not limited to, grade separation, flexible posts, inflexible physical barriers, or on-street parking. Legislature

A cycle track, in Fresno!?

Sure, San Francisco has them….

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Streetsblog

 and Los Angeles has them (as of last week)…

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 Streetsblog

and cities like Chicago, Washington, New York and Boston have had them for years, but it looks like modern engineering has finally arrived in Fresno!

So where might they be built?

…an evaluation of Class IV bicycle facilities along Van Ness Avenue and Fulton Street between Divisadero Street and McKinley Avenue.

Van Ness Avenue and Fulton Street are the preferred connection between Downtown and the Tower for both motorists and people on bicycles. They each are one way, and were some of the first Fresno streets to get bicycle lanes added after construction (most new streets are designed with bicycle lanes in mind, but only within the last 5 years did Fresno start adding bicycle lanes to existing streets). Click to read more!

Small Gap in Herndon Bike Path to be Filled

There’s a small improvement coming to the Fresno bike network.

As everyone from Fresno is well aware, if you’re in the north part of town, Herndon is the only way to go east or west…if you have a car. 6 lanes of 50mph traffic might get you across quickly in a motor vehicle, but it’s an obstacle by bike. Sure, it’s legal to bike on Herndon, but no one would ever actually do it.

The streets to the north of Herndon are calm and quiet…but they don’t really connect. You can always go south, but that’s a .5 mile detour just to get to the next road.

The city is attempting to solve this issue by creating a multi-use path on the north side of the avenue. Why wasn’t it built when the six lanes of asphalt were? I don’t know. But for now, every year some money trickles in which is used to fill in gaps. Click to read more!