Montgomery County, Md., revisits how it plans bike lanes
Creating safe biking connections between low-stress streets can pay off in improved access to a broad network of bike lanes.
Montgomery County, Md., is seeking to do just that in its forthcoming Bicycle Master Plan. It includes about 1,000 miles of separated bike lanes in the next 20 years and examines specific neighborhoods block by block. The plan will apply “a level of analytical rigor that has previously been reserved for large transportation infrastructure projects like highways and transit systems,” says Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson.
The program was conceived in 2010, when Anderson approached the Montgomery County Planning Board (he was not then a member) with sophisticated heat maps from the Capital Bikeshare program, then just launching. He suggested applying the same technology to county planning. A bicycle heat map – which represents data as colors – shows projected demand for bicycling. The idea inspired a new ambition in Montgomery County, a plan that would begin with heat maps that define where bicycling is most needed, where residences might be hooked up to jobs, transit hubs, schools, or other activity centers.
From heat maps to stress maps
The next step was devising bicycle stress maps – which won a national planning award – to define where bicycle riding is already comfortable for the majority of potential riders. These employ a four-level scale (previously discussed on Mobility Lab), with levels 1 and 2 acceptable for the majority of adult cyclists. The idea was to find ways to create routes that the 51 percent of “interested but concerned” potential bicycle riders would feel comfortable taking.
The 2011 heat map projected demand for bicycling, especially along the Rockville Pike and Georgia Avenue corridors. Source: Montgomery County.
Although some 78 percent of roads and trails in the county are already low-stress, biking is still difficult because of blockages along many potential routes. People “might want to ride a bicycle from White Flint to downtown Bethesda,” says Anderson, but cannot “if the Beltway is cutting off access.”
Metrorail right-of-way and high-stress roads are among a series of obstacles. For streets that may seem insurmountable, with multiple lanes of high-speed traffic and few crossings, the Bicycle Master Plan Framework, approved in October 2016, recommends separated bikeways on both sides of the street (or on nearby parallel routes). These types of streets, narrow unusable sidewalks, and other obstacles discourage what should be easy rides.
The problem is often on small stretches “that might not seem meaningful until you realize it makes a difference for local bikers,” says Hans Riemer, a county councilmember and bicycle advocate [Editor: And past Mobility Lab contributor]. The framework shows that low-stress streets “are often surrounded by high-speed and high-volume roads” that discourage biking. The plan will connect these islands into a cohesive, bikeable network, often by using separated bike lanes on otherwise high-stress roads.”
“Wherever you are, you should be able to get to your destination on a low-stress bike route,” Riemer says.
The stress maps formally displays conditions that the majority of bicyclists (or would-be bicyclists) actually experience daily. The idea, says Anderson, is to “understand where there are obstacles, find where there is likely latent demand,” and efficiently build the routes that will serve the most people. The framework employs a “weakest-link” logic in which any one stressful feature, like a frequently blocked bike lane, means the whole street is categorized as stressful.
Putting it together
An overlay of the heat maps and the stress maps leads to the most useful, cost-effective solutions and is the basis of the preliminary recommendations currently being discussed in community meetings across Montgomery County, informing an update of its 2005 plan.
The current bicycling plan also moves beyond the traditional planning split between recreational and commuter bicyclists, explained David Anspacher, project manager for the Bicycle Master Plan, at a Bethesda community meeting. Forthcoming plans will assume that bicycling is for innumerable daily tasks, errands, school trips, recreation, and other utilitarian trips.
Though the process may seem abstract so far, the Bikeway ReactMap graphically shows the planned network and allows users to make specific comments about individual roads and intersections, a process that is ongoing through July 15.
Feedback by locals who actually know neighborhoods is crucial. Anderson explains that “everybody who regularly bicycles in an area finds informal connections that aren’t officially part of public right of way.” Comments already on the ReactMap, for instance, warn of particularly dangerous stretches of road or intersections, point out existing alternative routes, and suggest priorities.
Bicyclists have plenty of comments – denoted as text bubbles – on the ReactMap’s proposed bike lanes (dotted lines) in Bethesda. Source: Montgomery County.
The forthcoming plan is also meant to facilitate public transit, to solve not just the first-mile, last-mile problem of getting to transit, but the first three-mile, last three-mile problem. Networks of low-stress streets mean a bigger bike-shed. To further encourage bicycle-transit connections, the framework includes major bicycle stations that shelter and secure bikes at transit hubs, such as the Silver Spring Metro Station. To increase neighborhood connections, the framework recommends bike racks at local bus stops that might currently appear unfriendly to bicyclists. Advocates also hope to convince local businesses to provide bike racks, showing that bicycle facilities are not just an obstacle to parking but actually bring in customers.
Finally, countering stereotypes of white, middle-class bicyclists in spandex, the framework calls for an emphasis on providing low-income communities with low-stress routes that are at least equal to the rest of the county. These neighborhoods, after all, can benefit the most from bicycle accessibility, facilitating a low-cost form of transportation.
New thinking and faster progress
Biking cities such as Amsterdam may be far advanced in terms of sheer number of separated lanes and scope of infrastructure, but Anderson believes Montgomery County’s process will lead to the greatest bang for the buck, the “most meaningful and useful per dollar expended.”
Much previous bike infrastructure planning has been haphazard. It “would throw in a bunch of bike routes, where people might want to go – low hanging fruit, what’s cheap to build,” says Anderson. Often, these routes would be sparsely used when completed. Politics and the wish to appear proactive often led to fragmentary, underutilized bike infrastructure.
The stress maps “try to stand in the shoes of someone not comfortable biking in heavy traffic, taking the lane, not in great physical condition,” says Anderson.
Given widespread support for improved bicycling infrastructure, the county has been able to allow communities to begin building separated bike lanes well before the master plan has been approved. “Three years ago, we created a funding category at the county council in order to enable us to move projects more quickly,” explains Riemer, referring to the a new Bicycle and Pedestrian Priority Areas budget category.
This mechanism has already borne fruit. In 2016, the county’s first separated bike lanes opened on Woodglen Drive and Nebel Lane in North Bethesda, with a similar lane planned for Silver Spring this year. “A lot of protected bike lanes and infrastructure are coming in over the next few years, rather than a 20-year horizon,” says Riemer. That’s good news for those of us used to thinking of Montgomery as the “paralysis by analysis” county.
Still, prioritizing which routes to build first in a complex, countywide plan is a difficult task. As the plans are approved, deciding those first lanes is the next step. The same analysis that has gone into planning will make it easy to build first based on greatest need. Widespread use of new bicycle infrastructure is thus likely early in the process, ultimately building greater support among the public.
Photo, top: A man waits to cross the street in Bethesda, Md. (Eddie Welker, Flickr, Creative Commons).