Jonathan over at www.bikeportland.com has a very good article about family biking on bikelanes, bike boulevards and residential streets. Heres the link: http://bikeportland.org/2010/03/04/editorial-when-it-comes-to-family-biking-size-matters/#more-30258
This gets to a point we discussed on the Platinum Bike Planning Committee but have yet to realize here in Madison (to my knowledge, please correct me if I'm mistaken), that it would be helpful to define a "design reference cyclist" for whom we design infrastructure. Currently, it would seem that most (maybe all) infrastructure we design and build in Madison is designed for a confident adult riding by themselves on a standard bike with no cargo on a clear day. As soon as two people want to ride together, it rains, you pull a trailer, ride with kidsj you add substantial cargo, the real world performance of the infrastructure quickly degrades. What would the Capitol City Trail (né Isthmus Bike Path) look like if it were designed for a 70 year old grandmother pulling a trailer with her 2 year old grandchild in it with a 7 year old riding her own bike? For starters, the path would be much wider, allowing this trio to comfortably pass a similar group coming the opposite direction. At intersections, the full length of the bike + trailer would be accommodated as it approached, stopped, got started again. Since the kid riding in the trailer with no suspension has no way to foresee bumps nor the ability to raise up on legs to deal with bumps, the curb cut transitions would be smooth and gentle, rather than the gut jarring transitions we mostly have today. When they arrived at their destination, some percentage of the bike parking would gracefully accomodate the bike+trailer. This isn't a knock on staff. It's a challenge to policy. I think we need to talk about who we are designing for, and the impact that infrastructure design has on users. Best, Jay Ferm _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
