Options for Adding Cycling Infrastructure to Barton Village BIA

Special Report: Cycling

Options for Adding Cycling Infrastructure to Barton Village BIA

The bit of low-hanging fruit that really jumps out is a fully protected bicycle route using the existing park/alley between Wentworth and Lottridge Streets.

By Kevin Love
Published September 02, 2015

This article has been updated.

This article is based on an analysis of Barton Street done for the Barton Village Business Improvement Area. This Area extends along Barton Street from Ferguson Avenue to Sherman Avenue.

Barton Street near Sherman Avenue

This is a preliminary report based upon my own estimations of street width and geometry. The BIA is in the process of obtaining surveyed dimensions of the road allowance. This analysis may change upon receipt of this survey data.

Based on these estimates of street width and geometry, there appear to be four basic options for Barton Street. In order of increasing levels of intervention, these are:

Do nothing. Status quo.
Upgrade the parallel alley immediately north of Barton between Wentworth Street and Lottridge Street for the purpose of being a protected bicycle route.
Install New York-style car parking protected bicycle lanes on Barton Street.
Install conventional protected bicycle lanes on Barton Street.

Detailed descriptions of these four options

1. Do nothing.

No further description, since we can go and see the status quo right now.

2. Upgrade the parallel alley to be a protected bicycle route

Right now there exists an alley immediately north of Barton between Wentworth Street and Lottridge Street. This includes the bicycle path through Woodlands Park for a total distance of 1.3 km. Although currently neglected, this has the potential to be a high-quality protected cycle route.

Alleyway north of Barton Street (Image Credit: Ryan McGreal)

The following upgrades are recommended:

Awareness

Very few potential users of this cycle route are even aware that it exists. Recommendation: Street signs and inclusion of the route on the Hamilton Bike Map.

Social safety

There are three types of safety that are required to achieve a high cycle transportation mode share. These are actual safety, subjective safety and social safety.

As a fully protected, almost car-free cycle route, this alley can have a high degree of actual and subjective safety.

For social safety, I recommend cleaning up the alley. Remove graffiti, garbage and vegetation. Repair or replace defective or non-existent paving. Install street lighting for illumination at night. Here is a photograph of an example of an alley that has been cleaned up and has acceptable social safety.

Alleyway cleaned up for cycling (Image Credit: Ranty Highwayman)

Note the position of the street light. This places light right where it is needed.

Protected Intersections

63.5 percent of injury causing crashes in Ontario take place at intersections. So intersection safety is important. Where the alley crosses local residential streets, bicycle traffic should be given priority.

Street crossing on alleyway north of Barton Street (Image Credit: Ryan McGreal)

This should be done at Myler Street, Westinghouse Avenue, Milton Avenue, Fullerton Avenue, Earl Street, Ruth Street, and Barnesdale Avenue. The correct method of doing this is in accordance with the CROW Bicycle Traffic Design Engineering standard, which is described in my article on the Pipeline Trail in the section entitled "Safe Intersection Design for Children and Everyone Else."

Here is a video with three "real life" examples of this intersection design:

Using the ally has the following advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages

It is cheap. The most expensive part of creating protected cycle routes is usually acquiring the land for them. In this case, that already exists.
Intersecting alleys create a network. There are five north-south alleys that connect in mid-block to the east-west alley we are considering between Wentworth Street and Lottridge Street. This creates an extensive protected network to take local customers directly to businesses on Barton Street.
It is safe. The high degree of safety on this protected route makes it very attractive to use.
No impact on other Barton road users. Since this route is not on Barton itself, there is no requirement to change the existing layout of Barton Street and zero impact on other users of Barton.
Reduces congestion on Barton. By taking traffic off Barton, this reduces congestion on Barton Street.
Avoids traffic lights. This route bypasses the traffic lights at Birch and Sherman, making for a faster travel time.

Disadvantages

Does not extend full length of Barton. This provides a great benefit to 1.3 km of Barton Street from Wentworth to Lottridge. The rest of Barton Street will need additional improvements
Slight detour at 601 Barton Street. This is the former school being converted to a condominium. It will be necessary to upgrade the sidewalk in front to a Multi-Use Path. An example of this in Hamilton may be found on Burlington Street, between Gage Avenue and Ottawa Street.

Multi-use path on Burlington Street between Gage and Ottawa (Image Credit: Google Streetview)

Conclusion

This is low-hanging fruit that is a cheap and easy way of benefiting this part of Barton Street. However, it only benefits this one specific part of Barton, so other cycling infrastructure upgrades on the entire length of Barton itself need to be considered.

3. New York Style Car Parking Protected Bicycle Lanes (CPPBL)

The City of Hamilton is about to install Hamilton's first CPPBL on Herkimer and Charlton streets in the Durand neighbourhood. This infrastructure has been successfully used in New York City for many years. Here is a two-minute video explaining how this works:

"Floating Parking" & Bike Buffer Zone in Separated Bike Lanes from STREETFILMS on Vimeo.

York City compiled an official report that analyzed the safety benefits of car parking protected cycle lanes. Based upon before-and-after comparisons with at least three years of data after the lanes were installed:

Crashes with injuries have been reduced by 17 percent
Pedestrian injuries are down by 22 percent
Cyclist injuries show a minor decrease even as bicycle volumes have dramatically increased
Total injuries have dropped by 20 percent
75 percent decrease in average risk of a serious injury to cyclists

Here is another video, about one particular example of a CPPBL. See:

The Taming and Reclaiming of Prospect Park West from STREETFILMS on Vimeo.

For this one particular CPPBL, the City of New York conducted a before-and-after safety study that concluded:

Crashes are down 16 percent
Crashes that cause injuries are down 63 percent
Before the project, a crash was twice as likely to include an injury (18 percent vs. 8 percent)
People riding on the sidewalk went from 46 percent to 3 percent on weekdays
Number of cyclists almost tripled within two months of implementation
Percentage of car drivers violating the speed limit went from 74 percent to 20 percent
Total number of people using the street went up 13 percent during AM peak hours and 9 percent during PM peak hours.

This alternative has the following advantages and disadvantages: