Paint and Paths

There are only a few bicycle lanes in Atlanta, and I occasionally get to use them. Recently I enjoyed lanes on 5th Street and the Emory campus.

 

Still, the experience here is nothing like "The Country's Best Urban Bike Commute" which is almost entirely on bicycle lanes, tracks, or paths. Designated space for bicycling seems like a luxury, and I do just fine on our underutilized streets.

There are some pressing bicycle infrastructure needs here though. Cycle paths that parallel our expressways, for one. Since they only evaluated motor vehicle travel, transportation planners from the past did not realize that replacing or converting existing streets to build a limited-access highway would create a problem for bicycle travel. Since these highways have replaced some surface streets and influenced development patterns for many years, there is now a need for an adjacent bicycle superhighway along many highway corridors.

Route 16 Motorway, Denmark. Credit: Jens Dresling/Politiken via Copenhagenize.com