As Fort Worth South, Inc. considers re-striping Magnolia Avenue to reduce traffic lanes and add bike-only lanes, a study has come out of Portland State University that shows that bike lanes really do encourage more bike riding, as reported in the Portland Tribune:
Despite the harrumphing of talk-radio hosts and the carping of car chauvinists, bike lanes do, in fact, work — and Portland State University researcher Jennifer Dill thinks she can prove it.
A year after strapping Global Positioning System recorders on hundreds of local bicyclists, Dill thinks she has enough data to demonstrate that “bike infrastructure” such as bike lanes, bike routes, and so on really do encourage people to get out of their cars and steer bikes away from busy thoroughfares that aren’t designed to accommodate them.
City investment in cycling infrastructure can also spur a great deal of economic growth (considering the initial investment) - principally through retail and services offered to cyclists, but also through promotions/events/activities that are cycling-related:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/05/us/05bike.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1197133962-zvo4xIHCRJZ65btDb+bsoQ&oref=slogin
The study recruited people who ride their bicycles and discovered that they are more likely to ride on designated bike routes. It basically moves bicycle traffic to bike routes. Doesn’t say anything about encouraging bike ridership except through hypothesis and survey response. Bear in mind the survey was of 164 bicycle riders.
I’d be more impressed if they surveyed a representative population of all residents rather than just cyclists.
Anti-cyling-infrastructure people often claim that “nobody uses bike lanes,” and the study shows that to not be the case.
Another point that seems to have been missed: bike lanes do entice more bike riders, particularly women - as the linked study shows (broken out into this post I saw on Streetsblog), dangers of traffic are a much larger impediment to using a bike to women compared to men. Bike lanes reduce this perception.
http://www.streetsblog.org/2008/10/20/study-confirms-safer-bike-routes-get-more-people-riding/
Infrastructure - hooey on the bike segregation paint. Before you know it, cyclists will be getting hurt by diversion falls with the streetcar tracks like they do in Seattle.
Give me good quality and secure bicycle parking and THAT’S where I’ll tend to go! Those cute Fort Worth bike parking thingies ought to have the circle/star lower so we don’t need quite such a long chain/cable. Some bike lockers at the ITC, library, courthouse, and other destinations would be an economical and useful touch.