Debate intensifies over bike-ped issues

Disagreement over how to make communities more bike-friendly — without detracting from pedestrian life — cropped up in June when more than 1,100 people gathered for CNU’s 19th annual congress.

“CNU is 10 years behind on bikeway planning and design,” Mike Lydon, principal in the Street Plans Collaborative, declared during the June 1-4 gathering in Madison, Wisconsin. “Bikeway design is a rapidly advancing field,” Lydon emphasized, and he urged new urbanists to become much better versed in it.

DeWayne Carver, a planner with Hall Planning & Engineering in Tallahassee, Florida, responded with skepticism to some methods proposed by bike advocates. In particular, the idea of laying out new communities with roads that are wider — to accommodate bike lanes — may make those corridors less comfortable for pedestrians, Carver warned.

Biking was the focus of five separate sessions in the congress, reflecting the rapid growth of bike initiatives around the country. Cities from New York to Portland, Oregon, are installing “cycle tracks,” “bike boulevards,” and other facilities aimed at increasing the number of people traveling on two (non-motorized) wheels. Yet Lydon, in his CNU presentation and in later elaboration for New Urban News, said many

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