Urban Bikeway Design Guide

The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), a coalition of 15 major US cities, has released the Urban Bikeway Design Guide, with the aim of providing state-of-the-practice solutions that cities can use to create “complete streets” that are safe and enjoyable for cyclists.

The Guide, as described in The Urban Transportation Monitor, offers three levels of guidance — “required,” “recommended,” and “optional” — for treatments for bike lanes, cycle tracks, intersections, signals, and signs and markings. The Guide’s website says most of the treatments are not directly referred to in the current versions of the AASHTO Guide to Bikeway Facilities or the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). However, the Federal Highway Administration recently posted information about the approval status of various bike-related treatments not included in the MUTCD.

The member cities of NACTO are Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC.

Please also see our related cycle tracks article here.