ITE Journal January 2018 - 40

Photos courtesy of Martin Pion

Example 2. Metro St. Louis's First Parking-Separated Bikeway

Figure 1. Inset is an artist's rendering of a proposed adjoining mixed-use
path for pedestrians and cyclists. The main image shows bicyclist lane
control on existing West Florissant Avenue (4-lanes plus center-turn-only
lane) at approximately 3:30 pm on Wednesday, October 8, 2014.
The existing situation is shown in the Figure 1 main image,
which is a screen capture from a helmet-mounted video shot by
the author while bicycling a short distance ahead of cyclist Nick
Kasoff as a motorist merges into the inside lane to pass.10 The
video demonstrated cooperative behavior between motorists and
vehicular cyclists on this 35 mph speed limited road. Adding the
signage and road markings in Figure 2 would help to formalize such
bicyclist behavior.

The first Parking-Separated Bikeway (PSB) in the St. Louis metro
area was a collaborative effort between Great Rivers Greenway
and the City of St. Louis.14 It runs for about one mile on one-way
Chestnut Street east-west towards the towering Gateway Arch
overlooking the Mississippi River. Starting off at about 3:30 pm on
Thursday, September 17th, 2015, CyclingSavvy instructor Karen
Karabell and the author bicycled along this new facility while
the author videotaped forward and backward with two helmetmounted digital cameras in video mode.15 This duplicated the
technique used on the West Florissant Avenue example. Recording
continued during the return trip along parallel Market Street, a
major multi-lane thoroughfare with no bicycle facilities.
The bikeway striping varies along its length, as illustrated in the
accompanying screen capture examples taken from video. Starting
at 20th Street, the one-way bike lane adjoins a curbed sidewalk and
is separated from a single same direction travel lane by a buffer lane
marked by diagonal white stripes and posts at regular intervals
alongside a parallel parking lane. In addition, there is a curbside
parallel parking lane on the far side of the road. This Parking-Separated Bikeway layout (Figure 3a) is repeated at different locations
along the length of this facility.

Figure 2. MUTCD R4-11 sign (left) and "Sharrow" (right).
The R4-11 "BICYCLES MAY USE FULL LANE" sign with
an additional optional signboard underneath is illustrated,
together with a Shared Lane Marking, commonly referred to as a
"sharrow."11, 12 In the above proposed application, sharrows would
be placed in the center of the "effective lane" which accounts for
potential adjoining obstructions. Thus, when on-street parking
exists alongside the curb lane, the "effective lane" would be offset
away from the door zone appropriately, as shown in a 2012 online
video posted on Vimeo in Long Beach, CA. 13
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Figure 3a. Karen Karabell braking for a stop sign at one-way 15th St. on
this Parking-Separated Bikeway.
A later section (Figure 3b) is more conventional, the bike lane
having buffer lanes on either side adjoining one or two same-direction travel lanes on its left side. The buffer lanes are intended to
improve cyclist safety when motor vehicles are present. Note the
reverse angle-in parking, which improves the motorist's view when
exiting across the bike lane. While waiting at a red light at Tucker
Boulevard, a major intersection (at 3:16 min. in the video), Karabell

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of ITE Journal January 2018