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The City of Atlanta held meetings about it's proposed "Complete Street" on Boulevard Avenue SE between Woodward and McDonough.
First things first. Boulevard like many other city controlled streets has had heaps of studies and rounds of engagement over the years. This recent effort at fixing Boulevard can be traced back to August 2016 when RENEW/TSPLOST held it's first meeting.
That process was for a much larger portion of road but included McDonough-Woodward. Heaps of studies have been conducted, and many plans made. Not all these plans include S Blvd, but you get the idea. We have plenty of data. We know Boulevard is a dangerous road, and we know why.
It's 4 lanes wide, and people speed down the road. Crossing Boulevard is dangerous. Cycling down it is...courageous.
The problem is, S. Boulevard has all sorts of places that people want to cycle and walk to: the BeltLine, Grant Park, the Atlanta Zoo, restaurants.
And people have let the city know time and time again that they want Boulevard fixed. @PEDSgeorgia and @atlantabike have advocated for Boulevard. There's even a community group dedicated to getting a Complete Street built (A Safer Boulevard 
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With all this energy, I was excited when I heard that a meeting was called to talked about building a safer S. Boulevard.
I set low expectations. I figured we'd get a two-way cycle track with a two-way-left turn lane in the middle. This design, frankly, is a means of prioritizing throughput over safety.
A 4-3 conversion doesn't affect traffic flow. It moves turning vehicles out of the stream of traffic while allowing through traffic to proceed. You'll hear engineers pitch it as a win-win. It's not.
Atlanta DOT and DPW before it are building projects with similar configurations that prioritize vehiclist convenience and throughput at the expense of the safety, and they're doing it over (Dekalb Ave), and over (Cherokee). They call these "complete streets." They're not.
So, I had low expectations. I honestly thought the cycletrack would extend along Grant Park and that would be it. Bad...but fairly status quo for Atlanta (e.g. 10th, Cherokee). Plus, I figured we'd get some HAWKs and maybe a bulb out or two. Not great, but better.
Instead, we got this. A lackluster effort that *continues* to prioritize vehicle throughput and storage over safety.
https://renewatlanta.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/ATLDOT-Public-Meeting-1.21.21.pdf
https://renewatlanta.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/ATLDOT-Public-Meeting-1.21.21.pdf
So, what's in the plan? It's a 4-3 conversion south of Sydney…with a 2-way cycletrack that goes for 5 blocks…ends, and then picks up 3 blocks later. The cycletrack continues for the rest of project, and notably on a 3.5% grade.
Two way cycle tracks are useful in very specific situations. Unfortunately, Atlanta hasn't been at all discerning with them. The main reason the city seems to use them is because they take as little space as possible away from cars.
On-street 2 way cycle tracks create extra conflicts. For example, turning away from the curb on a cycle track always results in multiple conflicts with vehicles. You can see this demonstrated in the concept proposed at Boulevard and Sydney, Killian, and Berne.
"Conflicts" are what engineers try to avoid. We do lots of work to make sure people can't collide in time and space. That's why we have traffic signals, lane markings, and stop signs. It's all about designing to avoid or mitigate the risk of a conflict.
Conflicts are a big problem at intersections. By definition, conflicts are most likely to occur...where things intersect.
If you're familiar with Atlanta, you'll notice that wherever there is a two way cycletrack at an intersection, extra effort is needed. On 10th Street, we had to add a special traffic light for people to cross. https://fb.watch/3eXR8ggIps/
In other places we have to use pedestrian scrambles like on Memorial Drive. All of these efforts are things we have to do because of a flaw in the design. At Memorial, it's a good compromise. We're connecting some very high quality infrastructure between there and Glenwood.
Research shows that crashes increase by a factor of 2 with 2-way cycletracks. Similarly, people cycling find them very uncomfortable. This is because they make intersections, which are already complicated, even more complicated.
There is some very good research on this: https://tram.mcgill.ca/Teaching/srp/documents/Michael_W.pdf
This one is more editorial-like but makes the same points succinctly: http://www.copenhagenize.com/2014/06/explaining-bi-directional-cycle-track.html
This one is more editorial-like but makes the same points succinctly: http://www.copenhagenize.com/2014/06/explaining-bi-directional-cycle-track.html
You'll hear people say that the issue is driveways. We can't have a one-way cycle path because of driveways. That's just not true. Engineers need to be more creative, like they were out in Cupertino. https://twitter.com/chrisgaarder/status/1344314143529082880?s=20
And the Netherlands.
I understand the pragmatism needed to get stuff done here. But this cycle track is literally the bare minimum recommended width and isn't even continuous *along a park*.
Why is that a problem? Cycling should be designed for all ages and abilities. This isn't.
Why is that a problem? Cycling should be designed for all ages and abilities. This isn't.
Back to Boulevard. If you *must* build an on-street cycletrack, it should be continuous and wide. Instead, Atlanta is proposing 4-4.5 foot wide lanes, and wants to route people through a park up and down hills, without a clear plan of how that might work.
8 feet is the width on sections where the most traffic is located. That's the bare minimum. https://nacto.org/publication/urban-bikeway-design-guide/cycle-tracks/two-way-cycle-tracks/
We already know that people like convenience and not riding up long hills. Make it wide. Make it direct. Instead, we're prioritizing turning movements that we don't even know will exist. Small residential side streets don't all need their own turn lane.
Further, most visitors to Zoo Atlanta are probably coming from points north via I-20. In other words, mostly southbound rights, not northbound lefts. There's space for about 25 queued vehicles in 500 feet.
A little foresight would've be helpful. What if the city had worked to include a proper cyclepath along portions of Boulevard when building the new parking garage? Would've save vehicle ROW, and could've done this properly.
