Designing durable bikeways.
Read Material Success (pdf)
Over the past decade, North American cities have built hundreds of miles of protected bike lanes between the curbs of existing streets, driving a massive increase in cycling. Now, after years of using flexible materials that can be easily installed, removed, and replaced, many cities are changing their approach—switching to more durable solutions to reduce the increasing maintenance costs caused by widespread use of temporary, flexible materials.
Material Success offers tactics to expand the palette of materials cities can use to build street-level protected bikeways while also accelerating project delivery. The paper highlights the ways in which cities are switching from typical flexible delineators to new tools like doweled-in medians or modular concrete barriers. These more durable materials entail more complex installations, but require less frequent maintenance, allowing cities to reconfigure more streets as safe places to bike for everyone.
Material Success is the seventh in a series of working papers developed by NACTO with our member cities to address the most critical gaps in bikeway design guidance, as part of a long-awaited update to the Urban Bikeway Design Guide. Lessons learned since the Guide was first published a decade ago are being shared through these working papers. Later this year, NACTO will codify the papers into a new, third edition of the Urban Bikeway Design Guide.
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