This post was mentioned on Twitter by bikeportland: Portland Transportation thinker Chris Smith asks whether the Bike Master Plan should go “broad or deep” http://bit.ly/4a8nx2...

As the Bicycle Plan for 2030 recognizes, we need all three types of facilities, and our plan calls for all three in a network that will be dense, low-stress and cohesive. The main issue that we have to address in the short-term is how to implement the network in a strategic manner that gets as many people bicycling as quickly and as often as possible (otherwise known as “mode split”).

Our initial emphasis on bicycle boulevards reflects several realities: limited funding in the immediate future, limited public support for increased funding and limited business support for the type of whole-scale changes required of the public right-of-way to implement cycle tracks. We emphasize bicycle boulevards because they respond to a number of requirements of a bikeway network. First, they offer comfortable riding conditions to a wide spectrum of Portland residents. Second, because their per-mile cost is approximately 1/10 or less that of cycle tracks (and perhaps 1/30 the cost of the remaining path projects in Portland) we can affordably build a cohesive network that places a high-quality boulevard within 5 blocks of 80% of Portlanders. Third, because we can build many miles of them, they also create a cohesive network.

Their downside is that they do not provide immediate access to commercial main streets.

Our strategy is based on building ridership. This is base on an analysis that what has gotten us to this point–where we have the support we currently have–is that we now have many more people riding than we had in 1996 when we adopted the first Bicycle Master Plan. To advance to the next level of required funding and support we’ll need even more people experiencing bicycle transportation first-hand.

We also know that boulevards work. In the inner east neighborhoods where we have the most boulevards and most boulevard-like conditions for riding we already have between 25-30% of people identifying the bicycle as their primary or secondary means of transportation to work. Academic research conducted by Portland State University reinforces their popularity with Portlanders.

Of course, our plan also allows for flexibility. Support for bicycle transportation has grown tremendously in the past 15 years, and especially rapidly in the past five years. Should conditions continue to evolve to the point that public support for cycle tracks is strong and funding levels increase, then we can increase and expand our current efforts on commercial main streets and trail corridors.

The policies, network, bikeway types and programs drescribed in the Bicycle Plan for 2030 will all be necessary to achieve our vision of making bicycling a pillar of Porltand’s transportation system and achieving a greater than 25% mode split. No one facility type will achieve that. This next step in that evolution–with its focus on bicycle boulevards–is intended to build ridership city wide, and in so doing, build city-wide support for bicycling.