Cycletrack in New York City.

This week, an astute PubliCola reader pointed out that language in the city's Bicycle Master Plan seems to contradict some of the projects the Seattle Department of Transportation has proposed. The BMP states explicitly, "Bicycle lanes should not be placed between parked cars and the curb" and provides a list of reasons (focused mostly on the dangers posed by reduced sight lines and merging bicycle and car traffic) for their recommendation.

The language seems problematic in light of SDOT's proposed parking-protected bike lanes on Dexter Ave and Admiral Way. However, SDOT communications director Rick Sheridan says it's important to remember that the BMP is simply a guiding document, not a law.

According to SDOT Communications Director Rick Sheridan, "The Bicycle Master Plan is meant to serve as a guide, (but) SDOT seeks to develop the best bike facilities for a given roadway space."

The BMP language does illustrate how fast the best practices for building bike facilities have evolved and how important the BMP five-year review (scheduled to begin in 2011) will be for Seattle's bike infrastructure.

Portland and New York City are leading the way in America's experiments with separated on-road bicycle infrastructure. Portland has a parking-protected cycletrack similar to the proposed lanes on Dexter Ave. and Admiral Way in Seattle. NYC has a few cycletracks separated by raised cement islands and raised lane-divider poles (as seen in the photo above). But these separated facilities were all installed within the last year or two. When Seattle set to work on the BMP in 2006 and 2007, Portland and NYC's separated infrastructure was but a twinkle in some ambitious planner's eyes.

Bicycle infrastructure planning has come a long way in the four years since the BMP's was introduced. With goals to "increase the comfort of bicyclists on roadways" and "indicate the appropriate location to ride on the roadway with respect to moving traffic and parked cars," it's clear that the vehicular cycling school of riding had a major influence on the original draft. Though the tenets of vehicular cycling are useful for safe bicycling, the school's opposition to separated facilities are fairly outdated.  Unsurprisingly, Portland's own BMP has a thorough and detailed facilities best practice section (a valuable read for the geekiest of our transportation-loving readers).

It's worth noting that despite some of the outdated recommendations in Seattle's BMP, SDOT is experimenting with separated bike facilities similar to the progressive facilities in Portland and NYC. It's a positive sign that the city is inching in the right direction.

Appropriately, Great City is hosting a public, brown bag lunch tomorrow from 12-1:30 p.m. to discuss the cycletrack vs. bike path vs. bike lane debate.