Bicycle tourism route mapping advice and examples?

[LoganSmith]

Hello all!

My name is Logan Smith and I'm a volunteer with a new nonprofit bicycle tourism organization in Siskiyou County California called "The Economic Growth Group". We are currently busy building a website (Cycle Siskiyou), educating local businesses about the ACA Sierra-Cascade route through our area, and creating a comprehensive road map foundation to build cycling routes. We are building cycling routes that will be similar to the idea behind the Oregon scenic bikeway list (http://rideoregonride.com/inspiration/scenic-bikeways/). We are fortunate to have the services of some mapping professionals and we are currently stitching together road information from cities, the county, and even the US Forest Service using an ArcGIS data format. One challenge we are facing is that these road maps have no bicycle accessibility information and we are trying to find a way to code this into the ArcGIS database. Some standards are clear in all cycling maps such as designations for bike paths, lanes, sharrows/preferred routes, and danger zones but others standards are unclear. For example, we are having difficultly finding a standard designating "travel width" to give riders an idea of how much "road shoulder" to expect and to address concerns regarding potential liability in this designation. Here are the questions we need help with (all ideas welcome!):

• Do you know of any standard travel width designations for cycling routes or examples we could refer to?
• Does anyone know of liability hazards and solutions regarding the safety of designating cycling routes?
• The map we are building combines road information of disparate government entities and is the first of its kind in this area, does anyone have ideas regarding how we could get value from this map beyond creating road and mountain cycling routes for tourists?

Thank you for your help with ideas! This is an exciting but overwhelming project and I'm glad we have this community forum! :^)

Cheers!
Logan Smith
loganenator@gmail.com
Montague, CA

[JHamelman]

Hi Logan,

This sounds like a great new project! Please keep us apprised of how it's going. I'm sure you're already aware of the Great Shasta Rail Trail project but if not, you can get a taste at a blog post I wrote about it: http://blog.adventurecycling.org/2012/09/new-development-on-sierra-cascades-route.html

I have forwarded your question to our staff who are most knowledgeable about GIS. Hopefully they will have some ideas for you.

Let me know if there is anything else we can do to be of help to your project.

Good luck and have fun!

.Jennifer.

[LoganSmith]

Looks like AASHTO just published their new (4th ed.) Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities today! Yay! We'll have to scour this guide for info on the questions above! 

https://bookstore.transportation.org/item_details.aspx?id=1943

[canalligators]

I have seen shoulder widths broken down into less than or more than four feet.  You also have to consider rumble strips in some areas.  Consult the Montana bike map http://www.mdt.mt.gov/travinfo/docs/bike_map.pdf for an example of roadway ratings.

Common sense tells me that four feet is really a minimum as a useable shoulder width.  Perhaps a foot of rumble strip and three feet of unencumbered shoulder might be a practical minimum.  Five feet useable is much better.  But you really have to consider shoulder width AND traffic volume levels to rate a road.

[JHamelman]

Hi Logan,

Another source for information is the US Bicycle Route System page on our site. There are pdfs and links to a lot of different articles that could be helpful to you.

http://www.adventurecycling.org/routes/nbrn/usbikewaysystem.cfm

Best,
.Jennifer.

[LoganSmith]

Thanks Jennifer and canalligators for the helpful links and info. I'll check them out.

[jfitch]

NO! No rumble strips!

[JHamelman]

Logan,

A colleague in the department suggested the following:

As for an example of bike maps using some of this other attribution, he could check out MaineDOT's "Bike Book" that includes data for shoulder widths, daily traffic flows and multi-use trail designations on their maps (and presumably in their GIS database).

http://www.exploremaine.org/bike/

Be sure to check out the various documents under the Resources label on that USBRS page I mentioned before. There is an area that addresses your questions about liability.

I hope all this helps,
.Jennifer.

[driftlessregion]

Talk to the League of American Bicyclists http://www.bikeleague.org/.

[RangerTom]

Logan, 

I had recently seen a State of Maryland highway map  in which a mapping tool apparently was used to measure a "BLOC" (Bicycling Level of Comfort) score for various sections of roadways. The BLOC score considered parameters such as traffic volumes and speed, roadway width, etc.  It looks like they used the formula applied by this application to set standards to various roadways as to suitability for cycling.

 The way I see it, the formula provides a blend of some objective information to give some clue as to what a cyclist might expect on various roads; I did not have an opportunity to ride any of the designated roadways when back there, so I don't know how the mapped rankings relate to actual "on the road" experience.

 Here's the link to a related  web page:

http://www.sha.maryland.gov/OPPEN/BLOC_Washington.pdf

Their staff may have some insights to share on what they had considered for the development of this information, standards, etc. I noticed two phone numbers on their websites  -  410-545-5674 and 410-545-5656. Maryland's approach to the roadway designations may or may not be similar to what you are looking for, but perhaps this will help.

Good luck with the project (I've been "eyeballing" your area recently as an area for a possible multi-day bike tour!).

Tom

[paddleboy17]

Maybe you should try contacting Google Maps.  I do not know how they implemented their bicycle option, but it come up with some amazingly good routes. 

Maybe Google will be helpful, they don't seem to be anywhere near as evil as Facebook...