Atlantic Cities: How to Build a Better Bike Lane (and Get More People Out on Bikes)

"We’re getting away from the assumption, ‘That’s car space and can’t be used for anything else," Martha Roskowski of Bikes Belong says. "It’s space for people – in cars, on bikes, on transit, and on foot. It’s public space."

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I just finished reading Sarah Goodyear's latest piece over on Atlantic Cities: How to Build a Better Bike Lane (and Get More People Out on Bikes). Goodyear digs into Bikes Belong's Green Lane Project that is working with cities that "already get it to build more protected bike lanes, learn best practices from around the world, and quantify their progress."

The cities? Austin, San Francisco, Portland, Oregon, Chicago, Memphis, and Washington, D.C. And New York in some capacity. Nope, not Seattle. (But you can read more about how we think Seattle stacks up in our Seattle Report Card.)

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Even though Seattle isn't a part of The Green Lane Project, we can still be watching and learning from the cities that are. After all, as Roskowski states, "We’re getting away from the assumption, ‘That’s car space and can’t be used for anything else," she says. "It’s space for people – in cars, on bikes, on transit, and on foot. It’s public space." If those other cities are racing to the top, and we're on the sidelines, we're going to lose more than just the competition for best bike lanes. We're going to lose business, happiness, people and jobs.

Many of us already feel this way and are hungering for a public space that reflects this sentiment. Do you?