That thing looks pretty bad ass
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Shoutout for being RAD 6 yearsâŚtheyâre good purposeful fun!
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Anyone have experience with MURF? We saw some in San Diego last week and they look pretty nice.
I think this is the jumping off point for expanding outside of the urban core/grid. Start installing stations at key greenway entrances, like Crabtree Mall or Lassiter Mill. Maybe youâll get some suburbanites who might park at the greenway entrance and then ride to downtown on a nice day (that already happens at lot at NCMA). Once youâve expanded your ridership into the suburbs a bit, you can start adding stations in developments like Wade Park or Glenwood Place.
I saw somewhere once that urban biking is one of the quickest ways to destroy what we call âcarbrain.â Once you realize that most roads are only safe for one type of user (drivers), you start wondering if that absolutely has to be the case.
In other words, more bikeshare riders could, in theory, lead to more advocates.
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I like your thinking overall on this. However, currently there is no greenway that goes dowtown from Crabtree. I know there is a plan for the greenway along capitol. But that is a ways off.
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You can take House Creek to Meredith, then use the new Gorman lanes to connect to Rocky Branch. Itâs not 100% greenway, but itâs pretty darn close.
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I do House Creek to Meredith > Gorman > Sullivan Dr which has a greenway trail > Rocky Branch through NC State > Cabarrus St.
Only section I donât care for is the section of Rocky Branch between Pullen Rd > Ashe Ave. Itâs basically a sidewalk in that section. Cabarrus of course gets you to the convention center. No bike lanes but the traffic there is pretty low and slow.
Going through NC State isnât too bad either. Iâve used Stinson Dr to bypass Hillsborough St. and use the sidepath that runs along Pullen Rd (north of Stinson Dr.). You can then take Hillsborough St down.
A different section I like taking (but isnât greenway) is Crabtree Creek > Alleghany Dr > Transylvania Ave > Beaufort St. > Scotland/White Oak > Sunset Dr > Duncan St > Fairview Rd > Under Wade Ave bridge > N. West St.
Main point is there is a way to get downtown from Crabtree although there is that one bad section. Not so much from North Hills or Wegmans via the greenway or even separated bike lanes. Would have to use neighborhood streets. Atlantic also needs to have bike lanes extended to the greenway. I tried heading North on the greenway after stopping at Hummingbird (which I came in from East Whitaker Mill). I had to pull over and stop on Atlantic so I could pull my bike on the curb to the greenway trail.
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The Pullen â Ashe Ave section is horrific. Probably the most obvious Greenway section in need of improvement. I have a feeling itâll only be fixed when the Western BRT is built, though. But itâll be worth it.
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Well⌠walked to a bike station and my fob kept getting an error code .
Operating company filed for bankruptcy and city bikes will be offline until mid-May.
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I was just about to call them up today because my tag stopped working. Welp.
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We desperately need more protected bike lanes, we canât add bikeshare stations if hypothetically 10 per 100 people feel safe biking.
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In many ways itâs easier to add a bike share station than to add protected lanes. The cost, space, and public sentiment hurdles for adding a bike share station are far lower than for protected lanes.
Not to be rude, that is exactly why it is no longer in operation.
But they are not getting rid of the bikeshare-- the technology company that operates the app filed for bankruptcy. The money has already been spent on the infrastructure and the city is still interested in keeping it as a viable mode of transportation. Itâs still possible to go through neighborhoods and side streets until main thoroughfares become safer to bike on.
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Bike share locations should be more about where they are actually a viable transportation solution. Are there enough people there? Is the station location at a high demand destination? Can I get from âhere to thereâ safely?
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Yes, I completely agree, and from what Iâve seen thatâs generally the approach taken with Raleighâs system. My comment above in response to @trueurbanist was more about my frustration with how difficult it is to add protected lanes. If we really want to induce more biking I think it needs to start with an intentional, networked-approach to infrastructure. But we canât/wonât do that. Instead we do piecemeal things like add a bikeshare station because a developer will pay for the install, or add a bike lane as part of road resurfacing project that doesnât necessarily connect to other bike lanes. Should we not do those things? I donât know, thatâs a matter for debate.
Anyway, the bikeshare system should be back up in mid May and users will get 60 days of free rides to help compensate for the inconvenience of the system going down with no advance warning. The new vendor is the same company who originally worked with Raleigh to launch the system. The City also maintains all data from prior operations.
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The point I was trying to get at is that there should be adequate bike infrastructure before bike-share stations are introduced. As I said above, itâs hard to encourage people to use said bikes if itâs not safe. Itâs pointless to get rid of the bike-share stations now but I feel like this approach was backwards from the beginning.
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Iâm not sure why, but whenever local governments respond to people asking for bike lanes, they respond to it like this video:
Rather than getting into the weeds on what makes a good bike lane, a single question needs to be answered: âWould an 8-year-old feel safe, comfortable, and happy biking here?â Possibly asking them if theyâd be comfortable biking with their own kids in these lanes.
Most bike lanes in Raleigh are only a single bike width wide. And it completely screws up the entire thing if there are trash bins in them, cars parked on them (itâs legal on Sundays to park in bike lanes for Church), and buses idling in them (the buses parked in front of the Moore Square bus station do this almost every day).
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when i was a third grader in raleigh we just rode on what ever kept us out of impact issueâŚsidewalks that people rarely walked on, paths through wooded areas and parking lots. if you are going to have lanes now as things have changed the bike lances need to be kept clear. but, even now as an adult, creative unoffical bike routes can be achieved if necessary for safety.