NACTO Recommends Multiuse Paths in Limited Circumstances

The post on the multi-use path on Battle Creek Road at Mahonia Crossing has generated some pushback, and it might be useful to address some of it.

NACTO: Shared use path, low walking counts only

In the original NACTO "All Ages and Abilities" matrix, there was a very limited situation for which a multiuse or shared use path was the recommendation:

"High-speed limited access roadways, natural corridors, or geographic edge conditions with limited conflicts" and "low pedestrian volume."

Battle Creek Road is not a high-speed limited access roadway — that would be Kuebler/Cordon — and a large and important affordable housing complex is not likely to furnish "low pedestrian volume" either. The roadway context there does not call for a multiuse path.

The situation that is a better match for Battle Creek is a roadway with speed greater than 26 mph and volumes of greater than 6,000. That calls for a Protected Bicycle Lane or Bicycle Path, not a multiuse path.

Salem (including ODOT near the UGM and Police Station, not just the City of Salem) seems to be seeing multiuse paths as a "one size fits all" kind of solution. But by these NACTO standards you can see in the grid, Salem is overusing multiuse paths. To critique their overbroad use is not some argument for vehicular cycling! This blog has never advocated for vehicular cycling as a general philosophy. It sees it as part of a useful toolbox of bicycling technique, useful to have in reserve, but never primary.

As the NACTO matrix shows, just as separation from cars and people driving is valuable, so is separation from people on foot.

We shouldn't force people on foot and people on bike to battle over scarce sidewalk space. The primary battle should be about reducing car space and car speed. Another way to consider this is the "bad stuff flows downhill" trope. When drivers and cars dominate people biking on the road, people biking shouldn't turn around and dominate those walking on the sidewalks and paths.

The problem of scorching is the other part of the argument that is important. Zooming bikes degrade the walking environment. There's a reason we banned them from the sidewalk downtown! Who wants to be dodging zooming bikes? Even slow bikes can be troublesome. Though they aren't as lethal as zooming cars, bikes on the walks are highly annoying! When you walk in Minto Park, having to lookout for and dodge people biking is a pain. What is mysterious about this? Electrification only exacerbates the problem.

It really feels sometimes like some bike advocates don't spend much time walking and remembering what it feels like to be crowded by a person biking. They don't attend to the differential power in mobility.

In some ways walking and biking share common threats from driving and cars. But in other ways walking is not the same as biking, and the conflation of them in the "bike/ped" bucket sometimes penalizes walking as an inferior partner.

See also:

• A little bit on history, "Some Thoughts on Scorching" (2015)
  
• "The Prospect of more Biking on Paths in Salem" (2018)
• On a suburb structured around a path system, "Radburn as Dead-end, Pedestrian Displacement System, and Super-Sized Cottage Court" (2023)
  
• "Marine Drive and the Sidewalkification of Bicycling" (2023)
• And at NACTO, "Choosing and All Ages and Abilities Bicycle Facility"