It's a $7.1 million highway. They want somebody else to pay the other $3 million.

That's surprisingly cheap, or they are lowballing the costs. For comparison, a single track of railroad or a lane of a controlled access highway is about as wide (counting buffer zone or shoulder) and costs about ten times as much. Obviously, they don't need a yard of pavement and gravel for bikes. (Unless Swedes are as fat as Americans.) An American "rail to trail" conversion costs about twice as much.

This (new window)
Is an ongoing project to convert old Union Pacific rail infrastructure into bike paths.

My house is less than a block from one of the anticipated entrance ramps..

markie_farkie

That document does not say bike path. The intent appears to be a multi-purpose path. Up here that means old fashioned video game experience where you're on a bike trying to dodge random groups of baby strollers.

I'll be interested to see how this bike-only highway works, both how well it operates and how much use it gets. If I built it I'd put a sign at the entrance saying: "Warning: you have nobody to blame but yourselves."

markie_farkie: This (new window)
Is an ongoing project to convert old Union Pacific rail infrastructure into bike paths.

My house is less than a block from one of the anticipated entrance ramps..

In Atlanta they did that with the Silver Comet so you can bascially bike from west Atlanta all the way to Alabama and then some. From start to finish it's 66 miles and another 30 when you add in Alabama's section for a nice 100mile one-way trip. Once you pass the first 5 miles it's all bikes.

It is quite nice, lots of little towns along the way and neat things to see.

Link (new window)

Sounds good to me. The best way to deal with incompatible traffic is to segregate it. Bikes do need better infrastructure support.

Give bikes their own road.

evildwarf

I get the impression they are building this on spec and don't know if it will be effectively used.

For car traffic, 1 lane total works for under 100 vehicles per day, 1 lane in each direction works for under 10,000 vehicles per day, and 2 lanes per direction works for under 100,000 vehicles per day. In the first two cases long single lane roads need occasional turnouts, and long two lane roads without passing opportunities run about 30% slower.

FTA: In Lund, 60% of the populace bikes or takes public transport to go about their daily tasks.

A four lane bike road, costing $7.1 million (USD), and 20 miles in length seems like a great idea if that many people ride. It's far less costly to build, less work/money to maintain, has a higher capacity, requires less parking space, and takes less land than even a residential street for cars of the same length.

Meanwhile in America, bikes is teh sochulizm. The teabagger at work was pissed about wasted tax dollars when he learned the major bike paths in Madison are plowed. Why was he mad? Nobody uses them in the winter, that's why. How'd he find out the paths are plowed? He had asked one of several people that bike to work everyday how they manage to ride during the winter. They had told him the path is plowed which makes it usable all winter. Facepalm.