2008 Tour de Houston [City of Houston]
What if HOV Lanes were Bike Paths?
What if we re-imagined that public infrastructure was for people instead of automobiles and re-prioritized our spending in favor of alternative transportation? What if we re-purposed the networked infrastructure of the HOV lane into a bike-way — with non-stop, easy access service to points throughout the city?
Appended to the freeway system are 100 miles of high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes. Every day the lanes carry more than 200,000 drivers and passengers (43,225 by bus, 2,500 by vanpool, 74,687 by carpool, and 407 by motorcycle).
While the HOV lanes provide a viable alternative to the single occupancy vehicle, the billions of dollars invested in the network do not challenge sprawl, a sedentary society, or the challenges facing our environment.
In fact, the State of Texas’ recent submittal for “shovel-ready” projects was weighted 80 to 1 in favor of freeways over public transit systems, a number that is comparable to the 72 to 1 ratio of freeways miles to light rail line miles in Houston.
The creation of additional bikeways does not suggest that HOV lanes would be eliminated. Instead, bike lanes would be created in the existing HOVs and new diamond lanes would be added to the left lane of the freeways; ultimately generating greater flexibility for drivers and cyclists.
The proposed bike lanes would make it possible in most cases to travel from the fringe to downtown in about an hour. In addition the new infrastructure could be connected to existing trails and bayou trails to create a networked system linked to major destinations.
A closer look at the Gulf Freeway corridor underscores the potential of the idea. More than 150,000 people live within a mile of this corridor, one of the densest in the city.
For two hours each day it would be faster to bike than to drive, and if just 10 percent of residents could be convinced to bike, more than 15,000 cars could be taken off the road.
And if we look at the 8-mile corridor between Monroe and downtown we can begin to see how the proposed system could connect to points throughout the city, including: the Gulfgate Mall, the 30-mile trail system along Brays Bayou connecting to the Medical Center, the Eastwood Transit Center and University of Houston, and the Columbia Tap Trail in the Third Ward where 1 out of 3 residents depend on alternative transportation modes.
Clearly additional programs and spaces would have to be introduced in conjunction with the greater number of bikeways. There would be a need for rest areas and solar lighting, sound and pollution filter walls to neutralize pollutants, protect riders and buffer noise, new park-and-cycle lots with bike racks, lockers, restrooms, water fountains, and strategically located showers.
The alternative — our present embrace of the automobile — is daunting. Houston is home to a steadily increasing population of 2.2 million consumers who regularly navigate more than 575 miles of freeways. The freeways travel outward in 14 different directions and are connected with 3 rings with a fourth forthcoming.
Houstonians spend an average of nearly 5 hours commuting between their home and work every week—over 250 hours per year. Double that number for two working adults and a family can generate roughly 20,000 pounds of carbon dioxide every year. It’s clear why the United State makes up only 5 percent of the world’s population but generates 45 percent of CO2 emissions.
What if we could inspire Houstonians to modify their behavior and convince them to change their mode of transportation from automobiles to bikes? And what if we combined investment in public works with investment in civic infrastructure that connected users to programs to networks? What if….
Design Team: Susan Rogers, Kiza Forgie, Larry Hill, Alex Lahti and Huong Nguyen
Susan Rogers is the director of the Community Design Resource Center at the University of Houston’s Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture
Email
lehill writes:
09.16.09
1:41 pm
This concept truly challenges and re-purposes our infrastructure. It strikes at the core of our behavior and consumption patterns. Would communities reengage, health improve, pollution decrease…..?
As a community organizer, I am reminded of Dr. King’s comment during his famous “I Have a Dream.” He called for change: “This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism!” I think he would appreciate this radical concept as one solution to environmental change and community development.
Bob writes:
09.17.09
2:33 pm
Just think of all the pollution bikers could
be inhaling. Looks good on paper, but riding the HOV might not be a healthy choice.
Peter Wang writes:
09.18.09
9:27 am
Susan, the scale of the HOV lanes and their exit / entrance configurations is all wrong for bikes by about a factor of five. Speaking as someone who rides 3000-4000 miles a year all around the region to work and many other places, I have zero desire to use the HOV lanes. There is no intimacy and connectivity with the communities that these lanes plow through, and that’s what cyclists want and need. How come no one is asking cyclists about infrastructure needs?
The 2008 Tour de Houston, or any fixed-route recreational ride, is a bad starting model for how to plan a realistic cycling transportation network. “pay rides ain’t real life”
Only the young and strong will bike 2 hours a day, 5 days a week to work. That’s 5000+ miles a year or so. The sweet spot for bike transport is >0.5 miles, but <5 miles. Stop thinking about bikes as if they were just slower, greener cars. Ditch your unquestioned car-centric thinking and assumptions. The scale is totally different, because YOU are the motor.
Raj Mankad writes:
09.18.09
2:07 pm
Peter, thanks for the comments. I think your points about the exits and entrances would have to be considered.
It is hard to visualize HOV lane use by bicycles, but the post does state: “[A]dditional programs and spaces would have to be introduced in conjunction with the greater number of bikeways. There would be a need for rest areas and solar lighting, sound and pollution filter walls to neutralize pollutants, protect riders and buffer noise, new park-and-cycle lots with bike racks, lockers, restrooms, water fountains, and strategically located showers.”
The renderings, which are hard to appreciate in this blog format, also make note of interconnections with street level routes like Columbia Tap.
But the way I think about this post is that its value is in challenging us to think differently about infrastructure, priorities, and scale of investment. Converting HOV’s for bikes isn’t likely to happen soon and maybe it’s not practical, but in the process of imagining it we think about how much money has gone into subsidizing cars and how marginal the bicycle is in our planning. This post is a provocation to ditch unquestioned car-centric thinking.
That said, another approach that I’d love to read more about is to use the vast right-of-ways for power lines and pipelines for bike paths. I was told that a bill that would legalize that use of right-of-ways was introduced but did not make it through the Texas legislature.
Peter Wang writes:
09.25.09
9:59 am
I understand that the blog post was an exercise in thinking out of the box. However, the Tour de Houston generated some measure of naive enthusiasm for HOV bikeways, and it’s just such a bad idea on many levels for cyclists.
The authors tried to jump out of the box, but only made it halfway out. I applaud their effort, though.
Jenny writes:
10.06.09
10:59 am
Can’t the HOV lanes be rail lines or something?
Bill writes:
03.13.12
6:41 pm
What’s stopping Metro from allowing bikes on the HOV lanes on the weekend? I’m not talking about the managed lanes like the I-10 Katy lanes, but the separated ones. Some of these sit idle over the weekend and seem like an ideal bike path (with elevation changes too!)