With nearly 1,500 supporters and followers, the Truckee Meadows Bicycle Alliance (TMBA; bikewashoe.org) seeks to represent every resident of the Reno-Sparks community who wants a choice of safe, healthy, & practical ways to get around. As such, improving the safety and connectivity for accessible and equitable mobility through downtown Reno has been a key priority for the Truckee Meadows Bicycle Alliance for many years. 

Led by TMBA’s Infrastructure and Policy committee, we have carefully reviewed the 30% design plans for the Biggest Little Bike Network (BLBN) recently made publicly available. Herein, we would like to share our impressions, raise some questions, and offer some suggestions and requests to ensure that the project is successful.

First and foremost, we are extremely pleased to be at this stage, with dedicated and highly qualified personnel, widespread support from leadership, businesses, and the community, and a shared and collaborative approach that has produced a tangible and viable plan for downtown Reno active transportation. We are excited to support the BLBN planning process!

With traffic violence at epidemic levels in our state and a community that is poised to increase its embrace of active transportation, we view the plan through a lens that prioritizes safety for our most vulnerable road users, including pedestrians and people using mobility aids, bicyclists, and scooter riders. We additionally recognize that our transportation infrastructure needs to be accessible to as many members of our community as possible: people with different forms of disability, people of all ages, the nearly 30% of our community that does not drive, and people of all bicycling skill levels, for example.

Thank you for your work on this project, for reviewing our perspective provided below, for responding to our questions, and for considering creative ways to improve the current design in a collaborative and safety- and equity-focused way.

Main points:  

• The plan provides an extremely beneficial improvement in comfort, safety, and mobility/accessibility (for bikes, pedestrians, users of mobility aids, and all road users). It can also contribute to making downtown Reno an attractive place to travel to, shop, and spend time (and not just travel through).

• The BLBN will improve connectivity. It complements existing routes through downtown (e.g. Arlington Ave., the Truckee River Path,…) and improves connections to existing, new, and planned improvements on the periphery of downtown (e.g. Valley-Wells Connector, West and East 4th Street, etc.). 

• While the roads selected for this phase of the BLBN were not our first choices in all cases, we accept that good design choices can make the chosen routes comfortable, safe, and connected.

The planned design would improve safety and comfort of all road users through a diverse slate of design features. Here are examples of specific aspects we especially like:

• Lots of true physical protection for people walking, biking, and rolling.This includes protected bike lanes and protected intersections. There’s abundant evidence that these make more people feel comfortable using the facilities and make them safer! 

• Crosswalk daylighting and calming – Many intersections and crossings will have better visibility by removing visual obstructions and preventing unsafe car parking (“daylighting”). They will also have designs that encourage slower speeds through these areas. There’s abundant evidence that these will save lives!

• The use of diverters (which allow bikes, scooters, and pedestrians to pass, but require cars to deviate) and traffic calming (e.g. speed humps) will make Vine Street a low-stress place to bike without requiring any bike lanes at all. Some of the best streets to bike don’t have bike lanes – because they don’t need them!

• Use of “bike boxes” to provide a space for bikes/scooters to come from their bike lane and position themselves for whatever direction they need to go ahead of cars.

• Bulb-outs and traffic islands. These increase visibility and shorten/break up street crossings – good for pedestrians but also safer for everyone. Plus the one on Virginia Street will be a great spot for that Reno Arch photo op!

Segment-specific questions/concerns/suggestions:

• Virginia St.

  • We recognize the importance of prioritizing RTC Virginia RAPID routes and are open to finding solutions to this end. We are concerned/confused about bike/bus interactions coming from Virginia Street. The bus will block the bike lane when stopped. What can be done?

  • Parking-protected bike lane designs are greatly improved from their current implementation by the addition of concrete-enforced space to minimize dooring hazards and better design to reduce the chances of dangerous right hook crashes. However, in some areas (especially along Virginia St), the chicanes in the bike lane are too sharp, and in other areas, intersection crossings keep dangerous slip lanes and otherwise leave bicyclists exposed to right hook hazards. This could be alleviated by altering the angles/spacing and reinforcing with signage (“right turns yield to bikes”), which has been shown to increase motorist attention. 

  • The arches of the Virginia Street Bridge make it difficult for bicyclists and motorists to see people entering the crosswalks. RTC should consider measures such as moving the crosswalk farther away from the bases of the arches, adding raised crosswalks, and warning signage.

• Lake/Evans

  • While some curb extensions are protected by concrete, other curb extensions only have flex-posts (especially along Lake St). Why is this? Along with or as an alternative to concrete, please consider combinations of planters, bollards, and bike parking. That said, even flex posts could be an improvement over no barrier-protected daylighting.

  • Some intersections appear to lack ways for bicyclists to turn left other than a two-stage turn outside of a protected intersection (e.g. Evans @ 9th St, Evans @ 6th). Perhaps this is not practically avoidable, but please look to minimize the need for bicyclists to undertake this maneuver. 

• Vine/Washington

  • While we think Vine can be made to work acceptably, we still prefer a Washington Street alternative, particularly north of 5th St, due in part to the imposing slope of the Vine St. bridge.

  • A two-way cycle track on the northern portions of Vine Street should be considered in order to consolidate protection.

  • Vine Street and Sinclair (and even portions of Virginia) could be cautiously considered for advisory bike lane design, particularly if reinforced with different pavement color.  

  • Vine at Jones: Will it be clear that bikes can proceed straight across Jones? (with double yellow lines suggesting otherwise). Perhaps the lines could be interrupted to make this more clear.

  • What is going on with that bike box on Vine at 4th?  Why is it any different than the others? Could there be a left-turn bike box at the intersection instead? 

  • Vine at University Terrace: What about folks (bikes) that want to get back to 7th?  What should they do and how can that be made clear?

• 5th Street

  • What’s happening on East-bound 5th before Washington with the 2nd lane for a bit (not parking?) and the lack of concrete but paint instead?

  • The area on West 5th near Keystone features a sidewalk-level raised bikeway. Street-level protected bike lanes bring big safety benefits; however, sidewalk-level bikeways are even better! RTC should consider expanding the use of raised bikeways in other areas of the project, particularly along Evans and Lake, where a bikeway could help reduce conflicts with buses.  

General comments applicable to the entire project:

• There is strong evidence for large safety benefits to banning right turn on red and adding leading pedestrian and bicycle intervals in areas with high bike/pedestrian users. All signalized intersections must detect bicycles and “beg buttons” should be minimized. We suspect these are in the plans already but RTC needs to hear that the public wants safety prioritized!

• Don’t overlook opportunities to beautify and cool the project with plantings and add much-needed bike/scooter parking and other amenities to curb extensions (while maintaining visibility).

• Though not indicated in project documents yet to our knowledge, RTC should seek to follow the evidence of improved safety of narrower traffic lanes and slower speed limits (and design features that reinforce this).

• Please use signs to reinforce stopping before the bike box, having to turn traffic yield to bike lane/bikeway traffic, and use reflectors/flex posts to improve the visibility of concrete barriers.

• In places where there is no concrete protection, the use of flex posts and other lighter structures to deter car invasion should be considered.

• While we hope this is being done already, it is essential that BLBN information be accessible to people with different disabilities and for representatives of these communities to provide input to ensure that design meets their needs.