New York City Transportation Commissioner and current NACTO president Janette Sadik-Khan, along with U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, today announced the print release of the Urban Bikeway Design Guide, the preeminent resource for designing and engineering bikeways in cities. The guide was previously released as an interactive document and can be found here.

The mission of the guide is to provide cities with state-of-the-practice solutions that can help create complete streets that are safe and enjoyable for bicyclists. The examples in the guide are based on the experiences of the best cycling cities in the world. In order to create the guide, the authors conducted an extensive literature search from both design guidelines and real-life experiences, and assembled a comprehensive list of bike lanes, cycle tracks, intersections, signals and markings as they are used around the world.

The guide is tailored to U.S. cities and will function as a set of standards to bring innovative design concepts in bicycle infrastructure, Sadik-Khan explained. Since establishing bicycle infrastructure, cities have seen traffic fatalities at their very lowest rates, she added, explaining that the guide is not merely a how-to on bicycle infrastructure implementation but also a way to establish safer streets.

LaHood echoed Sadik-Khan’s sentiments and explained that the guide will provide communities with design principles for safe and available bicycle infrastructure.

Congressman Earl Blumenauer drew the press conference to a close by praising NACTO’s efforts in assembling the innovative principles in the Urban Bikeway Design Guide and added that such a guide would have been tremendously helpful while bringing bicycle infrastructure to Portland, Ore. The congressman added that much of the city’s knowledge on good bicycle infrastructure design came from trial and error. Blumenauer also added that these design principles will provide an economic boost to communities, in addition to creating safer roads for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians.

The guide was developed under the guidance of traffic engineers and planners, as well as academics with deep experience and knowledge in urban bikeway applications. Click here for a list of all participating professionals.

To read the online version of the guide, click here.