Bryant Street Bicycle Boulevard

Palo Alto, California

Written by John Ciccarelli, Consultant, Transight LLC / Bicycle Solutions.
Contributions by Gayle Likens, Carl Stoffel, and Ashok Aggarwal (City of Palo Alto Transportation Division), Paul Goldstein (Bicycle Advisory Committee chairperson), and Ellen Fletcher (BAC vice-chair and former City Councilmember).

Background

A three-mile residential street was transformed into a mostly stop-free bicycle arterial that serves bicyclists of all levels. The project on Bryant Street is what the City of Palo Alto believes to be the nation's first bicycle boulevard. Bicycle boulevards are signed, shared roadways with especially low motor vehicle volume, such that motorists passing bicyclists can use the full width of the roadway. Bicycle boulevards prioritize convenient and safe bicycle travel through traffic calming strategies, wayfinding, and other measures. The Bryant Street project includes all of these elements.

Discussion of bicycle-priority streets in Palo Alto reflected the community's desire for bicycle routes with low vehicle traffic to complement busier streets with bike lanes. Safety was a secondary goal to be achieved mainly by lowering motor vehicle volume and reducing car-bike conflicts.

Countermeasures

For its first bicycle boulevard, the city evaluated three parallel streets serving the same north-south travel corridor (Bryant, Waverley, and Cowper). All are residential except for three blocks through downtown, and all have parallel parking for their entire length except for some diagonal parking downtown. All three serve the same destinations, including several schools, and each had a signal at one of the two east-west arterial streets they crossed.

Bryant was selected because it was not a bus route and because it had an existing pedestrian bridge across a creek that diverted through motor traffic, a key bike boulevard feature. It also already had a signal in place at the southern arterial street that would be crossed. The bicycle boulevard conversion was implemented in two phases each 11 years apart, in part because of the anticipated expense of placing a signal at the crossing of the northern arterial street.

The southern segment, extending 1.9 miles from East Meadow Drive to Churchill Avenue involved four major elements. The first was a bicycle- and pedestrian-only crossing of a creek that had a wooden pedestrian bridge that was scheduled for replacement. Because of the anticipated increase in bicycle travel due to the boulevard transformation, the old bridge, just one block from an elementary school, was replaced with two bridges: a bicycle-only bridge aligned with the street centerline and a pedestrian-only bridge aligned with one of the sidewalks. These were constructed after the boulevard segment opened. The other elements were two bicycle-permeable street closures, and the changing of all stop-controlled intersections to two-way stops on the cross streets except at two intersections that remained four-way stops. The latter change enables uninterrupted pedaling for a mile or more between four-way stops and signals.

The northern segment, extending 1.2 miles from Churchill Avenue to the northern city limit involved three major elements. The first, constituting most of the cost, was a new signal at Embarcadero Road, a four-lane residential arterial street carrying 25,000 vehicles daily, combined with islands that force right-turn-only movements for motor vehicles on Bryant. The cost of the proposed signal attracted a great deal of non-bicyclist opposition because of an existing signal one block away. Bicyclists responded that a two-block detour added turning movements and compromised navigability, and that interaction with buses on the parallel street was undesirable. The city added the signal and coordinated it with the adjacent signal to minimize delays on the arterial street. The second element was a bicycle-permeable street closure just south of Channing Avenue, which also attracted opposition due to resident concerns over traffic diversion and impacts on an urgent-care medical facility. After a six-month trial, the closure was replaced with a neighborhood traffic circle one block south at Addison. The third element was stop sign changes similar to those implemented on the first segment.

Evaluation and Results

First (Southern) Segment

Bryant's first bicycle boulevard segment was evaluated during a demonstration period from May through October 1982, just after its implementation. Comparative bicycle counts were taken at three locations on Bryant and at three other locations prior to and during the bike boulevard study. Counts were taken from 7:00 a.m.7:00 p.m. on mid-week days. Base counts were taken in May 1981 and April 1982; counts at these locations were taken again in October 1982. Twenty-four vehicular traffic counts were taken at eighteen locations along the bike boulevard corridor. These counts included locations along Bryant as well as parallel and cross streets where changes in traffic patterns were anticipated. Base counts were taken in May 1981 and 1982; counts were taken again in October 1982.

Results showed that bicycle traffic on Bryant increased dramatically by 85 percent and 97 percent for two key locations, and that Bryant's rate of increase in bicycle traffic exceeded that of other streets. Bryant was found to carry 475 to 725 bicycles per day depending on location. Bike traffic decreased substantially on two nearby parallel multilane streets favored by motorists (-35 percent and -54 percent at two key locations). Although data are not available, moving bike traffic to the Bryant Street bicycle boulevard likely improved safety by separating bicyclists from motor vehicles.

Motor vehicle volumes within the overall corridor, encompassing Bryant and several parallel streets, remained fairly constant. All but three of the streets in the corridor carried considerably less than 1,000 vehicles per day, quite acceptable for local residential streets. Motorized traffic on Bryant near the two street closures declined by 52 percent (from 953 to 457 vehicles) and 65 percent (from 481 to 170 vehicles), respectively. Motor traffic diverted by the closures split about evenly to the two closest parallel streets.

The Palo Alto Police Department reported that collisions remained at a low level on the southern segment. No collisions occurred near the street closures. The police and the fire department reported no serious impairment of emergency response (Palo Alto has a fully connected street grid that offers many route options).

Second (Northern) Segment

Unlike the first segment, whose full length underwent a six-month demonstration, the only trial element was the street closure four blocks north of the new signal. One reason for testing this element was its location next to an emergency medical care building, though that facility subsequently relocated out of the corridor. Traffic management researchers noted that only one parallel street block experienced noticeable traffic increases. Staff recommended that the closure be made permanent, but residents persuaded the city council to replace it with a neighborhood traffic circle at the nearest intersection to the south. That circle went through its own trial period and is now permanent.

Because of the lack of a street closure on the segment from the northern arterial to downtown, this segment still attracts considerable short-distance through motor traffic. Motor vehicle volumes there are higher and car-bike interactions more frequent than on the boulevard's purely residential southern segment.

Other Feedback

Some bicyclists on Bryant have remarked that motorists approaching on stop-controlled cross streets sometimes fail to yield to non-stop through cyclists on Bryant. When each boulevard segment was first installed, the city temporarily added yellow Cross Traffic Does Not Stop warning plates below cross-street stop signs to educate drivers about the traffic control change. In both phases these were removed after several months because they are nonstandard traffic control devices and because their size impacts sightlines.

As was the existing practice for bicycle-permeable street closures in Palo Alto, the two closures on the boulevard's southern segment were both placed just behind the corner curb returns at intersections, forming an apparent three-way junction that was actually four-way for bicycles. It was found that motorists approaching such intersections do not always scan for and yield to bicyclists traversing the street closures. Palo Alto now installs new street closures several car lengths back so intersections appear as four-way for all parties.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Since initial implementation, the city has added loop markings at signalized intersections, which may improve signal compliance for bicyclists since they can now see how to position themselves to be detected and call a green signal. Next steps for bicycle boulevards in Palo Alto include a comprehensive wayfinding system.

The Bryant Street bicycle boulevard successfully transformed a local street into a bicycle throughway while retaining motor vehicle access to all properties. Bicycle volumes increased substantially, and bicycle trip times compare favorably with parallel route options. Bryant Street has become a widely known and well-used through route on the San Francisco Peninsula, both for inter-city commutes and intra-city trips, including student commutes to elementary, middle, and high schools. In honor of her multi-decade role in the streets transformation, the city designated the street to be the Ellen Fletcher Bryant Street Bicycle Boulevard.

Costs and Funding

California's Transportation Development Act, Article 3 (TDA-3) program dedicates a small fraction of the state sales tax on gasoline for bicycle and pedestrian transportation projects throughout the state. TDA-3 is allocated by city population so it is a fairly predictable  albeit variablefunding source.

For the first (southern) segment of the Bryant bicycle boulevard, Palo Alto obtained $35,000 of FY 1983-84 TDA-3 funds for a new bicycle bridge across a creek. The remainder of the funding for this segment came from city Street Improvement funds.

The second (northern) segment cost $243,000 in 1992, including the traffic signal. The signalincluding interconnection to the citys control system and the adjacent signalwas paid for with $75,000 of FY 199293 TDA-3 funds and $99,000 of city Traffic Signal Capital Improvement Project funds. The balance of $69,000 came from the citys Street Improvement Program.

Cost estimates for bicycle boulevards in other locations will largely depend on the capital improvements needed to divert through motor traffic (such as bike and pedestrian-only waterway bridges and bicycle-permeable street closures), calm remaining motor traffic (such as traffic circles), and create bike route continuity across major streets (new signals, bridges or underpasses).

Contacts

City of Palo Alto
Transportation Division
(650) 329-2136