One Step Closer to a National Network of Bike Routes

Last month the Board of Directors of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) voted to approve and endorse a plan to that provides a framework to develop a national system of bike routes.

What's important about this is that the AASHTO, in its role of recommending policy and technical approaches to transportation issues, is very much the defining agency in the U.S. for creating and applying standards for road design. Its membership is the departments of transportation of each state in the U.S., and that's why stop lights and "no U-turn" signs look the same in Vermont as they do in California and everywhere else. Basically, when it comes to road and traffic design, the AASHTO decides how something should look and everyone falls in step behind it.

So to have this agency endorse a plan for the creation of a national network of bike routes is terrific. It not only throws a significant amount of bureaucratic horsepower behind the idea, but it now allows for a consistency and interconnectedness between states in developing bike routes, a la the interstate highway system, and provides a ready-to-use framework that transportation departments can use in the development of bicycle routes.

Here's a link to a news release from the Adventure Cycling Association, one of the major partners in this venture. The release contains some eye-popping statistics about how a well-designed network reduces motor vehicle travel and increases bike riding. For instance, between 2000 and 2006, the development of a national network in the United Kingdom triggered growth in these trips from 85.5 million in 2000 to 338 million in 2006.

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