Problem
Bikes are cheap, healthy, and good for the environment; but the environment is not designed for them. Bikes on roads are threatened by cars; bikes on paths threaten pedestrians.
Solution
Build a system of paths designated as bike paths, with the following special properties: the bike paths are marked clearly with a special, easily recognizable surface (for example, a red asphalt surface). As far as possible they run along local roads, or major pedestrian paths. Where a bike path runs along a local road, its surface may be level with the road—if possible, on the sunny side; where a bike path runs along a pedestrian path, keep it separate from that path and a few inches below it. Bring the system of bike paths to within 100 feet of every building, and give every building a bike rack near its main entrance.
Related Patterns
… within a Local Transport Areas (11) there is a heavy concentration of small vehicles like bikes, electric carts, perhaps even horses, which need a system of bike paths. The bike paths will play a very large role in helping to create the local transport areas, and may also help to modify Looped Local Roads (49) and Network of Paths and Cars (52).
Build the racks for bikes to one side of the main entrance, so that the bikes don’t interfere with people’s natural movement in and out — Main Entrance (110), and give it some shelter, with the path from the racks to the entrance also under shelter — Arcades (119); keep the bikes out of quiet walks and quiet gardens — Quiet Backs (59), Garden Wall (173) …
Alexander, Christopher. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. Oxford University Press, 1977, p. 289.