Foreword

Since the publication of the first edition of the NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide in 2011, the progress made for bicycle safety in US cities had been nothing short of astonishing. The number of miles of protected bike lanes across the country has grown exponentially. Cities from Houston to Lincoln, Nebraska to San Diego are now proactively redesigning their streets for bicyclists, using the NACTO Guide as their go-to source for world-class design. At the same time, support has steadily grown among some of NACTO’s key partners, culminating in an August 2013 FHWA Memorandum that expresses full support and endorsement for the Bike Guide itself. Two states, Massachusetts DOT and Georgia DOT, officially adopted the Bike Guide in 2013.

As the landscape changes for bicycling on US streets, so too has NACTO witnessed a year of transitions. Longtime NACTO President and former NYC DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan has passed the baton to me, as she moves into a new position with NACTO as the chair of the organization's new strategic advisory board. Under her leadership, NACTO has grown from a shoestring operation into a leader in transportation policymaking and a barometer for innovation at the local level. In fall 2013, under NACTO’s Designing Cities initiative, NACTO released its first companion volume to the Bike Guide, the Urban Street Design Guide. That document is the first of its kind to comprehensively integrate the most up-to-date bicycling infrastructure guidance into a document that addresses pedestrian, bicycle, transit, and motorist design issues.

The product of an unprecedented coalition of local actors and designers, the NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide is actively transforming how our cities think about streets—whom they are for, and how they might be best used. In our member cities, this design guidance is being translated into a series of game-changing street projects—bikeways that funnel people through the heart of the city into our cherished neighborhoods, from greenways to waterfronts, and from homes to businesses. While our efforts in this arena are just getting started, NACTO is fully committed to accelerating innovation and world-class design in this exciting field. In 2014, NACTO will focus on encouraging federal, state, and local adoption of this Guide, as well as the Urban Street Design Guide. We will also continue our work to support cities in their implementation of projects, providing tools and sharing best practices to get these projects built. We welcome your participation in helping us to make the public realms of our cities safer and more enjoyable.

Edward Reiskin

NACTO President

Director, SFMTA