Center lines, turn lanes and bicycle infrastructure : bikeways in the United States and Salt Lake City's 1700 South corridor

Continuous and well-designed bicycle infrastructure plays an essential role in encouraging people to see and use the bicycle as a legitimate form of transportation and not only for recreation. In Salt Lake City, a common roadway striping design end bicycle lanes prematurely, requiring bicyclists to merge with motorists and share the same lane at intersections. This type of merge at intersections, where many decisions must be made already, creates a greater potential for unsafe interactions between roadway users. By analyzing Salt Lake City's 1700 South corridor and comparing improved designs in other U.S. cities with comparable bicycle infrastructure and popularity, I seek to offer Salt Lake City Corporation and its Transportation Division preferred infrastructure designs tailored to Salt Lake City that will increase continuity and perceived safety at intersections and decrease conflicts between motorists and bicyclists. In doing so, I discuss, analyze and apply nationally accepted transportation engineering standards and design guides and the benefits of following such standards. The goal is to provide Salt Lake City with a tangible, usable, and implementable design guide that will assist bicycle transportation planners in creating safer intersections and promoting safer and more predictable interactions between motorists and bicyclists.