As with all “best practice”, the information in this guide has to be carefully applied in the city of Chicago. The Chicago bike lane design guide shows what works in the City of Chicago and is an excellent example of how facilities for bicyclists can be integrated into the layout of busy urban streets. The guide essentially shows how bicycles can be retrofitted into an existing street system. If a city or community is building streets from scratch, you may not have to deal with the constraints of a 44 foot cross section. Local conditions, engineering standards, and manuals may differ from those in Chicago, and some of the more significant likely differences have been identified and discussed in this guide. You should not treat the drawings in the guide as a template that will work in every situation, for even in the City of Chicago bike lane designers have to use their best engineering judgment in solving situations that may arise on any given street. If your community is just embarking on a program of marking bike lanes for the first time you should take the time to educate drivers, local politicians and even the cycling community as to how the lanes will operate, where they will be installed, and how they should behave when encountering them. (Author/publisher)
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