The Charter Township of West Bloomfield adopted an updated master plan on September 28th.

Mike Reuter from American Cycle & Fitness and myself (Todd Scott) met with their planning department earlier this year. Our discussion was about making West Bloomfield bike friendly and how we might reflect that in the master plan.

We were successful in getting Complete Streets language added.

One challenge with townships is they do not own any roads. The Road Commission for Oakland County does and they are this area’s biggest impediment to safe cycling.

Despite referencing Complete Streets, the master plan still ignores national design guidelines (AASHTO) by promoting side paths (called safety paths in Oakland County) as bicycle facilities.  (Note that the latest draft of the forthcoming  AASHTO bicycle design guidelines devotes a couple pages to explaining why side paths are not safe for bicyclists.)

Given the political and operation momentum with side paths, one cannot expect West Bloomfield — or any similar Oakland County townships — to be a bicycle friendly community any time soon. Right now, with few exceptions, if you really want to live in a bicycle friendly community, you’re easiest, most reliable option is to move.

Tags: Bicycle Friendly Communities, Oakland County, safety paths, West Bloomfield

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010 at 12:33 pm and is filed under Planning, Safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.