This section is a “work in progress” and was not part of the original project proposal.

There's a bicycle level of service (as it pertains to the bikeway network). What if there was a bike parking level of service?

Traditionally, level of service (LOS) is a letter grade assigned to a road segment that describes the experience of motorists driving on that road^[i]. It is defined in the Highway Capacity Manual, published by the Transportation Research Board.

The Highway Capacity Manual and AASHTO's Geometric Design of Highways and Streets list the following levels of service:

• A - Free flow
• B - Reasonably free flow
• C - Stable flow
• D - Approaching unstable flow
• E - Unstable flow
• F - Forced or breakdown flow

The League of Illinois Bicyclists says this about Bicycle Level of Service (BLOS): ”…emerging national standards for quantifying the bike-friendliness of a roadway”^[ii]

It was developed by Bruce Landis et. al. with Sprinkle Consulting Engineers.

BLOS models need a lot of data. The following is a sample of the different qualitative and quantitative datasets, including field observations^[1]:

• Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT)
• Number of lanes of traffic
• Pavement width
• Percentage of occupied on-street parking

Similarly, the Bike Parking Demand Model has many data needs.

The formula, published in Transportation Research Record 1578 by the Transportation Research Board:

Bicycle LOS = a₁ln (Vol₁₅/L_n) + a₂SP_t(1+10.38HV)² + a₃(1/PR₅)² + a₄(W_e)² + C

What would that mean?

It would probably be calculated with something like:

• Distance to nearest obstruction
• Distance to nearest, open building entrance (consider this the final destination)
• Sidewalk width
• Type of bike rack - i.e. does the bike rack allow locking at two points and allows locking of a wheel and the frame? does the bike rack have moving parts (this usually means it takes longer to lock a bike, and increases maintenance needs)?

• A - Quality^[iii] bike parking available, without obstruction^[iv], within 50 feet
• B - Quality bike parking available, with some obstruction, within 100 feet
• C - Bike parking available, with or without obstruction, within 50 feet
• D - Bike parking available, with or without obstruction, within 100 feet
• F - Substandard bike rack^[v], with or without obstruction, within any distance

As you can see, my proposed bike parking LOS grading scheme is not a scale of a single factor (traffic flow), but includes many factors. Distance to final destination qualifier is based on a survey from the United Kingdom's Department for Transport “Traffic advisory leaflet” 7-97, ”Supply and demand for cycle parking” as well as anecdotal evidence from Chicago bicycle riders^[vi].

Similarly, the Bike Parking Demand Model has many data needs.

• Landis, Bruce, “Real-Time Human Perceptions: Toward a Bicycle Level of Service,” Transportation Research Record 1578 (Washington DC, Transportation Research Board, 1997).
• “Development of the Bicycle Compatibility Index: A Level of Service Concept, Final Report,” FHWA-RD-98-072 (1998).
• The Road Network is the Bicycle Network: Bicycle Suitability Measures for Roadways and Sidepaths - Paper comparing the Bicycle Compatibility Index, Bicycle Level of Service, the Illinois Department of Transportation's automatic bike map algorithm, and the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation's map development criteria.
• http://www.enhancements.org/download/trb/1538-001.PDF
• http://www.rockvillemd.gov/masterplan/bikeway/AppendixA.pdf
• http://www.dot.state.fl.us/planning/systems/sm/los/pdfs/bikelosmod.pdf
• Online Bicycle Level of Service and Bicycle Compatibility Index calculator - Hosted by the League of Illinois Bicyclists.