As we design bicycle and pedestrian facilities, we want to create an experience that’s safe and comfortable for a wide spectrum of people, including children and seniors. This involves thinking about the number of vehicles, travel speeds, and number of vehicular lanes and what the experience of someone walking and biking might be on that roadway.  The design process weighs these factors and attempts to mitigate safety issues and enhance user comfort through shared-use paths, protected bike lanes, and other intentional features. The goal is to reduce the “stress” that a person walking and biking feels as much as possible, and by doing so, we can encourage more people to walk and bike.

Incorporating bicycle separation techniques is a cornerstone of the All Ages and Abilities concept described previously and helps to create space and separation between people driving and those walking and biking. Separation can be included in several different ways, including buffers between drivers and cyclists, vertical separation using concrete curbs and other vertical elements, or by fully moving a cyclist to an adjacent shared-use path on the busiest and highest speed roadways. Bicycle separation and creating All Ages and Abilities connections between neighborhoods and the Rio Corridor should be prioritized on Priority Bicycle Corridors described in this plan

In some cases, bicycle travel on roadways with high volumes and speeds of vehicular traffic should be avoided, especially when nearby roadways can provide the same connection through a lower stress experience for the person biking.  These alternative routes, called parallel routes, typically leverage collector roadways and neighborhood streets with far fewer vehicles and slower speeds to make important connections, still following All Ages and Abilities principles. Priority Bicycle Corridors described in this plan are focused on arterial roadways, but lower stress, parallel routes should be considered and preferred when they are able to offer the same connectivity benefits of linking neighborhood areas to Rio Corridor trails and amenities.

Heat exposure is becoming an increasingly critical component of bicycle and pedestrian facility design.  In addition to making walking and biking safer by increasing separation between people driving and biking, shade and amenities also play a critical role in encouraging walking and biking.  Shade can be provided through native trees and vegetation that can mitigate heat exposure, especially during warmer months.  Shade sails and similar elements are also increasingly included in areas with higher volumes of pedestrians and cyclists.