Active transportation infrastructure projects are physical improvements to roadways and neighborhoods that support walking, bicycling, and rolling.
Active transportation infrastructure includes bike lanes, multi-use paths, sidewalks, crosswalks, signage, signals, traffic calming and other features that provide places for people to safely walk, bicycle, skate, scoot, and roll for transportation or recreation. Infrastructure also includes the elements make the trip comfortable and feasible, like secure bicycle parking, human-scale lighting, and shade.
Quick-Build projects are interim capital infrastructure projects. More information and resources for Quick-Build projects can be found here.
Walk and bike audits are great tools to gather information about street conditions, engage community members, and inform planning and traffic safety projects. More information and resources for walk and bike audits can be found here.
Resources
General
A ‘living document’ that will be continually updated to reflect adopted Caltrans’ guidance and new elements appropriate for use of the State Highway system.
DIB-94 represents the latest significant step in the implementation of that policy and meets a critical need by providing new flexibility in the design of context-sensitive facilities that serve travelers of all ages and abilities. DIB-94 is to be used in conjunction with the Complete Streets Decision Document (CSDD) when making decisions to maximize the use of the public
right of way to achieve sustainable and equitable mobility.
The Design Resource Index identifies the specific location of information in key national design manuals for various pedestrian and bicycle design treatments. The Design Resource Index will help practitioners quickly access the right resources and should reduce the amount of time it takes to search through multiple design guides to find the information they need.
The Guide for Maintaining Active Transportation Infrastructure for Enhanced Safety addresses maintenance of active transportation facilities for achieving mobility, accessibility, safety, and equity goals. The Guide presents a case for maintaining active transportation facilities as an integral component of a Complete Streets approach and discusses common maintenance issues impacting pedestrians, bicyclists, and micromobility users; temporary, short-term, and long-term maintenance measures and construction techniques to lessen maintenance. The Guide also discusses maintenance planning, prioritization, inspection, compliance, and funding.
This document talks about the special importance of State Highways that are functioning as community main streets. “People-centered” main streets are those that are sustained in ways that elevate the needs of people who use main street. They are fostered with an understanding that supporting travel of all modes is essential, and that main streets are also community places that people value. The intent of “Main Street” is to inspire discussions that lead to collaboration, creative problem-solving, and a shared vision.
FHWA’s Proven Safety Countermeasures initiative (PSCi) is a collection of 28 countermeasures and strategies effective in reducing roadway fatalities and serious injuries on our Nation’s highways. Transportation agencies are strongly encouraged to consider widespread implementation of PSCs to accelerate the achievement of local, State, and National safety goals. These strategies are designed for all road users and all kinds of roads—from rural to urban, from high-volume freeways to less traveled two-lane State and county roads, from signalized crossings to horizontal curves, and everything in between. Each countermeasure addresses at least one safety focus area – speed management, intersections, roadway departures, or pedestrians/bicyclists – while others are crosscutting strategies that address multiple safety focus areas.
This FHWA guide highlights a subset of the Proven Safety Countermeasures, with direct application in rural areas, including considerations, crash reduction effectiveness, case studies, and other resources. The guide also features a Desktop Reference table of PSCs that may be considered in rural communities and compares Safe System Roadway design hierarchy alignment, relative cost, unpaved road applicability, relative crash reduction, and typical service life.
The Safe System Roadway Design Hierarchy characterizes engineering and infrastructure-based countermeasures and strategies relative to their alignment with the Safe System Approach.
A guide prepared for Caltrans for use on the California State highway system. The traffic calming measures discussed in this guide can be implemented separately or be used in conjunction with other calming measures.
Bicycle
Bicycle parking is a critical strategy for promoting bicycling for transportation and recreation. Convenient, easily used, and secure bicycle parking encourages people to replace some of their car trips with bicycle trips and helps legitimize cycling as a transportation mode by providing parking opportunities equal to motorized modes. APBP encourages communities and professionals to use this document to make informed decisions about planning excellent spaces and facilities for people to park bicycles.
The NACTO Bike Share Station Siting Guide provides high-level guidance on physical bike share station siting types and principles. It highlights best practices in station siting from around the United States and provides guidance on bike share station typologies and principles, providing examples of a variety of siting types and photos and technical drawings to show how bike share stations can be situated in the streetscape.
This document is a resource to help transportation practitioners consider and make informed decisions about tradeoffs relating to the selection of bikeway types. This report highlights linkages between the bikeway selection process and the transportation planning process. This guide presents these factors and considerations in a practical process-oriented way. It draws on research where available and emphasizes engineering judgment, design flexibility, documentation, and experimentation.
A memorandum providing supplemental guidance on the evaluation and selection of bikeway facility types using the FHWA Bikeway Selection Guide published in February 2019.
The objective of this research, NCHRP 15-73 Design Options to Reduce Turning Motor Vehicle-Bicycle Conflicts, was to develop guidelines and tools for transportation practitioners to reduce the severity of conflicts between bicyclists and turning motorists at controlled intersections and improve the safety and comfort of intersections for bicyclists.
This guidance—developed by practitioners from cities across North America—builds on NACTO’s Urban Bikeway Design Guide and sets an All Ages & Abilities criteria for selecting and implementing bike facilities. Building bicycle infrastructure that meets this criteria is an essential strategy for cities seeking to improve traffic safety, reduce congestion, improve air quality and public health, provide better and more equitable access to jobs and opportunities, and bolster local economies.
Updated guide provides information on the planning, design, and operation of bikeways along streets, roads, and highways, as well as on off-street paths in urban, suburban, and rural settings.
Presents a state-of-the-art, data-driven guide for selecting context-appropriate design features for safety improvements of separated and non-separated on-street bicycle lanes. In addition to NCHRP Research Report 1136, there is an associated publication, NCHRP Web-Only Document 414: Safety Evaluation of On-Street Bicycle Facility Design Features, which documents the conduct of research.
This toolkit includes information references, agency policies, processes, and other resources and procedures that can help agencies overcome the obstacles limiting them from implementing separated bicycle lanes where users most require separation from motor vehicles.
Pedestrian
This guide assists State or local transportation or traffic safety departments that are considering developing a policy or guide to support the installation of countermeasures at uncontrolled pedestrian crossing locations. This document provides guidance to agencies, including best practices for each step involved in selecting countermeasures. By focusing on uncontrolled crossing locations, agencies can address a significant national safety problem and improve quality of life for pedestrians of all ages and abilities. Agencies may use this guide to develop a customized policy or to supplement existing local decision-making guidelines.
This document provides a set of tools for improving pedestrian safety on the State Highway System.
This resource STEP Studio from the FHWA is a comprehensive compilation of resources, design guidance, research, and best practices for practitioners to identify appropriate countermeasures for improved pedestrian safety.
