Buffalo is becoming very bike friendly! Ever since 2016, the city and local companies like GoBike Buffalo have been investing in bike infrastructure and making getting around the city more accessible and affordable. This is an amazing effort that requires lots of people to come together to plan, implement, and maintain these bike paths across the region.
The city came out with the Buffalo Bicycle Master Plan and it laid out the framework for investment in how to convert Buffalo into a bike city. Considerations from safety, sustainability, public health, quality of life, tourism, and more impacted what made it into the plan.
Adding bike paths to city infrastructure is no small feat. Look outside to a street without a bike path. Is there room for a path? When can construction happen to impact the least amount of people in traffic? How do we make sure cyclists aren’t in danger from moving traffic? With so many considerations, engineering principles are involved.
In the picture above, you can see all the considerations made in turning a 42 feet wide road into a usable road for bikes. Just worrying about sidewalk space, parking lanes, trees, roads, safety dividers is a headache. Then you need to worry about signage and the direction of traffic. You get the point.
With so many decisions to be made, thinking about the engineering process is important.
All of the talented people working on Buffalo’s bike paths may not be called engineers, but they are all using the same principles when making decisions.
Thankfully, lots of progress has been made on the bike paths in our city and they are still improving! The network of paths grows every year making the city a much better place to live.
Tresca Can Help
Here at Tresca, we haven’t made bike paths before, but we’re ready to help you with your next invention & engineering project. If you want to learn more about how our team can help you during the engineering process, please contact us today to discuss how we can work together.