BIKEABILITY CONDITIONS
Many of New Palestine's residential streets have low volumes of vehicles and low speeds. Therefore, there are already many on-road facilities that can be safely used for bicycling by the citizens. However, these routes are disjointed from one another and certain existing routes span the length of the community are heavily traveled or have high speeds. Contributing to this lack of connection is US 52 / Main Street, 600 W, Gem Road, and Bittner Road. US 52/Main Street separates the community almost in half where retail and dining is predominately located. Another major factor that limits bicycle travel is the CSX Railroad. There are three at-grade railroad crossings at 600 W, Gem Road, and Depot Street and one elevated crossing at Bittner Road.
The design team measured and created mid-block cross sections of the streets along identified "desired" routes as part of the inventory process, and analyzed them to visualize where opportunities were available to gain space for bicycle facilities along roadways. The team looked at the existing lane widths to understand if it narrowing the lanes would be appropriate and how much space could be gained from that treatment. Opportunities and constraints were recognized at each mid-block section based on apparent available right-of-way, existing utilities, drainage structures, curb type, distance from street to building, and utilization of on-street parking.
Measurements of the mid-block geometry of each route along with the average daily traffic, speed limit, and percent of commercial traffic, were inserted into a Bicycle Level of Service Calculator (BLOS). The BLOS is a nationally-used measure of on-road bicycle level of comfort based upon a roadway's geometry and traffic conditions. Its intent is to understand the comfort level of a beginner to intermediate rider.
The Route Location Map indicates where measurements were taken for the cross sections and the stretch of roadway that the measurements covered.
A map was created that reveals the existing BLOS conditions by color coding those routes that are more suitable for casual riders and those that are currently more appropriate for expert riders.
The following map illustrates the existing BLOS for the routes studied. A grade of "A" through "B" indicates that the route is suitable for a casual rider. A grade that equals high "C" indicates that the route is borderline suitable for casual riders. A grade of "D" through "F" means that only expert riders would feel comfortable riding the route in its present conditions and that an improvement is needed.
BLOS MAP
WALKABILITY CONDITIONS
The core of New Palestine's downtown area is comprised of consistently sized, relatively short blocks which lend themselves well to making pedestrian connections. There are good pedestrian facilities within the residential neighborhoods, but there is no connection between the different neighborhoods. Aside from Main Street's beautiful streetscape and sidewalks, connecting into downtown from the surrounding residential neighborhoods is hardly possible.
As mentioned previously in the Bikeability Conditions section, US 52 / Main Street, 600 W, Gem Road, Bittner Road, and the CSX Railroad create barriers for the community in utilizing alternative modes of transportation.
The team analyzed the same corridors for pedestrian level of service that were analyzed for bikeability conditions to see if the corridor would support both biking and walking. Corridors that currently had sidewalks on both side of the streets were deemed as highly walkable, corridors or sections of corridors with a sidewalk located only on one side were deemed borderline walkable, and sections that had sidewalks on neither side of the road were considered not walkable. Existing sidewalks were also evaluated based upon the condition of the current sidewalk.
A map was then created that summarizes the existing Pedestrian Level of Service (PLOS) conditions by color coding those sections that are more suitable for walking and those that need improvement. Based upon the PLOS map it was determined that most of the residential areas falls into the A and B level and is considered on the high side of walkability. Sections that fell into the C level are considered borderline walkable, and D-F levels are considered less walkable or not walkable. The less walkable sections appeared to mostly be located away from the core of the downtown, and along county roads.
The following map illustrates the existing PLOS for the study area.
PLOS MAP
