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From my principles of transit usability
I choose this one to test against the bicycle route network in St. Paul.
-The people should be able to find routes to destinations.
Let's say I want to get from St Thomas University at Summit Avenue in St Paul to the Saint Paul Campus of the University of Minnesota by bicycle route. The distance is about 3 miles as the crow flies. "You can't get there from here." Well, that is what it seems when trying to use any maps, signs, trails or routes for bicycling in Minneapolis - St. Paul. Bicycle routes and paths typically start from nowhere and end suddenly. There are no routes, navigation guides, signs or maps to get from one place to another. Maps that exist are mainly useful for "gap analysis", they mostly show where routes aren't, since routes are mostly unimplemented.
Routes are divided by authority: County, City, State, Metro Council, Metro Transit, Parks, etc., all have separate routes, maps, trails, signage, whatever. The public works under whatever authority seems to wait for striped or separate paths before marking most bicycle routes. Routes that do exist are generally interrupted with construction projects without warning or detours. Each entity has separate signage styles and information, at least that is true as far as signage exists, mostly there are no signs. Signs that do exist are usually say "bike route", nothing else, no destination or information or guide, no route maps at hubs or markings at intersection of routes. Maybe that is because discrete disconnected paths and so called routes rarely intersect. In fact the intersection of one marked route with another is such a rare occurrence that a navigation sign is probably just not thought of at all, the fact that a connection happened at all has stunned public works and odd things happen when public works is disoriented. At Summit Avenue going west and 50 feet from River Road there is a sign that says "Bicycle Lane Ends" with a black diamond. No mention that River Road in plain view is the main North-South bike route or any directional signs, just a Freudian slip. The public works has nothing but a short 3 foot sign post without any sign where River Road intersects the Highway 5 Bridge pedestrian bicycle trail to Fort Snelling and the trail is invisible in the undergrowth as are most trail connections. The system is not a network of routes, it is basically non-existent and therefore unusable to get from here to there.
Yet, even with barriers some people still use bicycles to get from here to there. "You can't get there from here," is not really true. Striped roads and separate paths are nice but that is not needed or even possible in Minneapolis - St. Paul to get a network of bicycle commuting routes going. Signs designating the bike route on a street would be as effective as striping for many bikers on many low auto traffic routes, simple maps on signs at route crossing and connecting points are also cheap and needed, but somehow bicycle network creation by posting some signs is technically beyond most public works or metro transit organizations. And somehow vast dense road networks have many connections, detours around construction, informational signs, navigation signs and accurate maps widely available, but these networks are aimed at automobiles.
One example is the Pelham Boulevard bicycle route in St. Paul. It is a wide, low traffic street and is the main north-south bicycle route on the west edge of the city that has been planned about 10 years to be a bicycle route and it connects to the highly used River Road route, but it will only be designated a bicycle route when the street is rebuilt and striped. NOTE: Pelham has changed, it now has some "Bike Route" signs and no striping. However, there is still no sign at the connection to River Road or any directional or destination information. Pelham could be part of the route to solve the scenario above, "go from River Road to St Paul U of MN campus." Meanwhile the majority of bikers have no idea how to go north off River Road at the west edge of St Paul.
Bicycles are legal vehicles on all streets and safe to ride on most streets. Many of the not yet designated planned bicycle routes are in the same low traffic class as Pelham and do not need additional striping or construction work to become effective bicycle routes. Striping sometimes interferes with residential parking and becomes an effective political block to a bike route as local residents fight to keep parking spots; this is a worthless battle, in most cases striping is not needed at all. The safe low traffic streets exist, just the signage, maps and route connections do not exist, this also effectively blocks any network of bicycle routes. One could argue that this is by design, public works and transportation organizations are autocentric and have purposely blocked any network of pedestrian and bicycle routes, correctly perceiving them as a threat to resources, whenever a good bicycle route exists and goes where people want to go a constituency is created that demands resources and services that car transit backers would take by default.
Without a network the unconnected individual bicycle right of way paths, trails and discrete "Bike Routes" are worthless for transportation. Simple signage and navigation maps are cheap, effective, and therefore they will never be implemented. Without a NETWORK of routes the concept of bicycle commuting is only for the very experienced biker who can navigate a route by themselves by trial and error, many times a car oriented map is useless.
The concept of waiting for totally striped or pathed routes will very effectively never create the network needed for bicycle commuting; decades have passed since the 1970's when the first routes were planned and in some years bicycle routes added to the map can be measured in tens of feet.
The bike network should be created as fast as possible using shared streets that are not striped or pathed.
Many "planned" routes should be marked for immediate use, then physical improvements made where needed, especially improvements to create the connections between routes needed for a real bicycle network. Striping should be limited to special situations to decrease political opposition and to save capital to expand the network as quick as possible, in most cases striping is not needed at all. Many usable planned bicycle routes do exist, both in the plans and the streets; it is just that they are not visible to the public by the city, county and state's lack of navigation aids. Ramsey County has a plan to network its off road bicycle routes, but of course it is unfunded.
If people waited for a network of roads suitable for cars as long as the bicycle commuters have waited to make connections in the non-existent "bicycle network" there would only be a few hundred cars in every city, there would be no where to drive them. The wait is political, not technical, so there is really no solution for a bicycle network and nothing to test for usability, bicycles have been effectively blocked as a transportation mode. Unlike a road network that is dense in the city center, bicycle routes are commonly missing in the center of the city, a partially eaten doughnut is the shape of most bicycle so-called "networks" in most cities, there is always a hole in the center. Across the USA only a few cities have any real bicycle network, the eaten doughnut model is the prevalent pattern of bicycle routes. In fact it is more like a "crumb" model, just a few scattered unattached scraps of bike routes.
Locally there is a $21 million federal grant that will be administered by Transit for Livable Communities, a non-profit, for the creation of bicycle and pedestrian transit. Millions will be spent "marketing" bicycle transit but that will be money thrown away. Marketing a bicycle network that does not exist on routes that go nowhere is a waste of money. Make a usable bicycle NETWORK without the gaps and with proper signs and the marketing will take care of itself. I suggest the grant is used 100% for a network of routes, not just feel good public relations garbage. The route signs and people using the routes are the best marketing.