Academy for Sustainable Communities Events

For many, the bicycle facility design guides will tell you when to separate bicyclists from motorists, but not when to physically separate bicyclists from pedestrians. That’s where the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) and their consultant, Bolton & Menk, started. Through national research, workshops with blind and low-vision pedestrians, mobility device users, and a variety of bicycle users, and a MnDOT advisory group, we’ve assembled design guidance to assist practitioners and agencies.

Bicycle Level of Traffic Stress (LTS) provides an important foundation for assessing how different bicycling environments impact different types of cyclists. It is a useful, widely adopted tool, but it has not been comprehensively validated or refined, leaving important gaps in how it reflects the needs of low-stress users.