MKE-bike
Every bike lane & trail in Milwaukee mapped
Layers of lanes and trails are in the top right corner. Street segments are clickable for more details. This map maps all types of on-street bike lanes and paved off-street trails. Unlike most bike maps, this one does not include bicycle routes, which are usually connectors between lanes and/or trails when streets are too narrow for lanes or cities are too broke for lanes. Bike routes are usually marked with sharrows (more on those later); but a sharrow does not always indicate a bike route. They can be either easily intuited or completely unintuitive, but risky and dangerous nonetheless, so I've left them out. When bike maps do show bike routes, the maps can be crazy confusing - looking at you, City of Milwaukee. For that matter, bike maps can be absurdly complex, like this angel hair pasta catastrophe from Brookfield.
Solid green lines are on-street paved bike lanes, including:
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dedicated bike lanes are the most common (a lane with 1-2 parallel lines between moving traffic and curb, sometimes with green paint but usually not)
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buffered bike lanes (zebra stripes separating automotive vehicular traffic from dedicated bike lanes)
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protected (by a barrier, duh, like bollards, concrete, or parked cars
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Milwaukee also has bidirectional cycle tracks, raised and unraised, and Tosa and Stallis have more [green bike boxes] (https://nacto.org/publication/urban-bikeway-design-guide/intersection-treatments/bike-boxes/) than the City of Milwaukee
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Milwaukee also has a few raised cycletrack lanes, like on Bay St in Bay View
If you're biking anywhere, prioritize the off-street trails, like the Oaf Leaf Lines. If you're biking on streets, any street with solid green lines (on this map) are your best bets. Prioritize cycle tracks (like Mayfair between Bluemound & the Hank Aaron/I-94) and concrete divider (Jersey barrier)-protected lanes over buffered lanes, over dedicated lanes, over sharrows, over nothing. Safety first.
Fluorescent yellow-green lines (will be dotted in the future) are used for shared bike lanes:
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Shared driving/biking lanes are marked on-street painted sharrows, which are symbols of a bicyclist with two chevrons. Sharrows indicate that moving motor vehicles and bikes must share the same lane, and bikes have a clearer right-of-way. Sharrows sometimes but do not always mark official bike routes, but not all bike routes have sharrows. Bike routes and sharrows suck. Paint doesn't save lives.
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Shared parking lanes, aka Curb Lanes, are indicated by a curbside sign of a black and white diamond that may or may not also be painted on-street; bicyclists must share the lane with parked cars, and you might as well volunteer to get doored. Both are much less helpful than on-street lanes and off-street trails, but we'll take what we can get. Sometimes you'll find these diamond signs where they don't belong, like along Forest Home's dedicated bike and dedicated parking lanes - whatever. Also, some places in the County are too cheap to shell out cash for two fully painted lines, and will do dumb shit like along Greenfield Ave in West Allis or Packard in Cudahy. You'll know what I mean when you see it.
The City's Most Likely to Get You Doored awards probably go to all of North Ave, N 16th and 17th near Marquette, Prospect & Farwell, all of Brady, and Erie St in the Third Ward.
Other colors are off-street, paved bike trails, except the Oak Leaf Trail system's so called Lines (e.g. "Zip Line," "South Shore Line," etc.), which are color-matched to the County Parks' map. There are several other named off-street paved trails in Milwaukee County that are not part of the OLT system. They are grouped under a purple layer, and are usually located at the edges of Milwaukee County leading into neighboring counties.
Call Milwaukee's 311 equivalent 414-286-2489 to report idiots' cars parked/stopped in bike lanes, obstructions in bike lanes, etc.
Know our laws and know your rights! Ride safely! Be seen!
Sept. 2020 - The Future? A global pandemic has changed everything. Tons more people have been out on two and three wheels lately. When I wasn't outside, I mapped planned and proposed lanes and trails that have not yet been painted or built yet, from several different master bike plans. These are in two layers, unchecked/invisible by default one for currently unmade Oak Leaf Trail lines and other county trails.. Turn these layers on to compare what could be to what we have. A few seriously glaring omissions, however: Brady Street, Van Buren, Oklahoma. A safe north-south option for downtown. A way to go westbound on/near St Paul, with the only lane taken by streetcar tracks. The list goes on. Talk to your alderpeople, y'all. When the time comes, mask up and go to planning meetings. We need to advocate for the Milwaukee we want. We need safer streets, infrastructural investments, and more bodies on bikes!
Sources:
Exising infrastructure:
https://city.milwaukee.gov/dpw/infrastructure/multimodal/maps https://city.milwaukee.gov/dpw/infrastructure/multimodal/Bike-Infrastructure https://city.milwaukee.gov/dpw/infrastructure/multimodal/Bike-Infrastructure/Trails/KK-River-Trail https://city.milwaukee.gov/dpw/infrastructure/multimodal/Bike-Infrastructure/Trails/Beerline-B-Trail https://county.milwaukee.gov/EN/Parks/Explore/Trails/Oak-Leaf-Trail https://www.hankaaronstatetrail.org/ https://wi-westallis.civicplus.com/1262/Bike-Maps https://www.co.ozaukee.wi.us/553/Interurban-Trail https://www.racinecounty.com/home/showdocument?id=1323 https://www.traillink.com/trail/city-of-franklin-hike-and-bike-trail/ https://activestreets.mailchimpsites.com/
Planned/proposed infrastructure:
https://city.milwaukee.gov/dpw/infrastructure/multimodal/Plans/2010-Milwaukee-By-Bike-Plan https://city.milwaukee.gov/ImageLibrary/Groups/cityDCD/planning/plans/NearNorth/pdfs/CTC_FinalDraft_9-25-201.pdf https://www.railstotrails.org/trailblog/2015/january/13/wisconsins-kinnickinnic-river-trail/ https://www.powerlinetrail.org/ https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2020/05/19/transportation-city-seeks-grants-for-new-bike-trails/ https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2020/02/24/transportation-city-plans-4-pedestrian-bicycling-projects/ https://city.milwaukee.gov/mpw/infrastructure/MilwaukeebyBike/City-of-Milwaukee-Bicycle-Milwaukee-Plan https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2020/02/17/transportation-city-to-rebuild-national-avenue/ https://onmilwaukee.com/articles/national-avenue-reconstruction