Proto-Future and the Beginner's Guide to Model Railroading
Aug 31, 2026 · 49 min · 10 segments
In part three of this three-part series, I explain the ways in which layouts can host modern transit and modeling-relevant operations, giving examples for layouts small, medium, and large for how to…
Walking and bicycling both have to do with road design, so I think I'll discuss them together here.
First off, as simply as I can make it, there should always be a sidewalk and a parking protected bike lane on every single road of your entire layout.
Never build a road without a sidewalk, as everybody becomes a pedestrian once they park or disembark their other mode of transit.
Neither should you ever build a road without a bike lane, because bicyclists deserve to get everywhere a car could.
In fact, bicyclists are better for the environment and public health, so they deserve more convenient and more direct access than any car does, and cars should therefore be punished by the infrastructure into going around.
Much like, in fact actually exactly like the real thing, the reasoning for parking-protected bike lanes is that they take the existing paint you'd already need to put down for an exposed and dangerous bike lane, but just reorder the paint to make it humongously safer.
From the center of the road out, it should first be car travel lanes, excuse me, street car lanes, no more than one in each direction, a parking lane, and then a gap between the parked cars and the sidewalk curb for the bicycle lane, and then finally the curb and a raised sidewalk itself.
If you want to be extra fancy, you can make it a bi-directional curb-protected cycle track and give intersections green thermoplastic routings with dedicated cyclist stoplights.
But so long as you're expending the effort to make curb parking anywhere on your layout at all, you should move the lines a centimeter or two outward from the sidewalk in order to make safe cycling infrastructure.
If you don't have enough space left over for car travel lanes, who cares? They're cars.
They're at the bottom of the transportation totem pole, and it's time for a road diet up to and including making it one way or removing all automobiles from the roads and ceding it entirely to pedestrians and cyclists.
Bonus points if you make the sidewalks and cycle tracks livelier than the roads, with more pedestrians and cyclists than drivers and parked cars by a country mile.
Finally, keep in mind that a major part of walk and bike ability is step-free access.
Both bicyclists, but also and probably more importantly wheelchairs and strollers, cannot get up and down curbs or steps, so all sidewalks and all cycle routes absolutely must have uninterrupted step-free access.
On a small layout, such as a shelf switching layout, modeling walk and bikeability might be difficult as there's limited space for non-train infrastructure.
However, so long as you have a single grade crossing, that road should have a sidewalk and bike lanes on both sides.
A solution as simple as a few pieces of plastic or paint.
For all of my gripes about the place, Madison, Wisconsin did innovate by showing me for the first time bicycle-oriented warehouses.
Several of the bicycle routes and trails throughout the area traveled straight through industrial parks, with factory buildings on either side and small trail branches to serve a bike rack placed next to each.
Furthermore, almost every single DMU I've ridden has had an adjacent bicycle trail, with occasional access to the businesses and industries on either side.
Blue-collar workers deserve as much as anybody to free themselves of the tyranny of the automobile, so any layout as small as only one industrial building should consider having a simple two-centimeter-wide asphalt bicycle lane weaving in between the structures and over the train tracks.
Medium-sized layouts, anything from a 4x8 to a small room with lots of depth to display non-train infrastructure, are a little bit easier to imagine with walk and bike ability, as they have plenty of opportunities to show a more cohesive transportation system.
Every sidewalk should be well connected to every other sidewalk, so too with cycle tracks.
Everywhere there's a passenger train, have a nice little impact crater of walkability filled with streeteries, storefronts, and not a single parking lot in sight.
Walking and bicycling both have to do with road design, so I think I'll discuss them together here.
First off, as simply as I can make it, there should always be a sidewalk and a parking protected bike lane on every single road of your entire layout.
Never build a road without a sidewalk, as everybody becomes a pedestrian once they park or disembark their other mode of transit.
Neither should you ever build a road without a bike lane, because bicyclists deserve to get everywhere a car could.
In fact, bicyclists are better for the environment and public health, so they deserve more convenient and more direct access than any car does, and cars should therefore be punished by the infrastructure into going around.
Much like, in fact actually exactly like the real thing, the reasoning for parking-protected bike lanes is that they take the existing paint you'd already need to put down for an exposed and dangerous bike lane, but just reorder the paint to make it humongously safer.
From the center of the road out, it should first be car travel lanes, excuse me, street car lanes, no more than one in each direction, a parking lane, and then a gap between the parked cars and the sidewalk curb for the bicycle lane, and then finally the curb and a raised sidewalk itself.
If you want to be extra fancy, you can make it a bi-directional curb-protected cycle track and give intersections green thermoplastic routings with dedicated cyclist stoplights.
But so long as you're expending the effort to make curb parking anywhere on your layout at all, you should move the lines a centimeter or two outward from the sidewalk in order to make safe cycling infrastructure.
If you don't have enough space left over for car travel lanes, who cares? They're cars.
They're at the bottom of the transportation totem pole, and it's time for a road diet up to and including making it one way or removing all automobiles from the roads and ceding it entirely to pedestrians and cyclists.
Bonus points if you make the sidewalks and cycle tracks livelier than the roads, with more pedestrians and cyclists than drivers and parked cars by a country mile.
Finally, keep in mind that a major part of walk and bike ability is step-free access.
Both bicyclists, but also and probably more importantly wheelchairs and strollers, cannot get up and down curbs or steps, so all sidewalks and all cycle routes absolutely must have uninterrupted step-free access.
On a small layout, such as a shelf switching layout, modeling walk and bikeability might be difficult as there's limited space for non-train infrastructure.
However, so long as you have a single grade crossing, that road should have a sidewalk and bike lanes on both sides.
A solution as simple as a few pieces of plastic or paint.
For all of my gripes about the place, Madison, Wisconsin did innovate by showing me for the first time bicycle-oriented warehouses.
Several of the bicycle routes and trails throughout the area traveled straight through industrial parks, with factory buildings on either side and small trail branches to serve a bike rack placed next to each.
Furthermore, almost every single DMU I've ridden has had an adjacent bicycle trail, with occasional access to the businesses and industries on either side.
Blue-collar workers deserve as much as anybody to free themselves of the tyranny of the automobile, so any layout as small as only one industrial building should consider having a simple two-centimeter-wide asphalt bicycle lane weaving in between the structures and over the train tracks.
Medium-sized layouts, anything from a 4x8 to a small room with lots of depth to display non-train infrastructure, are a little bit easier to imagine with walk and bike ability, as they have plenty of opportunities to show a more cohesive transportation system.
Every sidewalk should be well connected to every other sidewalk, so too with cycle tracks.
Everywhere there's a passenger train, have a nice little impact crater of walkability filled with streeteries, storefronts, and not a single parking lot in sight.
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