TheWashCycle

Let’s Build a Great Bike Lane for Route 1 in College Park

By Jeff Lemieux and Patrick Wojahn

In the summer of 2013, Maryland Governor O’Malleyannounced funding to “purchase right-of-way for [sic] bicycle, pedestrian and safety improvements” for Route 1 in College Park, by the University of Maryland. One news report at the time indicated that the plan called for a “bicycle and pedestrian trail along U.S. 1 from College Avenue to Md. 193 in College Park.”

For bike riders in College Park, this was very exciting news. Northern Prince George’s county has an excellent bike trail system paralleling Route 1 and Metrorail’s Green Line, but many of the larger roads in our area are hostile to bike riders and pedestrians. For example, Route 1 does not have continuous sidewalks in many stretches between the University of Maryland and the beltway, and there are no protected bike lanes or cycle tracks on any of the larger state-maintained (numbered) roads in the area.

Last week, the Maryland state highway administration (SHA) described a plan for section of Route 1 between College Ave. and Greenbelt Road that would create a narrow five-foot painted bike lane (four feet plus a one foot gutter pan) next to the curb.

 

Rendering of SHA’s proposed typical section for Route 1 between College Ave and Greenbelt Road

Given the bus and delivery truck traffic on Route 1, a narrow bike lane could be hazardous, squeezing cyclists between an 8” concrete curb and large vehicles in dense traffic. In addition, buses that are stopped or idling by the curb would force cyclists into the roadway and mixed traffic – something neither cyclists nor drivers prefer.

We predict that the SHA design will not be popular with either cyclists or drivers. The College Park officials at the SHA presentation asked hard questions about whether protected bike lanes could be built instead.

Picture from SHA newsletter describing the Route 1 proposed cross section.

The ultimate design decision will make an enormous difference in the long run for College Park’s accessibility and business development. Since the entire roadway is being rebuilt, this is once-in-a generation opportunity for Prince George’s county. Will the bike lanes be protected or buffered, as part of an urban street design that is welcoming to pedestrians, bikes, and bus riders? Or will the bike lanes just be a stripe of paint between the curb and a roadway that is designed more like a suburban strip or rural highway?

Fortunately, much better designs have been in use nationwide for decades, and some even utilize a narrower roadbed (meaning less right-of-way acquisition and less of the expensive full-depth road reconstruction). Protected bike lanes, used nationwide and worldwide, provide physical separation between cyclists and vehicle traffic – providing a more comfortable and safer ride. An example of protected bikes lanes through another University town (Cambridge) is shown below.

 

Protected Bikes on Vassar Street, through MIT campus – Cambridge, MA.

If Route 1 were to be rebuilt in this fashion – keeping the same proposed center median – it could look something like this:

 

Route 1 rendering, rebuilt with protected bike lanes behind the curb

Notice how cyclists do not have to compete with faster vehicles that can hit or kill them, nor do they have to compete with slower pedestrians on crowded sidewalks (like they do now). This is a win-win for all road users and dramatically improves everyone’s safe travel.

Alternatively, SHA can also follow the lead of other states by implementing buffered bike lanes that provide striped or curbed buffers, separating bicyclists from vehicle traffic within the road. An example of such a typical section for Route 1 is shown below.

 

Buffered bike lanes within the roadbed

Twenty four states use protected bike lanes. Washington DC uses them extensively, and they have coincided with a boom in population and tax revenues for the city. By using flexposts in conjunction with narrow curbs for protection, DC has developed protected bike lanes on streets with limited road width. For example, the new two-way cycle track on First Street, NE in Washington uses flexposts and a narrow protective barrier (either a narrow curb or a row of parking stops) to create effective protection for cyclists within a narrow roadway.

A narrow curb protects the two-way cycletrack on First Street, NE in Washington DC

Although there is limited space in the right-of-way on Route 1, SHA is working on expanding the right-of-way beyond its existing width, giving College Park a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create sufficient space to safely accommodate cyclists and pedestrians. Protected bike lanes will encourage bike commuting to the University and surrounding businesses, and will take car traffic off the road. In order to encourage bicycle infrastructure to have an impact and get more cars off the road, people need to feel safe using it. Unprotected bike lanes alone will not accomplish that.

SHA should give greater consideration to protected bike lanes outside the curb, as well as buffered or projected bike lanes inside the roadbed. Alternatively, a two-way cycletrack might be feasible, especially on the west (University) side of Route 1.

It is time for a progressive state like Maryland to have progressive transportation standards that take into account local context and the community’s economic development potential. Instead of rubber-stamping a traditional rural highway design for every state highway, SHA needs to consider and design for the local users. College Park not only has a relatively high-density and a large built-in student population that doesn’t use cars, but also has local businesses that are on small lots with very few parking spaces – i.e. neighborhood-serving businesses. Route 1 is not a regional arterial and should not be treated as one by highway engineers.

College Park and its large cycling community, the State’s flagship University, and Prince George’s County deserve better than just a narrow stripe on the road. Please contact state officials to ask for buffered or protected bike lanes instead of a narrow curbside bike lane. To have your voice heard, please contact:

 

State Highway Administrator

Melinda B. Peters

(410) 545-0400

[email protected]

Project Manager

Deni Deliallisi

Office of Highway Development - Highway Design Division

410.545.8783

[email protected]

District Engineer for SHA, District 3 (Prince Georges and Montgomery)

Brian W. Young, District Engineer

(301) 513-7300

[email protected]

Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator

Dustin M. Kuzan

Office of Planning and Preliminary Engineering

Maryland State Highway Administration

410-545-5656

[email protected]

 

Jeff Lemieux is a member of the Greenbelt Advisory Planning Board and co-chairs the WABA/Prince George’s Advocacy Group.

Patrick Wojahn is a councilmember for District 1, College Park City Council.

Washington Post thinks the Comparative Negligence Bill should be deferred

Surprise! The Post Editorial board came out in opposition to passing Grosso's bill that would change the standard of negligence in cases involving  bike/ped traffic collisions with motorists. They believe that instead the bill should be deferred to the next session.

Instead, it should undertake a more comprehensive review of the law. In the meantime, debate over the legislation has pointed to problems that could be fixed without legislation as the city strives to be friendly to cars, bikes and pedestrians. These include how accidents involving cyclists are investigated and the need to educate both drivers and bikers about roadway safety.

In part they take the intellectually flawed position that if this is a good policy change then it should be applied across the board (OK so far) and if not applied across the board it should not be applied at all.

Any change should be across the board, and it should come only after careful study.

This is like saying that if life preservers are good for people on a sinking boat, then either everyone should get one, or no one should. 

They may be right about the need for change, but the D.C. Council should not carve a special exception in the law for one class of citizens. 

Really? Because we carve out exceptions ot the law for one class of citizens all the time. For one example, of many, isn't that what the ADA does? And as WABA has noted, DC law already has a carve out on this very policy for railroad workers. I don't recall the Post coming out against that. 

The Post actually takes no position on whether contributory negligence is a bad policy, which is telling in and of itself. 

If so, why apply it piecemeal, advantaging a special class of citizens?

Because they're the citizens most being harmed by this. Who else is having a problem with it? And because politics is the art of the possible. This is possible. An across the board change probably is not. WABA went down that path and no one would even introduce that bill. 

Some people argue, meanwhile, that a switch would have unintended consequences and hidden costs. Trial lawyers, for example, are concerned that it would hamper the ability of plaintiffs to be fully compensated when multiple defendants are at fault but some have more resources than others. Other considerations include a possible impact on insurance rates and the fact that neighboring Maryland and Virginia are two of the four states that use contributory negligence.

Those people are wrong. The law still works in 46 other states, insurance rates do not go up much if any at all and we often have non-uniform laws across the region. The Post again takes no position on these claims.

In the meantime, debate over the legislation has pointed to problems that could be fixed without legislation as the city strives to be friendly to cars, bikes and pedestrians. These include how accidents involving cyclists are investigated and the need to educate both drivers and bikers about roadway safety.

Those are good ideas, but they do nothing to help the cyclist who was injured and can not get a settlement from the at-fault drivers insurance or find a lawyer willing to take their case out of fear of contributory negligence's high standard. 

On the upside, at least people are talking about this issue. 

The future of Arlington bicycle facilities

Most readers by now know that Arlington added its first cycletrack on S. Hayes in August, and perhaps that the county plans to add another stretch to S. Eads this year (though talk was of doing it this September) between 15th and 23rd, but there is more that Arlington is working on and planning to do on top of that.

On S. Eads, the county will reduce the road from 4 lanes to 3 (one in each direction and center turning lane) to make room for the protected bike facility. This is a pilot project but if all goes well, it would become permanent.

Wilson Blvd between Rosslyn and Courthouse could also get a protected bike lane when it's repaved next year. This is in design and evaluation right now. Another project on Wilson will repave the road from N. Frederick to Manchester street in spring of 2015. That project will create bike lanes between Bluemont Park and N. Frederick Street. Sharrows will then connect those bike lanes to ones on N. George Mason Drive and the Bluemont Trail. Later those bike lanes could be converted to cycletracks. 

Construction is expected to begin in late 2015 on improvements to the Custis Trail around the "Intersection of Doom" in Rosslyn. This will include widening the trail from 10 feet to 16, improving visibility at the Holiday Inn entrance, removing a lane from Lynn Street that will shorten the crossing there and adding waiting areas at both corners. Control of right turns on red are in development. 

The County is working on a complete review of bicycle parking and planning to use an app to help them with this. Efforts include review of best practices from elsewhere, better coordination with other County agencies, installation of more bike parking in the curbside right-of-way (especially in commercial districts), changes to the zoning code to require bike parking minimums in all development and working with private property owners to add more bike parking. In addition, the County plans to start using an app called RackSpotter that will allow for crowdsourcing the location of every bike rack in the county in order to create a complete inventory as well as identify places where racks are needed. Users will also be able to see where the closest rack is, including a photo. Games to encourage use will be used. The product is currently in beta testing. 

The County has nearly completed the installation of 280 on-street wayfinding signs planned for the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor and 200 more along the Custis Trail. The County plans to add another 400 signs on its trail network in the near future. 

The County now has 31 automated county devices including the Bikeometer in Rosslyn. The data from these can be viewed by anyone at this website.

Arlington does plan to clear snow from trails this winter, but maybe not from the W&OD Trail. NVRPA is concerned that the trail will be damaged during snow removal.  

One unusual problem Arlington is dealing with is that the only contractor they had to paint bike lanes green went out of business, so they're trying to work through that setback to find a replacement. 

Tech solution for "dead red" lights

From a list of technology shown off at the Intelligent Transport Systems World Congress held in Detroit

HEY TRAFFIC LIGHT! I’M HERE!: Bicycle riders are often ignored by systems designed to change a traffic light when a car arrives. A Raleigh, North Carolina, company called Kimley-Horn has come up with a smartphone app that gets cyclists noticed. It uses the phone’s GPS and signals a central computer via the Internet to turn the light green. The system will be tested this fall with 100 cyclists in Austin, Texas. It could go citywide by 2016, said Kimley-Horn’s Doug Gettman. Similar transmitters could be installed on all vehicles, so the computer can detect them and manage traffic lights, keeping them green for large blocks of vehicles, Gettman said.

Happy Veterans Day

WABA's Future Trails Celebration This Saturday 11/15

Who doesn't like a party?

Where:  The grassy field at First & Pierce Street NE in NoMa, DC
When:  Saturday, November 15, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm
Cost: Free!!

Come for music and food, a bike repair clinic, carnival games, face painting and bike fun!  Explore a great trail in the making, and discover the community links in your backyard.  Have some fun with interactive activities and win great raffle prizes,including a free registration on REI’s C&O Canal Overnight Cycling Tour!  And stick around for the release of WABA’s concept plan for the Arlington Boulevard Trail, which outlines a vision for the next regional bike trail project in Northern Virginia.

M street to 1st street Cycletrack turn

M street NE pinch point

M St. NE curb cut

M street NE