TheWashCycle

From the Archives: 1982 Bike Accidents* Study

From an October 1982 copy of the DC Gazette

*Don't get all "crash not accident" on me, I'm just quoting the thing

Montgomery County adds separated bike lanes to Nebel and Glenbrook

Back in October (remember then?) Montgomery county completed two separated bike lanes, one on Nebel Street in White Flint and another on Glenbrook Road in Bethesda. 

The lanes on Nebel Street were completed first.

The half-mile stretch includes 6-foot-wide bike lanes in both directions of Nebel that are separated from traffic with flexible white posts. To create the bike lanes, parking was removed from the west side of Nebel and relocated to the east side. The road’s travel lanes were also reduced from a little over 15 feet wide to 11 feet.

The project cost the county $135,000 and was built while Nebel Street was resurfaced. The project is part of a network of bike lanes that will one day connect major commercial and residential areas in North Bethesda, according to county officials. The plan is known as the White Flint Separated Bike Lane Network.

The lanes, built between Randolph Road and Marinelli Road, are intended to be part of a larger network tying all of White Flint together and connecting to the Metro.

The Glenbrook lane was finished shortly thereafter. It features a separated, contraflow bike lane on one side and a sharrowed lane on the other.

The bike lane was added because many cyclists were riding against traffic on Glenbrook, which is a one-way street, to use the Capital Crescent Trail

The 0.2 mile, 5-foot-wide lane runs along Glenbrook from Bradley Boulevard south to Little Falls Park.  The county removed some parking spots on the short stretch of roadway to complete the $55,000 project, which also included traffic-calming measures and green pavement markings at intersections.

Alexandria's Cameron and Prince to become "enhanced bicycle corridors" in 2017

As part of a repaving program, bike lanes and sharrows will be added to Cameron and Prince Streets (and Duke and Royal) in Old Town Alexandria. The corridors, which are about 75% bike lanes and 25% sharrowed lanes, will connect the King Street Metro and the Mt. Vernon Trail. The King Street Metro itself is becoming a bicycle hub, with lanes on Commonwealth and King Street west of the Metro and trails along Buchanan and through Hoffs Run converging on it. 

The lanes, which come straight out of the city's recently updated Bicycle Master Plan, will be built without removing parking or traffic lanes, but sharrows will be used where the road is too narrow. The project will be about 75% bike lanes and 25% sharrows.  The lanes are not expected to result in any new traffic delays, but should have a calming effect bringing speeds closer to the 25 mph limit.

In addition the project will add pedestrian countdown timers and curb ramps.

Yvonne Weight Callahan, president of the Old Town Civic Association said "I don't regard Complete Streets, specifically on Cameron and on Prince, as particularly necessary projects." She then goes on to list several incidents where pedestrians or dogs were injured or killed by motorists. If only there were some program meant to prevent those crashes. That program might even be viewed as particularly necessary, but I can't think of one.

[Aside: Callahan mentions that a pedestrian was recently hit by a cyclist in the Wilkes Street Tunnel (bad) and that the cyclist then rode away (worse)]

Interestingly, she notes that the city can't fine drivers who fail to yield to pedestrians unless it is in a "specially-marked crosswalk" meaning that there are signs there stating that fines can be imposed. The city attorney and Police Department are working to fix the ordinance. 

DDOT's Eye Street Redesign Meeting tomorrow night

Via JDLand

I St. SE Redesign Meeting with DDOT - Please attend!

Wednesday, December 14th at 6:30PM at 70 Capitol Yards Lobby

Does I St. between NJ Ave. and S. Capitol St. drive you crazy? Are you frustrated with the unsafe pedestrian crosswalk, double-parked cars in the bike lanes, limited visibility from the garages, broken stop signs, lack of a traffic light, and more? This is your chance to review DDOT's proposed changes, give specific feedback, and make sure that your concerns are addressed. You walk, bike, and drive this street every day. It's vital that you attend and be a part of the solution.

 

A Safer Bike Lane on Eye St. between NJ Ave. & S. Capitol St.
DDOT is proposing switching the location of the bike lane and the parking lane. If you look at the attached drawing, the new sequence would be sidewalk, bike lane, parking lane, driving lanes, parking lane, bike lane, sidewalk. This would better protect bikers from traffic. It also would prevent bikers from having to dodge double-parked cars in Eye St.

Idaho Stop already law in Chicago in practice, if not in fact. Why not change that, study argues.

A study out of DePaul University's Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development found that few cyclists obeyed traffic control devices when no traffic was present, and went on to recommended an evaluation of the potential for legally permitting Idaho Stops at intersections with four-way stops, and assessing incremental strategies for allowing Idaho Stops at signaled intersections.

This is not a direct study of the Idaho Stop but rather of current cyclist behavior in parts of Chicago. One of the main conclusions is that when cross traffic is not present few cyclists obey traffic control devices, but that nearly half obey the Idaho Stop at stop signs and 95% either obey the law or the Idaho Stop at stop lights. 

At stop signs, just two percent (about one cyclist out of every 50) came to a full stop when cross-traffic was not present while far more (43%) made Idaho Stops, slowing down enough to yield if necessary (Figure 3). The remaining 55% failed to take either precaution. One can posit that when cyclists sense there are no immediate safety risks, their desire to maintain forward momentum and conserve energy almost always exceeds their desire to strictly adhere to traffic laws.

At traffic signal intersections when cross traffic is not present, 30% made full stops and waited until the light turned green, or made a right turn when permitted after stopping. More than twice as many (65%), however, made Idaho Stops, often by proceeding through the intersection before the light changed. Only five percent failed to do either, proceeding through the intersection without stopping or yielding at all.

These results show that in quiet conditions, compliance with traffic laws is far greater at traffic signals than stop signs.

When cross-traffic was present, compliance went up significantly

And compliance appears to be higher at peak traffic hours (54%) than at off-peak (44%).

The study then references previous studies [Meggs (2010), Leth, Frey, & Brezina (2014) etc...] showing that the Idaho Stop may be safer or, at least, no less safe than the current law; as well as studies showing that full compliance on city streets results in ~40% reduction in average speed.

Based on this, the report makes the argument that with compliance so low - especially at stop signs - enforcement "would seem arbitrary and capacious" and that "permitting Idaho Stops at stop sign intersections would help bikers feel more confident that enforcement efforts are being directed toward cyclists who pose legitimate safety risks, and may help to bolster confidence that the law enforcement community is more wisely allocating its limited resources." 

They also recommend allowing the Idaho Stop at stop lights either as a pilot at select low-volume lights, or at low volume times like 11pm-5am. 

Although such measures would require further study prior to implementation, it behooves the city to gradually move toward rules that reflect reasonable tradeoffs between convenience and safety. The City could also make known that law enforcement personnel will avoid issuing citations for Idaho Stops as a precursor to possibly legalizing them.

The same study also compared travel times, finding that neighborhood-to-neighborhood trips, as opposed to those more likely to be performed by commuters such as downtown-to-neighborhood, or outer downtown-to-neighborhood, were the trips where cycling is the most competitive, being faster than both transit or UberPool.

 The Chicago Tribune reported on it, including opinions of local leaders and the study authors on the idea of the Idaho Stop.

"It's tough to step up enforcement without aligning the rules with reality," said study co-author Joseph Schwieterman.

Jim Merrell, of the Active Transportation Alliance, said the advocacy group favors updating policies to keep people safe and to "reflect the way people are actually moving around the city, and that includes the Idaho stop." He noted that the Idaho stop is about yielding and slowing down, not about blowing through a stop sign without paying attention.

The Chicago Department of Transportation has not favored the Idaho stop to date, but spokesman Mike Claffey said the department would review the study and see how the proposal would balance the safety of all users while also encouraging bicycling.

["Bicycling Ambassadors" program manager Charlie Short] could not comment on the Idaho stop idea but noted that sometimes bicyclists make choices they think make them safer but can lead to other dangers. He said some cyclists and motorists don't know the rules of the road, others don't care and some are just doing what everyone else is doing. Short said education discourages unsafe behavior, which drops on corners where outreach events are held.

The study also recommends lower fines for cyclists. In Chicago they can be as high as $200, but in DC they're capped at $25. Though they're higher in Maryland and Virginia. 

Silver Spring's Second and Wayne Avenue bikeway will connect trails through downtown

Sometime in 2018, MCDOT hopes to build a protected bike lane on Second and Wayne Avenues in downtown Silver Spring. This road diet, would create the county's 5th protected bike lane. 

This project will follow the Spring Street/Cedar Street Separated Bike Lanes project (the county's 4th protected bike lane), which is being constructed in Spring 2017. It will connect to, and extend those lanes west - where they will connect to the future Capital Crescent Trail.  On the east side, it would connect to the Silver Spring Green Trail. 

Because the road has different widths in different locations, the design differs from section to section. From Spring to Fenwick, there will be conventional 5' wide bike lanes. From Fenwick to Colesville Road there will be one-way, 6' wide separated bike lanes on each side, with a 6' wide buffer.

From Colesville Road to Georgia Avenue it will have a 2-way, 8' wide separated bikeway on the north side of the street. This will be accomplished by moving the curb in and taking advantage of an old bus bay. 

The most unusual, and likely most controversial, part is the so-called "Colesville Transition," where eastbound cyclists will turn across the avenue to the north side to join the two-way bikeway.

Other intersections will be redesigned too. Designs use two-stage queue box pavement markings, colored paint, and floating bus stops. 

And at Spring and Second, there will be a protected intersection.

The final design should be done this upcoming summer, with the 3-4 month project starting in late 2017 or early 2018. A .pdf with the full current design can be found here.

Public comments can be sent to [email protected] until December 21st. 

 

From the Archives: Biking faster than 6mph? Madness! Madness I tell you!

For many years, bicyclists in DC enjoyed a period of lawlessness wherein they wore leggings and crazy mustaches and generally DNGAF. But that all came to a crashing end in 1896 with the first regulations of bicycles on the road. Those regulations, which were made available in churches all over the city, provided that

• There was a 6 mph speed limit in intersections, 12 mph between intersections and 15 mph "outside the city" (which was basically north of Florida Avenue)
• Only the person or persons propelling the bike could ride on it (Being pre-Kidical Mass by a few years)
• The bicycle must always be under the control of the rider.
• Sidewalk cycling was illegal. So when someone yells at you to "get on the sidewalk", tell them to take it up with John Wesley Ross.
• "No bicycle, tricycle, or other vehicle may be ridden or driven so as to collide with any other horse, or such vehicle or vehicles, or any person, and the driver or rider of such horse or vehicle shall make way for pedestrians at the street crossings."

The fine for violations was between $1 and $10. That last one seems like a pretty good law. Wish we still had it. 

DC to Richmond Greenway "not a competitive choice for intercity travel"

Before you get too excited about this, you should know that

A parallel greenway (pedestrian / bicycle trail) is not part of the DC2RVA project at this time. Such a greenway is not supported by the SEHSR Program’s Purpose and Need as defined in the Tier I EIS, because it does not provide a competitive choice for intercity travel in the corridor, nor does it benefit capacity or speed of train movements within the corridor. Also, the CSX right-of-way is not of sufficient width to support a greenway, nor does CSX allow recreational use of its rights-of-way. Development of higher speed rail service along the existing rail corridor would not preclude a future greenway outside the CSX right-of-way, however, should the Commonwealth decide at some point to pursue one

DDOT closes the gap in the 14th Street bike lane

For some time now, DDOT has been planning to close the gap in the 14th Street bike lane (between Florida Avenue and Columbia Road).There is a climbing lane in the north/uphill direction and sharrows in the south/downhill direction. It sounds like the bike lane doesn't quite make it to Columbia, but instead ends a little bit short, but maybe they just aren't finished yet.

 

Finishing touches for the 14th St NW buffered bike lane from Florida Ave to Columbia Rd. Thanks @DDOTDC @BrianneKNadeau #bikedc pic.twitter.com/NiupxyzFsN

— Greg Billing (@gregbilling) December 5, 2016

A road diet is making this possible. 14th is being reduced from four lanes to two with a turning lane and bike lanes. 

DDOT to rehab Pennsylvania Avenue Bridge and Eastern Avenue NE

There were a couple of meetings from earlier this week that have at least a small bike component (or could). First, DDOT is rehabilitating the Pennsylvania Avenue Bridge over Rock Creek and Rock Creek Parkway. They won't be adding bike lanes, but they will be improving the sidewalks with ADA-compliant ramps. But at the very least cyclists won't be detoured for the 14 month project.

Pedestrian and bike traffic will continue to use the bridge during construction 

And more interestingly, DDOT is going to rehabilitate Eastern Avenue NE between New Hampshire Avenue NE and Whittier Street NW.

The project's goal is to improve the existing pavement and landscape of this study area and to determine the best solution to address deteriorated sidewalks, retaining walls, curbs, gutters, manholes, catch basins and ADA ramps; to improve traffic and pedestrian/bike safety; and to introduce public realm improvements along this corridor.  

This is a short stretch of Eastern, but one where there is opportunity for a bicycle facility. The lanes are wide and along most of the north side there is no parking allowed. Along one part there is even a buffered shoulder to keep drivers from crashing into the retaining wall that separates DC's Eastern Avenue from Takoma's adjacent, but several feet lower, Eastern Avenue. So a facility could be added in. It would be parallel to the nearby Metropolitan Branch trail, but the only existing or planned bike facility connection would be to DC's Kansas Avenue which has bike lanes.