Public Works Directors shouldn’t dictate pedestrian safety. Yet, that’s what happens every winter when the snow flies.
A person’s basic safety needs are compromised because someone decided a century ago that public agencies shouldn’t plow sidewalks.
Plows are deployed. Snow is heaped onto sidewalks from the streets. And cities or DOTs wave their sidewalk policy at property owners, telling them to be a good neighbor and shovel their sidewalks.
If you quiz a public agency about why they purposely plow snow onto the sidewalks you’ll get these responses:
The rivalry between vehicular cyclists and bicyclists who want more dedicated and separated facilities is intense. The battle plays out in social media on a daily basis. It can get ugly.
I support the construction of properly-designed dedicated and separated facilities in high speed, high volume roadway situations. I also support a bicyclists right to use the general travel lanes if they are of a riding philosophy and comfort level where they prefer those lanes.
Yes, protected bike lane design in the United States has sucked. This attempt in Garden City, Idaho, from the early 1970s is not desirable. Sadly, any knowledge that this was once a protected bike lane has been lost by the area’s road agencies.
I believe the countries that have the highest and safest rates of bicycling are those that have worked diligently since the early 1970s to refine road design so bicyclists of all ages and abilities can safely operate across an entire street network. The United States practically abandoned the practice of separated or protected facilities in the early 1970s as the vehicular cycling movement overwhelmed others voices of the time. I wrote about an early attempt at protected bike lanes in the Boise region in this Idaho Statesman piece about Chinden Boulevard.
I watch both sides of this debate closely. Neither side is right nor wrong, so I thought I’d clarify where I stand in terms of viewing the vehicular cyclists viewpoints that run counter to those who supported separated facilities. (And may God bless my mentions in the online forums on both sides of this fence.)
The 12 Days of Safety Myths December 22, 2018 By Don Kostelec
In the carol “The 12 days of Christmas,” the gifts are grander and grander with each passing day. I’m not sure I’ve accomplished that for you in this series, but I hope the time you spend reading them is well spent.
The goal was to help you dispel the common myths you hear from transportation agencies with regard to safety. The guidance isn’t as sacred as they want you to believe. The safety tips don’t make much sense when you look at the research. Even the research isn’t as clear cut as we would all like it to be.
I want you to be the drummers drumming to advocate for safer streets. I want you to be the pipers piping to influence changes in policies and practices. I want you to light the coals that keep the engineering lords a-leaping when they try to deny your requests.
Stadium Boulevard, on the campus of Washington State University, is one of the best examples of a roadway that includes 10 ft travel lanes in combination with other elements to help self-enforce that speed. Several buses use this each hour, crosswalks are frequent (with illuminated poles, and the context tells you it’s a place where you’re expected to move slowly in a motor vehicle. Continue reading →
