Ohio City’s W. 25th St. has been handsomely resurfaced this summer, and thanks in large part to the city’s Complete and Green Streets initiative, it now includes a bike lane. (As part of that initiative, Cleveland is slated to paint more than 22 miles of bike lanes by the time 2015 wraps up). But local bike advocates say the new bike lane has been painted with a traffic buffer on the wrong side.
Detroit-Shoreway resident Angie Schmitt, a writer and editor at Streetsblog USA, called out city engineer Andy Cross, who’s responsible for the design, in a Friday posting.
“While Cleveland is accelerating its rate of bike lane installation,” Schmitt wrote, “Cross’s penchant for ineffective design threatens to sabotage the usefulness of the new infrastructure.”
Indeed. Schmitt said that Cross’ design — with the buffer between the bike lane and the curb instead of between the bike lane and the traffic — isn’t in line with best practices. She cited the National Association of City Transportation Officials, which recommends the buffer adjacent to traffic to increase the distance between cyclists and motorists and to increase the perception of safety.
Jacob Van Sickle, Executive Director of Bike Cleveland, posted on his organization’s site last month when the chalk drawings first appeared on W. 25th.
“Buffers are great because they create space between vulnerable people and cars; they protect people and we love them. You know what doesn’t need protection?” Van Sickle inquired facetiously. “A concrete curb.”
Van Sickle said that a buffer between the bike lane and cars creates space for additional protection — things like bollards or public art — which, in turn, encourages less experienced riders to bicycle.
But city engineer Andy Cross, in a recent email to Bike Cleveland, dismissed that idea, saying instead that a buffer on the traffic side was actually more dangerous, because it leads to collisions between cyclists and vehicles turning right.
“The terms ‘best practices’ and ‘protected’ are often used with what is shown in the NACTO guide,” Cross wrote to Bike Cleveland. “A design that encourages or requires hook turns across the path of through cyclists is neither a ‘best practice’ nor ‘protected.’”
(Partisan debate rages in the comments section of Schmitt’s Streetsblog post, FYI).
Cross did not immediately reply to questions from Scene, but we managed to catch Van Sickle on the phone. He said that he suspects Cross designed the bike lane with a vehicular mindset.
“He was probably thinking about the seven curb cuts that exist on W. 25th, and about visibility for motorists who want to turn right,” Van Sickle said. “That’s sound reasoning, but there are other things that could’ve been done to notify motorists. This felt like taking the easy way out.”
Ultimately, Van Sickle told Scene, it’s impossible to design a street that’s distracted-driver proof.
“It comes down to motorists’ responsibility,” said Van Sickle. “They need to pay attention and realize that they’re sharing the road with cyclists.”
Though Van Sickle raised the alarm when he first saw the chalk drawings on W. 25th, it was too late to change the design. Even after a meeting between the City, Ohio City Inc., and councilman Joe Cimperman, the city wasn’t prepared to go against the recommendation of its engineer (as Van Sickle heard it).
“Ultimately, in the future,” Van Sickle said, “we’d hope that these plans could be vetted by the public, and that we’d have an opportunity to talk to residents before striping occurs.”
Van Sickle said that he got a chance to do just that in a recent community meeting about the resurfacing of Lakeshore Blvd. That meeting was held at the request of Councilman Mike Polensek, and Van Sickle said it was an important opportunity to answer residents’ questions and note their concerns.
Here’s the NACTO design recommendations for buffered bike lanes. There’s much more good info at the organization’s website.
This article appears in Sep 16-22, 2015.
when your engineer gets it wrong—as documented by his own field’s official material—maybe you should either 1) go against him, or 2) fire him.
If a project was not done right…….mistakes must be expediently corrected and the initial process walked back to find out which “experts” need to be fired.
New cars continually add more and more gadgets which distract drivers. Then add in cell phones and things are even worse. Now that we are in a time where drivers are most distracted, the city decides we should add miles and miles of bike lanes so we can encourage more people to ride their bicycles on the road with the distracted drivers. Talk about accidents waiting to happen!
This is about as intelligent as planting wildflowers by the side of the highway and wondering why so many deer are coming out and colliding with cars.
Are bicyclists still permitted to ride between lanes and run red lights during downtown rush hour? I realize that as the driver, only I am responsible, but I just wanted to make sure I was up-to-date on the rules of the road.
DTDriver, if you give cyclists proper infrastructure, then the scenario of them running red lights, and riding in between lanes is less likely to happen. Most cyclists are aggressive on roads without infrastructure because they feel unsafe. Give them separate lanes, and dedicated signals, and you will have less of them interfering with your day.
Cross got this design right. The largest threat, by far, to bicyclists operating in or near the street is from collisions with crossing and turning traffic. Shoving bicyclists to the curb In a context with a high density of crossing and turning movements is a recipe for disaster. Cross correctly mitigates this threat using a design that encourages bicyclists to laterally position themselves away from the curbside danger zone.
As for NACTO, let no one misapprehend that it is an engineering organization; it is not. Its bikeway design guide is merely a sketchbook of ideas—some good, some marginal, some terrible—that have never been vetted by a rigorous engineering review. The image at the bottom of the post above is a typical example: rather than the correct practice of placing a buffer between the bike lane and parked cars in order to keep bicyclists out of the deadly “door zone”, a buffer is foolishly placed to the left, guiding bicyclists into harm’s way. Most NACTO designs are flawed because they attempt to solve the wrong problems, and in so doing they exacerbate the actual dangers that bicyclists face.
This is ridiculous. Everyone always sings the praises of so-called “protected” this and that, separated or segregated this or that. But illustrations ONLY show mid-block scenarios! NONE of them show what happens at driveways, side streets and major intersections. When a cyclist is farther away from a motorist, with objects in between, the cyclist is “out of sight, out of mind”. When motorists pull out they generally aren’t looking for cyclists. And when at an intersection a cyclist going straight is required to do so from a location to the right of a right-turning motor vehicle. This leads to confusion, crashes, and even worse, death.
The city engineer designed the bike lane in question EXACTLY the right way, to help make cyclists more likely to be seen, and hopefully keep them out of all the crap that piles up near the gutter.
It’s amazing to me how so many people who are not engineers seem to be assuming, no, INSISTING, that the buffer is on the wrong side based solely on their comfort and non-expert opinion, as if any possible engineering reasons (sight lines, edge hazards, reaction time) don’t really matter. As if actual safety were secondary to perceived safety.
“That’s sound reasoning, but there are other things that could’ve been done to notify motorists. This felt like taking the easy way out.” So he admits the engineering is sound, but because it’s unpopular, we should go with other things that are less effective than lane position, like signs and paint.
“It comes down to motorists’ responsibility … They need to pay attention and realize that they’re sharing the road with cyclists.” I completely agree. And this configuration will make it EASIER for them to do that, by making the cyclists more visible and relevant. If you want them to do it right, don’t start by making it harder for them.
So DTCyclist, you’re telling me that the cyclists I see daily who treat red lights like stop signs are blowing through intersections because they feel unsafe? See, I figured it was because cyclists see no cross traffic and don’t feel the need to sit at the light when they can just bike on through.
I should try that in my car. “Officer, why are you ticketing me? I drove through that red light because I didn’t think it was safe for me to wait for it to turn green.”
DTDriver, don’t act like a child, and mock my answer. You asked for an explanation, and I gave you one. Cyclists can still get ticket in Ohio treating a red light as a stop sign. Give a cyclist infrastructure designed for him/her, and he/she is more likely to respect it.
DTDriver – yeah, they make that determination – that they are unsafe – because they are idiots. The believe that, sitting next to the curb right next to motorists is unsafe: motorists turning right might not see them or might veer into their path. or, they think they can get ahead and up to speed with traffic, so as not to annoy them. Or, they feel exposed, like a target.
Nevertheless, bicyclists who operate this way are idiots who ignore that actual facts about what really puts them in danger.
Note that NACTO’s guide is NOT official standards, it’s a colorful illustration of suggestions. FHWA has been kept quite busy pointing out NACTO’s many violations of actual adopted safety standards — so frequently that they’ve taken the rare step of publishing a public FAQ with reminders that local engineers are required to check NACTO’s suggestions against actual standards.
As a bike rider, let me make this clear to you automobile drivers(which I am one). In every circumstance, when there is a collision between a bike and an auto, the cyclist loses(in many circumstances their lives). I know of zero riders who want to get hit by a car. None! Yes, there are idiots. Probably the same proportion that drive cars. But please understand this, most of everything we do when riding on streets that are shared with autos, we do to avoid injury and death. Thanks for doing your part in putting your ego aside and helping us make it home in one piece.