Posts about Bike Safety

One would assume that's between where O and P Streets would intersect the trail, based on address ranges elsewhere. That is the location of the New York Avenue bridge over the trail, which has been bathed in utter darkness since the trail opened.

There have been constant problems with the overhead lights. The light just south of the Franklin Street overpass has been flashing like a strobe since October 2011 (over a year), and nothing has been done about it. DDOT employee Heather Deutch wrote on the MBT's Facebook page:

These are solar/LED lights. There is a 5 year warranty, with most components expected to last 10 years (i.e. batteries and lamps). This was a pilot project for us and the company is out of Florida. We have been having problems with the lights and with repairs being performed quickly. That being said, all the lights were repaired and working as of January 2012. There are, again, more lights out and we have submitted this information to the company. If you would like to contact them directly, the company is Sol www.solarlighting.com.

DDOT's bicycle program has few resources, but it's still unacceptable that they aren't able to keep the lights working. If there's a warranty, there should be an employee who deals with contracts who can get the necessary work done.

In addition, it's been clear that the stretch of the trail under the New York Avenue overpass would be a particularly dark place since that segment of the trail opened in May, 2010. The excuse for not placing lighting under the bridge was that it would soon be under construction (construction began in early 2011). That construction has been ongoing for nearly 2 years, and is not expected to be complete until September 2013.

There's simply no rationale for not putting temporary lighting under the bridge. In addition to the all-too-real threat of crime, there's the current threat of severe injury because construction equipment takes up some of the space. David Poms noted on Twitter that he almost crashed into the construction material in the darkness.

The city needs to light the underpass now and until construction is complete with a long-term temporary solution, and then with a high-quality permanent solution after that point. Riders need to be able to see construction material or gangs of criminals waiting for them in the darkness.

Portland employs a similar technique where one of its bike lanes crosses streetcar tracks:

Portland also does some interesting things with streetcar stops. Lovejoy Street has a bike lane parallel to streetcar tracks, immediately to the tracks' right. With the bike lane between the tracks and the curb, something had to be done at stations. So they routed the bike lane onto the sidewalk, behind the streetcar stop.

Portland's solution for Lovejoy Street isn't perfect, because despite pavement markings the passengers waiting for the streetcar occasionally stand in the bikeway. But it certainly beats the alternative of forcing cyclists to merge into the streetcar lane to go through stations.

Seattle will take this idea one step further on its soon-to-be-built First Hill streetcar, which will share Broadway with a cycle track located behind the streetcar stops.

Closer to home, Arlington is designing its Columbia Pike streetcar with new bikeways on adjacent parallel streets. Instead of finding ways to mix bikes and streetcars safely, they'll put the bikeways one block over.

Arlington's parallel bikeways will be "bike boulevards," which are common on the west coast but will be the first local example in the Washington region. Bike boulevards are streets that cars and bikes share, but on which car traffic is calmed in order to optimize the street for bikes.

Do you know of other solutions for mixing bikes and streetcars? Surely there must be some interesting examples from Europe. Please share your photos and ideas in the comments.

It looked like the scene was under control, but the crowd was looking inward, away from traffic, so I jumped in to direct drivers and cyclists around the site. I also tried to flag down the police, but the 3 patrol cars that passed by ignored our waving and yelling.

The injured cyclist had been riding as far to the right as possible when she was struck. Ron Knox confirmed that she was so far to the right that she was lying with one of her legs in the storm drain.

While it's always safer to take the whole lane, which is a bicyclist's right, I can't say I blame her. The traffic on L was heavy and chaotic, with bicyclists and cars both weaving through or between lanes. The cycle track isn't complete on that block, and the incomplete portion still looks more like a hazard than a feature.

Two other people joined me to form a phalanx against traffic. I asked one of them how long they'd been waiting for an ambulance. About 6 minutes, he said, and it was at least another 2 until an FEMS SUV pulled up and an EMT took over.

With the FEMS vehicle blocking the right lane and an ambulance within earshot, my work was finished and I started home. I tweeted the incident with the #bikedc hashtag, which alerted advocates and traffic watchers in the press that something had happened, and wondered what lessons to take from the mess.

Tips to avoid a crash, or react to one once it happens

If you're bicycling, take the lane. If you're riding with traffic on downtown streets, ride a little bit left of the center of the lane to ensure drivers have to pass you like they would another vehicle. They might get upset, but you're safer there than in the gutter.

Drivers need to give bicyclists clearance when they don't take the lane. DC requires drivers to pass with at least 3 feet, to cut down on the odds of a side-swipe. Given how far over the crashed bicyclist was riding, it seems likely she wasn't afforded those 3 feet.

For anyone who might be a bystander, rehearse what to do in a crash. Just being mentally prepared for the situation can help keep you calm and in control. There's no need to command a situation if people are already acting, but just standing by to help as needed can be enough.

Lastly, tweet it, if you can, ideally with a picture. Mention @struckdc, a Twitter account that tracks crashes, and #bikedc if it's bicycle-related. Spreading the word lets other travelers know to avoid the area and lets advocates know to follow up. It's embarrassing to lie injured on the road with strangers standing around and tweeting, but crashes shouldn't happen to begin with. Advocates keep the narrative of those struck and injured alive, and people need to know when the street design and traffic patterns make them too dangerous.

I'd also like to know more about why the police didn't stop or respond to the crash. When the 911 call goes out for an ambulance, police ought to respond to the scene as well to take witness accounts, interview the driver, and take over the crowd while waiting for medical personnel. Police also typically stop when bystanders try to wave them down, so hopefully these particular cars were responding to another, even more urgent call, or had another reason not to stop.

Cyclists and advocates, motivated by crashes like this, have pushed for safer bike infrastructure like the L Street cycletrack. It, and its twin on M Street, can't come online soon enough.

The video argues that the country was on the path of wider and wider roads and more driving following World War II, but after the pedestrian death toll started to mount, especially among children, residents demanded another transportation approach.

Why didn't the same happen here? The US is much larger, and during the interstate highway building boom, most of the roads were going in areas with few or no pedestrians. That would have meant a very different political dynamic around a national policy of road-building.

However, even in the cities there wasn't this push for bicycle infrastructure until fairly recently. Why not? Perhaps that is because the politically powerful classes at the time were moving to suburbs and not caring about the cities? What do you think?

Americans might not have made a fuss about the hazards of poor road design or reckless driving 50 years ago, but some are today. Cyclists rallied on Pennsylvania Avenue Friday to raise awareness of the dangers of illegal U-turns on Pennsylvania Avenue. Local bike shop BicycleSpace organized the event, and officers from the Metropolitan Police Department attended to speak with cyclists about how they can enforce the law.

Jaffe wrote:

As a cyclist, I am overjoyed. When the city creates a matching bike lane on M Street, perhaps in early 2013, I will be able to commute from home to work in dedicated bike lanes. But as a driver, I question whether it's fair to autos. I see it creating miles of traffic if cops allow double parking, and I fear accidents if cyclists and drivers don't respect one another. Bikers always lose.

He seems to be saying we shouldn't install any bike lanes because the city might not enforce the laws, or drivers might drive dangerously. Maybe bikers do always lose—if we can't try to make streets safer for them because other people might misbehave.

Brian attended a lunch briefing yesterday with Martha Roskowski of the Green Lane Project and officials from the District Department of Transportation (DDOT). Jim Sebastian and Mike Godono of DDOT said that bicycle use on 15th Street NW has increased 272% since they installed the cycle track there, and 200% on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Bike crashes have remained steady, in spite of the increased numbers of riders, and there have been no additional pedestrian or car crashes as a result of the protected lanes. According to DDOT's evaluation, the lanes' impact on car traffic on 15th Street and on Pennsylvania Avenue has been negligible.

The Green Lane Project supports cities building separated "cycle tracks," like the one on L. Unlike standard familiar bike lanes, separated cycle tracks place some kind of barrier between cyclists and other road users, such as plastic bollards, raised curbs, parked cars and more. The group believes that providing a protected space for bicyclists on the roadway will make streets safer and also entice the 60% of potential cyclists who are "interested but concerned."

Furthermore, by separating bicyclists from car traffic, these kinds of lanes will create a predictable place for drivers to expect to see cyclists. Separating bike traffic from car traffic will reduce conflicts between drivers and cyclists and allowing each kind of vehicle to travel at its appropriate speed. With more road users on bicycles, this should reduce congestion for drivers as well.

These reasons show why the bikes-vs-cars tradeoff Jaffe and Townsend set out is a false one. More people bicycling means that drivers have fewer other cars to compete with. Bikes take up far less space, even when they get a lane-wide cycletrack on a few roads. Bike lanes even get bikes out of drivers' way in many cases.

In a video report for NBC Washington that also plays up the conflict, Adam Tuss quotes a driver who complains about how he was driving down L Street "behind a bicyclist going 5 miles an hour dead in the middle of the lane, and traffic is backed up all behind him." Later, the same driver suggests ticketing bicyclists who don't use the bike lanes, and then, "I'm saying a lot of bicyclists don't follow the rules."

Actually, it's completely legal to drive in the middle of the lane, and in fact that's the recommended safest practice. Riding in a bike lane is also not required. Perhaps it's the driver who needs to learn the rules, but building this bike lane could move a lot of cyclists out of car lanes, just what this driver wants.

It's time to not just stop with the "war on cars" theme, but also its cousins, Townsend's "I'm not saying war on cars but ..." and "bikes are squeezing out cars" from Jaffe's headline.

WABA put out an action alert asking residents to email Mayor Gray, DDOT Director Terry Bellamy, and Sebastian to thank them for building the L Street bike lane. It can't hurt to also encourage them to quickly follow up with its planned twin on M Street. Please send them that message, and prevent the cars vs. bikes false choice from jeopardizing a very important project.

Cyclists have been pleading for action against dangerous and illegal U-turns on Pennsyl­vania Avenue for some time. Justin Antos captured a recent U-turn on his camera as well, and many cyclists have reported the similar experiences using the #stoputurnsonpenn hashtag.

Councilmember Tommy Wells wants to stop the practice. His staff have obtained crash reports from DDOT for Pennsylvania Avenue and have been analyzing them for some time. Based on those reports, it appears that U-turns are by far the most common cause of bicycle-related crashes in the Pennsylvania Avenue lanes.

Here is the police narrative from one report, for a crash on October 27, 2010, where a taxi driver injured a cyclist:

DRIVER #1 STATES WHILE HEADING EAST BOUND IN THE 600 BLOCK OF PENNSYLVANIA AVE NW HE ATTEMPTED TO MAKE A U-TURN AND STRUCK VEHICLE #2 [A BICYCLE]. DRIVER #1 STATED THAT HE DID NOT SEE THE PERSON ON THE BIKE WHEN HE TURNED.

THE DRIVER OF THE BICYCLE STATED THAT ALL HE REMEMBERS WAS BEING STRUCK BY A VEHICLE AND DID NOT KNOW WHERE THE VEHICLE CAME FROM.

THE DRIVER OF THE BICYCLE WAS IN THE BIKE LANE WHEN HE WAS STRUCK, THE BIKE LANE IS A UNPROTECTED MEDIAN FOR BICYCLE TRAVEL.

WITNESS #1 A DC POLICE OFFICER WHO WAS IN A MARKED PATROL WAGON WAS BEHIND VEHICLE #1 AND STATED THAT HE SAW VEHICLE #1 MAKE A U-TURN AND STRIKE THE PERSON ON THE BICYCLE.

THE PASSENGER IN VEHICLE #1 STATED THAT SHEN [SIC] THE CAB PICKED HER UP HE WAS TALKING ON HIS CELL PHONE WHILE DRIVING AND THAT WHEN HE STRUCK THE PERSON ON THE BIKE HE MAY STILL HAVE BEEN ON HIS CELL PHONE.

Solutions: Enforcement? Bollards?

What can be done? Police could more strictly enforce the no-U-turn rules, and DDOT could add more clear signs or markings. Walsh himself made this suggestion:

Most of the crash reports Wells' office provided show that police did indeed ticket drivers for U-turns after crashes, at least when it was clear from the driver's statements or witnesses that a U-turn was involved. The fact that many drivers admitted to the U-turn may tell us that drivers don't realize it's illegal or unsafe, and the right signs might help.

On the other hand, police don't seem to ticket drivers for U-turns when there's no crash, and many federal and local police cruisers often actually park right in the lanes.

Darren Buck suggested more plastic stanchions or "flexposts." There are already short sets of these at each corner to make it clear to drivers that they shouldn't use the bike lane as a turn lane, but their absence in the center seems to give drivers license to make U-turns:

Earlier plans for the bike lanes included bollards along the whole length of the blocks, but the Commission on Fine Arts, a federal panel which reviews projects on federal land an in key areas near federal property, wasn't thrilled:

The Commission approved the proposed design without colored pavement on the bicycle lanes or median, noting the importance of the avenue's design character as a prominent visual symbol of the nation. The Commission also recommended against the installation of reflective plastic stanchions, commenting that these would be intrusive and incompatible elements in this iconic streetscape.

DDOT ultimately decided to go ahead with some stanchions at the corners anyway, apparently believing this was a reasonable compromise between CFA's desire to keep objects out of Pennsylvania Avenue and safety. It may be time to revisit that decision and install stanchions mid-block.

Wells says he's asked Chief Cathy Lanier for more enforcement, as has Jack Evans, who said MPD "has promised additional enforcement for cabs and all cars."

Any physical changes, Wells points out, will probably not happen until after the Inauguration in January, when all of the traffic signals and other objects on Pennsylvania Avenue get taken out for the parade. DDOT will have to re-install the existing bollards at at that time, which would make it a perfect opportunity to put more bollards in while they already have crews out there.

The intersection of Bethesda and Woodmont Avenues is the best-known place in downtown Bethesda. Located a few blocks from the Metro, it is surrounded by shops, offices, movie theaters and apartments. A complex mix of motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians traverse it every day.

Faced with the problem of managing traffic while a large mixed-use development goes up, the county took a standard traffic engineering approach. It treated the crossroads as an intersection consisting of 3 roads that carry cars and sought to eliminate "conflicts" by removing obstacles to automobile movement.

But Bethesda & Woodmont is also a major travel node for bicycles—vehicles too—which arrive on two other routes, the Capital Crescent and Georgetown Branch Trails. Suburban traffic engineering concepts, applied in this highly urban setting, have made a mess for pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists alike.

A 20-month road closure began 3 weeks ago. Woodmont Avenue, which crosses the construction site, had one block shut completely. On Bethesda Avenue, MCDOT removed turn lanes and eliminated a section of sidewalk. It moved back stop lines for the traffic light, sending bicycles exiting the Capital Crescent Trail directly into the intersection.

Problems quickly emerged. Because motorists can no longer use Woodmont Avenue to reach Bethesda Row from the south, Bethesda Avenue carries more traffic than before. Traffic on that newly narrowed road regularly backs up.

Closing a section of Woodmont shut down an important pedestrian corridor, which connects a densely populated apartment district with downtown Bethesda and the Metro station. Pedestrians now detour through a drive-through bank.

In addition, Bethesda Avenue has foot traffic of its own. A 190-unit apartment building (where I live), stores, and restaurants adjacent to the closed sidewalk generate significant pedestrian activity. Yet the traffic plan did not replace the crosswalk lost to construction. Pedestrians now dodge cars as they cross the street.

One cause of these difficulties is that the county did not retime traffic lights. A longer green light could move through traffic faster on Bethesda Ave. But with this fix alone, turning cars would still back up at crosswalks. And faster-moving traffic would endanger pedestrians crossing Bethesda Avenue and bicyclists leaving the trails.

The traffic engineers, focused as usual on cars, made another, more fundamental mistake. They ignored the movement of bicycles between the trail and the roadways. The great majority of weekday cyclists go from the trail into the traffic lanes. The new traffic pattern endangers these cyclists with a signal that sends them into moving auto traffic.

Also, the construction traffic pattern continues the county's ongoing disregard for the safety and convenience of pedestrians. There may not be room for a temporary walkway next to the construction, but a crosswalk could have been marked where the sidewalk ends on Bethesda Avenue. Instead, the county erected a "Sidewalk Closed" sign a block away, needlessly driving away walk-in customers that the street's businesses depend on.

This construction project cries out for innovative traffic management. A two-phase traffic signal could fix many of the problems pedestrians and cyclists face during the construction. One phase would be green for all pedestrian crossings and for bicycles entering from the trails, making the intersection much safer and more convenient.

The other phase would be a flashing yellow that allows cars to move slowly through the intersection in all directions. The significant reduction of traffic on Woodmont Avenue since the closure of the block south of the intersection could make this feasible. Pedestrians and cyclists would be much better off, and auto traffic would back up less.

That might or might not be the best solution. What is certain is the need for more multimodal thinking. In this sort of urban setting, traditional traffic engineering fails pedestrians and cyclists, and hurts motorists too.

Both options would limit traffic in the block of 15th from V to W only 2 lanes, moving back the 3-lane to 2-lane merge point to the block between U and V. At W Street, one lane would continue up the hill on 15th, while the other would let drivers turn right onto either Florida Avenue or W, in more of a traditional intersection.

The 2 options only differ in the location of the newly-created green space. One option puts it mostly on the east side of the street, while the other divides new green space between the east and west sides.

These options have safety trade-offs. Keeping the roadway on the left (left-hand image) makes the lane shift on 15th more gradual and makes speeding easier, but it also allows for a larger triangular pedestrian island in the middle of the intersection. Shifting the roadway to the right (right-hand image) forces drivers on 15th to slow down more as they approach the hill, but leaves a smaller pedestrian island.

Both proposals add numerous bulb-outs at the crosswalks just as the agency has included on H Street NE and other places around town. In these places, the curb juts out toward the travel lane and reduces the distance pedestrians must spend vulnerable in the roadway while crossing the street.

The design also extends the 15th Street cycle track into this area. Right now, the 2-way track ends at V Street. Riders heading northbound have to cut across traffic to a bike lane on the east side of the street (or just share the lane), while riders southbound can't legally use 15th in this area (though many do anyway).

The part of 15th going up Meridian Hill now has two bike lanes, both northbound, one on each side of the street. DDOT's original hopes for the 2-way 15th Street cycle track included having it stretch to Euclid, the northern edge of the park. DDOT bicycle program head Jim Sebastian says that when DDOT rebuilds the "Death Star" intersection, they will also complete a continuous 2-way bicycle facility from U to Euclid.

DDOT could just build the cycle track in this intersection along the edge of the roadway, separated with poles, as with the rest of the cycle track today. Other options, though, elevate it up to sidewalk level like many European cities do. The tree boxes would still separate the track from the sidewalk, but then one of a few different curb treatments would divide it from the roadway.

At the meeting, DDOT planner Gabriela Vega said the agency was still weighing the pros and cons of the last three designs' barriers between the cycle track and the parking lane. The barriers in the last three designs all include permeable pavers that allow the ground to absorb more stormwater.

Renderings show treeboxes between the sidewalks and streets including rain gardens to trap stormwater and "flow-through planters," where water that lands in one treebox can gradually flow to the next as it runs downhill, feeding more than one tree.

If those treatments make the trees extremely verdant, the intersection could ultimately look something like this:

Even while the trees are growing, it'd be a huge improvement over today:

Many years ago, DDOT had considered an unsignalized roundabout for the intersection. In 2008 we published a proposal of what that might look like. Back then, the agency responded that they had dropped the idea of a roundabout.

When asked at Wednesday's meeting why a roundabout was not under consideration, Vega said DDOT's traffic models showed that a roundabout could not accommodate the traffic volumes of both 15th Street and W Street.

The designs DDOT presented are preliminary concepts. The agency will update the ANC again in a few months with refinements. DDOT is still seeking input, especially on the cycle track separation options and the roadway alignment options mentioned above.