Here's another radical thought: Protected bike lanes on every main road

[davideinstein]

QUESTION:

Are bike lanes really necessary on smaller capacity streets. I ask because the traffic on these streets is often so low that I see cyclists mixing in with auto traffic and it doesn't seem to cause a problem. The street below isn't a main street but it is a neighborhood street that is used quit a bit that would seem logical for bike users as it heads directly to the center of the city. Would a protected lane be necessary. Or on the street below that. It looks the same, however this street connects eventually to the east side of town and it also goes by two schools (the high school and a middle school). The traffic speed is dramatically higher. Riding a bike on this street would not be something I would care to do that often. What do the road diet guides suggest for these types of streets?

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bartlesville,+OK/@36.7436439,-95.9790267,3a,75y,19.95h,92.22t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sUOXT2gL6q5KQ_CFQLe4BNQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DUOXT2gL6q5KQ_CFQLe4BNQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dsearch.TACTILE.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D392%26h%3D106%26yaw%3D191.10358%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656!4m2!3m1!1s0x87b7124f36c7bdf1:0xdef002e0d528a136!6m1!1e1

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bartlesville,+OK/@36.7390697,-95.9751383,3a,75y,4.98h,90.35t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1scFHH6TYBNWGDsHwBs2UgYw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DcFHH6TYBNWGDsHwBs2UgYw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dsearch.TACTILE.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D392%26h%3D106%26yaw%3D355.9743%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656!4m2!3m1!1s0x87b7124f36c7bdf1:0xdef002e0d528a136!6m1!1e1

Only main roads and heavy residential roads need bike lanes.

[erfalf]

If traffic is moving fairly slowly (like 25 MPH), a painted bike lane might be all it takes to make cyclists feel safe (you can always paint an extra "buffer" line to give some extra elbow room between bikes and cars).

This is certainly the case for the first example (and for all downtown streets), however the second one is much higher speed believe it or not. I believe the posted speed is 30 however there is no on street parking so it is rarely observed. I see cars zipping through this corridor at 40 mph plus and often. I'm ok just not designating it a bike lane (even though I think there may be a sign here and there indicating as much, but no street markings), and making the primary north south another calmer street. However it would be nice to figure out ways to calm this street down some. I assume the parking was eliminated due to fire/bussing issues, but I can't say that for a fact. It is no wider than any of the other neighborhood streets, however all other streets yield to this one. So it is taken advantage of. Of course I guess I prefer it compared to what they did to 7th Street (Adams Blvd). They turned a little city street into a four lane state highway. And didn't remove any homes around it. At least they made the lanes super narrow so people really don't speed excessively (although that was probably out of necessity more than planning on reducing speeds).

[cannon_fodder]

That would probably work fine. Assuming there isn't a stop sign every other block, it appears those streets don't. But if there are too many stop signs on the route, you find the tendency to ignore them grows (most cars are only hitting the stop signs until they get to a arterial street and then get out of there. If you route bikes into a stop sign forest it is basically forcing them to sprint, stop, sprint stop, and most will get frustrated and stop using the route or dangerously ignore them).

In Tulsa, 3rd is a "Bike Route" or "Share the Road" path, from Pittsburgh until you hit the Blue Dome district. About three miles. It is a 4 lane commercial street that is under utilized and sees heavy bus traffic. I've ridden it dozens of times without any incident, frequently taking up the entire right lane in side by side with someone.

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.1562893,-95.9444787,3a,75y,274.85h,64.75t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sSQk5-vtIpyUSGfA5iBraHg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.1567041,-95.9749278,3a,75y,265.52h,87.71t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s_915ZRxdK_Cl-ePaZZ52Jw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.1566233,-95.961827,3a,75y,294.21h,65.68t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s2W-08YIGVZoQdddKdsQmqA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

Before hitting 3rd (it actually starts off as 4th then merges over, but...) you are on Pittsburgh, a residential street that goes past the fairgrounds and under a highway (again, it jobs off a block and then back, but...). I've ridden that dozens of times with no incident. Before that you have 36th Street. A rather busy 2 lane road with limited traffic controls and most places requiring cars to carefully pass. I've ridden that hundreds of times and had few issues. (using 3rd, pittsburgh, and 36th I can make a nice loop through downtown, usually with a stretch down the Katy Trail to Sand Springs)

Google has a great "bike route" map where you can plainly see the loop I'm talking about.


I try to be a courteous cyclist. I stop at stop signs to the same extent as most motorists (which is to say a rolling stop but where I could stop at a moment if I need to and yield the right away to other motorists). I don't alternate between "bike" and "car" mode to gain advantages. I try to get over to let cars pass when safe, and when not safe I will pull over if traffic gets backed up for very long.

And in my ~2000 miles of cycling on Tulsa streets, I've notice mostly the same issues I do as when I'm in the car. People not looking ("look to the left you idiot, look, look look... thank you!"). People pulling out and making you hit your brakes. People running red lights after a 3 count.

It is rare for people to disregard me because I'm on a bike. Even in my SUV I drive like everyone wants to kill me. BUT... .on my bike, they certainly would. So I'm happy to assume the idiot not looking at me isn't going to and just go ahead and slow down as needed. Then scream at them if they do pull out or give them a look of disgust if they look just at the last second.  

[Bamboo World]

Here are a few photos, so cyclists can dream of other places to live...

Excellent photos, PonderInc.  This one shows an offset in a bike lane.  Since there are existing curb extensions on the east side of Boulder at 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Streets, offsets in the proposed cycle track could be used at those locations.

See my February 16, 2016 reply on "Downtown Development Overview."

http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/index.php?topic=21006.480

[Vashta Nerada]

May I add to Cannon's notion of inattentive drivers:  Insensitive drivers.

Once people are in their steel, plastic, and aluminum cage, they cease to see other drivers, only vehicles.  They forget that's someone else's husband, wife, daughter, son, brother, sister, etc. behind the wheel or riding on those other vehicles on the road.  There seems to be little concern for the human life that is either riding in or powering that vehicle.

Yet one more reason I seldom ride my motorcycles and my road riding on a bicycle is very limited these days.

To wit:



 



City settles lawsuit for $350K after police patrol-car wreck with motorcycle

The city of Tulsa has settled a lawsuit for $350,000 with victims of a wreck that occurred when a Tulsa Police officer pulled into traffic and collided head-on with a motorcycle in 2013.
The case was settled in February and is up for City Council approval next week.

Scott and Bobbie Keeter, both 48, were riding a motorcycle north on Delaware Avenue near 116th Place on Nov. 2, 2013, when Officer Tyrone Jenkins, responding to an emergency call, crossed their path, according to the lawsuit.
Michelle McGrew, senior assistant city attorney, said Jenkins had turned into the sun and didn't see the Keeters.

Jenkins is no longer with the department.

"This is a clear liability case," McGrew said. "They were thrown from the motorcycle and suffered horrible injuries."

McGrew said each has permanent, partial disabilities and is not able to work.

Medical costs to date have exceeded $500,000 for the Keeters — not accounting for future lost wages, McGrew said.

The settlement will pay out $175,000 to each, which is the statutory limit, McGrew said.

[Breadburner]

To wit:



 



City settles lawsuit for $350K after police patrol-car wreck with motorcycle

The city of Tulsa has settled a lawsuit for $350,000 with victims of a wreck that occurred when a Tulsa Police officer pulled into traffic and collided head-on with a motorcycle in 2013.
The case was settled in February and is up for City Council approval next week.

Scott and Bobbie Keeter, both 48, were riding a motorcycle north on Delaware Avenue near 116th Place on Nov. 2, 2013, when Officer Tyrone Jenkins, responding to an emergency call, crossed their path, according to the lawsuit.
Michelle McGrew, senior assistant city attorney, said Jenkins had turned into the sun and didn't see the Keeters.

Jenkins is no longer with the department.

"This is a clear liability case," McGrew said. "They were thrown from the motorcycle and suffered horrible injuries."

McGrew said each has permanent, partial disabilities and is not able to work.

Medical costs to date have exceeded $500,000 for the Keeters — not accounting for future lost wages, McGrew said.

The settlement will pay out $175,000 to each, which is the statutory limit, McGrew said.

You are truly an idiot....

[PonderInc]

Whenever Tulsa talks about how we can't have protected bike lanes downtown, because we need all those lanes for traffic...

Here's downtown Chicago.  I'm pretty sure they have more traffic than we do.


They have a mix of bike lanes, some one-way and others two-way.  In general the lanes are buffered with stripes and posts.



And here's how the BRT users cross the bike lane:

[Bamboo World]

Thanks again for the excellent photos, PonderInc.

Here's downtown Chicago.  I'm pretty sure they have more traffic than we do.

Those two are looking west on Washington, between Dearborn and Clark.

I haven't been to Chicago recently, so I checked Google Maps to see the changes on this street.  Until 2014, there were five moving traffic lanes on this block of Washington: three for vehicles heading east and two for left turns onto Dearborn.  According to Google Maps, the curbs are about 49 feet apart on this block.  Many streets in downtown Tulsa are 56 feet wide, curb to curb, in an 80 foot wide right of way.

They have a mix of bike lanes, some one-way and others two-way.  In general the lanes are buffered with stripes and posts.

That's around the corner on Dearborn, looking south between Madison and Monroe.

For a comparison, look at the October 2011 Google Maps Street View.  Notice the curbside parking where the bike lane is now.  Also, there are many more bike racks now than there were then.

The curbs on this block of Dearborn are about 49 feet apart.  Compare Chicago's Dearborn Street shown in PonderInc's photo (four lanes of one-way vehicular traffic, a buffer strip, and a dedicated two-way bike lane in a 49-foot roadway) to Tulsa's Second Street near Frisco Avenue (two lanes of one-way vehicular traffic, plus curbside parking on the south side of the street in a 46-foot roadway) or Tulsa's Eighth Street between Cheyenne and Boulder (four lanes of one-way vehicular traffic in a 46-foot wide roadway).

Downtown Tulsa doesn't have the volume of traffic to warrant the number of moving vehicular lanes on most streets, and the wide lanes (about 15 to 23 feet wide on Second Street near Frisco and about 11 to 12 feet, average, on Eighth Street) encourage speeding.  Lanes nine or ten feet wide would be adequate, and safer.  

[cannon_fodder]

Most roads downtown have 2 or even 3 times more lanes than they need. A road with one lane in each direction can handle 10k cars a day. There are two roads downtown that handle more cars than that - the exit onto 7th and the entrance to the BA on Cinci. Even then, those choke points fan out within a few blocks.

https://www.cityoftulsa.org/media/431784/2014%20Traffic%20Counts%20Downtown.pdf

There  is no reason we need 4 lanes on Boulder and 4 lanes on 2nd. In fact, traffic engineering reports seem to indicate we don't really need 4 lanes to handle the traffic covered by BOTH roads (combined < 10k cars per day). So we have 8 lanes of traffic doing the work of 2. That story repeats itself on most of our downtown streets.

Saying we don't have room isn't part of the debate. Are they needed/worth the investment on every street? That's worth discussion.

[Bamboo World]

Most roads downtown have 2 or even 3 times more lanes than they need. A road with one lane in each direction can handle 10k cars a day. There are two roads downtown that handle more cars than that - the exit onto 7th and the entrance to the BA on Cinci. Even then, those choke points fan out within a few blocks.

https://www.cityoftulsa.org/media/431784/2014%20Traffic%20Counts%20Downtown.pdf

Any idea why there was such a large variation between 2013 and 2014 on 11th Street below the East Leg?  Traffic circle at 10th/11th/Elgin?  Nearby closures/construction?  Special events when the counts were recorded?

[Bamboo World]

https://www.cityoftulsa.org/media/431784/2014%20Traffic%20Counts%20Downtown.pdf

Also, it would be useful if the City would indicate the proper street directions on their traffic count map.  Only the one-ways need be shown, or maybe a few two-ways where they transition to/from one-ways.

Cheyenne and Boulder are not one-way streets between 1st and Archer, as indicated on the map.  3rd is not one-way west of Denver, as indicated on the map.  Main is not one-way south of 6th, as indicated on the map.

After looking at the City's map, and after reading the notes (which are disclaimers), I'm wondering how much time and money the City spent to create the map, and why.  What's the purpose of the map?  Why indicate one-way streets which don't exist?  Why show traffic counts that can't be guaranteed (at least to some degree, by citing the raw data and recording methodology)?

[Conan71]

Most roads downtown have 2 or even 3 times more lanes than they need. A road with one lane in each direction can handle 10k cars a day. There are two roads downtown that handle more cars than that - the exit onto 7th and the entrance to the BA on Cinci. Even then, those choke points fan out within a few blocks.

https://www.cityoftulsa.org/media/431784/2014%20Traffic%20Counts%20Downtown.pdf

There  is no reason we need 4 lanes on Boulder and 4 lanes on 2nd. In fact, traffic engineering reports seem to indicate we don't really need 4 lanes to handle the traffic covered by BOTH roads (combined < 10k cars per day). So we have 8 lanes of traffic doing the work of 2. That story repeats itself on most of our downtown streets.

Saying we don't have room isn't part of the debate. Are they needed/worth the investment on every street? That's worth discussion.

I suspect 2nd Street was originally laid out four lanes one way eastbound was due to it being the connector to the NE corner of the IDL for people getting out of downtown at peak times, just like Cincinnati for the SE corner.  Remember, when the IDL was conceived and executed, Tulsa was doing auto-centric development because there was such high demand for suburbs.

Obviously, the city has figured out 2nd street isn't carrying that high of volume since they've choked it down with on-street parking and back in parking around Elgin.

Developers went where consumer demand was and the city went right along with it.

[Bamboo World]

I suspect 2nd Street was originally laid out four lanes one way eastbound was due to it being the connector to the NE corner of the IDL for people getting out of downtown at peak times, just like Cincinnati for the SE corner.

Yes, 1st and 2nd acted as a pair of one-way streets with on/off ramps at the west and east legs of the IDL.  With the closure of 2nd between Frisco and Denver for the BOK Center, its one-way east-bound traffic flow was broken.  Considering the number of lanes on 1st and 2nd, neither carries very much traffic, really.  See "The One-Way Epidemic" on pages 177-181 in Jeff Speck's Walkable City for a criticism of one-way streets in American cities.

Remember, when the IDL was conceived and executed, Tulsa was doing auto-centric development because there was such high demand for suburbs.

The IDL was conceived by the 1940s.  Tulsa had a much denser urban core at the time, with many people living downtown and in the surrounding neighborhoods nearby.  Voters rejected the concept of an expressway system and IDL because the proposed new highways through the city were seen as too destructive to the existing urban fabric.

There was a lag of several decades between the concept of the IDL and its actual construction.  Tulsa has been stuck in an auto-centric, anti-pedestrian mindset for about 90 years -- long before the IDL was conceived, and even now, about 35 years after its completion.

[Bamboo World]

Saying we don't have room [for protected bike lanes] isn't part of the debate. Are they needed/worth the investment on every street? That's worth discussion.

In my opinion, they're not needed or worth the investment on every street downtown.  Part of the recent discussion has been about the proposed cycle track on Boulder.  What happened to the idea of a fixed rail transit system on Boulder through the downtown?  Would there be any conflict between a cycle track and light rail on Boulder?  If so, could the cycle track go on Cheyenne instead of Boulder?

If a cycle track is built on Boulder, will it wiggle and offset at intersections with curb extensions, or will the curb extensions (which aren't very old) be removed or modified to accommodate the cycle track?

To me, what appears to be missing is an overall inter-modal traffic concept for downtown Tulsa.  I know plans can be changed and that they do change over time, but most of the recent downtown street projects seem disjointed to me.  What's the idea, other than plunking down acorn lights, illegal curb ramps, faux brick crosswalks, and multi-space parking meters?

[PonderInc]

What's sad is that any time you talk about adding a bike lane or converting one-way streets to two-way, the engineers require expensive traffic studies.  The studies, of course, show that you would lose your A+ "level of service" (ie: cars flow unimpeded everywhere, but no other criteria counts).  Then, they take those results to the DCC or whatever, and people who obviously care about their GPA say "well, we don't want to make a C on that test!"  Even though it's a stupid test that you SHOULD fail, if you care about the experience of pedestrians, cyclists, transit users, and economic development.

If you are building a highway, then yes, the speed and efficiency of traffic flow is important.  If you're building a neighborhood that is a destination, your goals will be different and incompatible with those of a highway.

The other thing that cracks me up is that whenever we have road construction downtown, we close off two lanes of traffic...and it's FINE!  Nobody does an expensive study to make sure that it's OK to close those lanes, we just do it.  And life goes on.  Maybe people don't drive 35 on the downtown street.  Maybe they only drive 25.  Gosh, that sounds ideal!  So let's have dedicated transit and bike lanes.  Our goal as a city should not be that of a toilet, where we want to be able to flush out completely and fast.  Our goal should be to make it convenient and safe to walk, bike and use transit, which will not only make downtown more pleasant, it will enable us to utilize vast tracts of land currently wasted on surface parking lots that are somewhat full for a few hours each day.

PS, thanks Bamboo, for the comparisons in Chicago!