filed under Daily Dose | Election 2008
Tonight: Bike lane smack-down
3:41PM ON
10/15/2008
BY
Daily Dose
(Beth already posted below, but this is the post from 10 days ago, with the long comments string.)
From Eric Weis:
A neighborhood meeting has been scheduled for discussion of the Blackstone Blvd bike lanes (and more): Wednesday, October 15, 6:30 to 8 pm, at School One (corner of Slater Ave and University Ave, Providence).
Please come to show support for this facility, as well as others currently planned.
We all know that the anti-bike, cars-only crowd will be in attendance to call for removal of the bike lane striping. It is critical that as many pro-bike voices as possible are in attendance. Please share this message with others who favor progressive transportation policies, neighborhood improvement strategies, and enhanced public health.
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:05PM
Marc Says:
Howdy. I just want to say that I myself am a biker, and I bike down the boulevard to get from work in the jewelry district to home in downtown Pawtucket all the time, as well as to get to most places in Providence. I think the bike lane on the boulevard is lame. Bike lanes, in my opinion, are to make things better for bikers in areas where bikes and cars contend for the road. The boulevard is a nice, wide-open two-lane road with ample buffers on both sides, there never was any -need- for a bike lane there. Now instead of a two-lane road with adequate room for bikes and parking, we have a -one- lane road with a wide bike path and adequate room for parking. We got a bike lane, but we lost a lane for cars!
I don’t know if you’ve ever -driven- down the boulevard, but I do quite a bit of that, too. Now it’s impossible to bypass any of those folks who like to ride the brake or drive at five miles-per-hour under the limit.
I like bike lanes, I think Providence needs more of them, but only in places where they make sense or there are statistically more bike-car accidents.
I feel that the bike lane on Blackstone boulevard ‘fixes’ a problem that never existed, instead of addressing the issue in places where it would actually matter.
Why not a bike lane on Hope Street, through Thayer and to Wickenden? Or ones on Washington St. and Dorrance downtown? Or Angell St.? Those are places where bikes and cars regularly compete for real-estate.
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October 3rd, 2008 at 3:37PM
Ryan Says:
This guy is right. In fact, it seems like the blackstone bike lane just sort of makes bike lanes look bad in general, since there is really no need for one there and it just annoys people. Just because you support bike lanes doesn’t mean you should defend them in every possible circumstance.
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October 3rd, 2008 at 3:54PM
mickey z Says:
yeah, i totally agree. i don’t own a car and i bike down blackstone pretty often (to get to job lot, duh) and at first i thought the bike lane was cool, but now it actually feels sort of LESS safe with a bike lane… especially since drivers get confused and tend to drive in the parking lane to pass other cars, so sometimes i get sandwiched between two moving cars, which is totally scary. also, barely ANYBODY parks on blackstone except at the beginning and the end of it, so it’s like the parking lane is basically a bike lane anyway.
but seriously, bike lanes in places where bike lanes are needed!!!
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October 4th, 2008 at 1:07PM
Kate Says:
I completely agree with these three commenters. I am a road bicyclist, and I think that to take the stand that bike lanes are automatically good, anywhere you put them, does a disservice to bicyclists. This one was not needed, it’s confusing to both drivers and bicyclists, and on top of that it is ugly. The Boulevard was conceived as a beautiful park-like area that brings some nature into the city to the benefit of all. Now it is cluttered with an inordinate amount of signs, and the striping is an eyesore. One more piece of Providence’s visual heritage has been tarnished and for no good reason.
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October 4th, 2008 at 3:46PM
Shriram Krishnamurthi Says:
In general I’m a proponent of vehicular cycling, and don’t much like bike lanes. It’s also certainly possible to take issue with various specifics of the Blackstone lane, and goodness knows I’ve written at length to our city transportation officials about specifics.
All that said, as someone who puts in hundreds of miles on Blackstone every year, I strongly welcome it. I’m clearly not alone, given the greater number and, even more so, vastly greater types of cyclists I now see using it.
What I really wish is that they would actually finish what they began—e.g., marking the parking lane as such—and resume enforcing speed limits, which they seem to have summarily stopped doing since the lane went into effect.
Good on you, Providence. Stick with it. Besides, this way all the locals get another point of reference when giving directions: “where the other car lane used to be”.
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October 4th, 2008 at 4:13PM
Bruce Says:
I am glad to see that I am not the only cyclist that thinks the Boulevard lane is a bad thing.
It is not needed there. It is not useful there.
I think I see fewer riders on the Boulevard now. Certainly fewer fitness and recreational riders. My friends who commute on the lane have not been impressed.
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October 4th, 2008 at 10:05PM
joe bernstein Says:
The bike lane is inviting a bad accident.Drivers have to cross it at an angle to park,at a right angle to turn,etc which may cause “blind spot” accidents with cyclists.This is a case of fixing something that wasn’t broken.
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October 5th, 2008 at 7:48AM
Kate Says:
From what I have read in the East Side Monthly, the Boulevard bike lane was pushed through after the city held a poorly advertised mid-summer “public meeting” which only the lane’s supporters seemed to find out about. This was after the idea of such a lane had been consistently opposed at more generally attended meetings over several years. Whether such an override was intentional or not, it shows a lack of understanding of the issue of bike travel, which is far more complex than just, “Biking is ‘green,’ and we like biking, so let’s put in a bike lane!” That kind of simplistic thinking can do more harm than good, as it has done here.
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October 5th, 2008 at 8:55AM
Shriram Krishnamurthi Says:
Kate:
I wasn’t at the meeting, and I don’t make policy decisions. Yet your comments are over the top.
The lane was not put in simply because of some knee-jerk opinion that “biking is green”. It was put in for several reasons, but amongst them was traffic calming on a road that has gradually gone from a neighborhood street to something closer to a highway. So don’t impute motives before getting your facts straight.
As for the “more harm than good, as it has done here”, what harm has it done, precisely? I mean harm (your choice of word, not mine)—not alteration, not potential for changes in the future, not act-contrary-to-my-wishes, not inconvenience, but harm?
I use Blackstone as a driver, walker, runner or cyclist every day, and I’m yet to see harm.
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October 5th, 2008 at 9:38AM
Karen McAninch Says:
I think an important point not mentioned in this discussion is that the bike lane on Blackstone Boulevard is not fully usable yet due to 195 construction and other bike path plans that haven’t been implemented. I believe the eventual plan is to connect the East Bay bike path with the Blackstone in part by utilizing this section on the boulevard. We regularly bicycle on both the East Bay and less frequently on the Blackstone. I’m all for getting bikes off main roads if it is possible, but I think other alternatives to the boulevard area didn’t work out. So far, what I see when driving on the boulevard is that people (including me) have been forced to slow down. I think that’s a GOOD thing.
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October 5th, 2008 at 4:50PM
corey Says:
In light of the fact that no one really seems to approve of the Boulevard bike lane, I then have to ask: What ever happened to the one that was supposed to go in on Broadway? I live there, and I would just love to bike there without fear, instead of having to take Carpenter Street all the time.
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October 5th, 2008 at 8:32PM
oceanswig Says:
as someone who bikes the blvd daily, year round, I am very glad to have a dedicated bike lane. it is much better now for biking, the parking lane is still avail to anyone who wants to bike there, the cars for the most part are much slower, and i have been seeing many more people out on bikes, and using the parking lane for other types of recreation (e.g. walking, roller blading). The speed limit is 25 and while few people go 25, I’d have to guess that the average speed has dropped from something like 40-45 to 30-35. blackstone before was a four lane highway, totally inappropriate for one of the most heavily used areas of the city for recreation. now, for ex., instead of crossing two lanes of traffic to make it to the median/pathyway, you only have to cross one lane of car/truck traffic. sure, people have a steep learning curve around here and they will eventually get it that the bike lane is only for bikes, and the parking lane is not for driving in. It’s only been a few months and these things take time. Meanwhile the police have been more present from what I’ve seen but there is always a need for more police enforcement of traffic laws in this city.
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October 6th, 2008 at 8:37AM
Kyle Says:
glad to see some people supporting the bike lane. Since it’s gone in all I’ve heard is complaints. All the reasons given for why it’s supposedly dangerous bring me to ask why automobile drivers can’t be more careful and make it less dangerous. Car drivers need to be more careful, not just on the blvd but everywhere. Bicycle riders have an amount of responsibility as well, but there is a dangerous culture/mentality around the way people drive cars, particularly in RI, as we all well know. If putting a bike lane in forces people to slow down to the speed limit and actually look in their right rear view mirror before turning, I see it as a good thing. The reaction to the bike lane on the blvd shows how hard it can be to change.
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October 6th, 2008 at 8:59AM
Marc Says:
I wish this blog was around when they installed the ‘bumpouts’ on Hope St., The Summit Neighborhood Association or somesuch said that it would make the road safer by slowing cars down. All it seems to have done for me, as a biker, has pushed me out -into- the road, where the drivers go just as fast as before.
I’m a former East-Sider, frequent biker, pedestrian, driver, and RIPTA passenger, and I couldn’t care less how fast people drive down Hope or the Boulevard. I never felt unsafe with people whizzing past me, only when they drive -poorly-, which they seem to do at any speed. I’m more worried about people pulling too far out from intersections and driveways or not looking before they open their doors than I am about the velocity they’re going.
I’m of the opinion that enforcing the speed limit is not a city planning issue, it’s an enforcement issue. We all know that Providence Police are notorious for not enforcing traffic laws (except for parking). They ought to be ticketing at trouble spots and generating revenue for the city, which improves drivers’ overall behavior. I’d also like to see the police ticket bikers who drive through red lights without stopping or ride on the wrong side of the street, which seems to push cars from oncoming lanes into -my- way.
Having long stretches of uninterrupted roads with no lights or stops does more for the ‘greenness’ of the city than you can imagine, since the less you have to brake, the more fuel-efficient your ride will be. I’ve seen more stop lights and signs go up in the past few years than I care to count, and all it seems to do is make going cross-town a lot slower, cause bunches of traffic (since we don’t time our street lights in Providence), and make drivers brake a lot, which is a waste of energy and brake pads (for bikers and cars both). I know it seems crazy, but in a lot of places, I think an uninterrupted stretch of road will do more for the planet than a bike path, since even in the best-case we can only hope for a small percentage of people to ride bikes to work, while a vast majority of Americans will continue to drive their beastly behemoths.
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October 6th, 2008 at 12:10PM
Brendan Says:
IMHO it’s better than it has been in the past. Yeah, the first week or so was a little weird for drivers (I was passed on both sides, had people ride right up on me in the bike lane, etc..). I mostly use it as relatively safe and local spot to put in road miles, and I sometimes commute via the road as well. Either way it’s really not THAT bad. Traffic has slowed down which is a plus, and I have seen more cops ticketing at the southern end of the blvd. I’m all for the residents chiming in - they’re the people who live there and pay some pretty insane taxes. One would think they’d be happy with less/slower traffic, but it seems that many of them really dislike the idea. FWIW I’d love to see bike lanes on streets like Wickendon, Hope, Thayer, etc. but that raises the obvious questions related to parking and street width.
The aforementioned “bump-outs” do suck though, that much is certain!
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October 6th, 2008 at 2:07PM
corey Says:
That’s why you ride on the sidewalk.
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October 6th, 2008 at 5:30PM
Shriram Krishnamurthi Says:
“That’s why you ride on the sidewalk.”? Come on, Corey. That’s just bait. But I won’t feed the troll.
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October 7th, 2008 at 8:16AM
Michael Tarr Says:
As both an avid cyclist (for both commuting and recreation) and as someone who lives near and has to drive down the Blvd., I can’t see what people are unhappy about. The bike lane is terrific. True, there is work to be done (mark the parking lane and intersections, connect it to the East Bay Bike Path, etc), but overall there all essentially no cons (other than the supposed “dead of night” installation, but I knew about it and I wasn’t reading city newspapers or blogs). There seem to be three kinds of complaints:
1. “Now it’s impossible to bypass any of those folks who like to ride the brake or drive at five miles-per-hour under the limit”
-> This is the most suspect of all. The speed limit is a LIMIT, not license to always go that fast or faster. The Blvd is a multi-use facility that also has runners, walkers, etc. crossing at various points. The speed limit is and has been 25 MPH. People rarely honor this speed limit, even now (but it is better). If you are so Type A that you have to blow by a cautious driver going 20 MPH, then perhaps you should stay on your bike all of the time so you won’t be a hazard to the rest of the community. Or just make your trips via I95.
2. “The bike lane is both dangerous and ugly”.
-> I can’t speak to the ugly issue - I personally don’t think it really detracts deeply from any aesthetic pleasure one receives from walking or riding along the Blvd, but from the safety point of view this one is a no brainer. Simply stated, there is no question that riding one’s bike on the Blvd is safer with the bike lane. First, it makes drivers aware of cyclists on the road. Second, it provides a designated space for those cyclists. Third, it reduces car speed and stops those drivers that felt compelled to pass (over the speed limit) - often endangering cyclists who were riding on the right hand parking lane, but were forced out into the driving lane by parked cars (which do occupy spots at more than the beginning and the end). Lets put it this way, would I take my 4-year old son on his “trail-a-bike” on a ride on the Blvd before the bike lane? NO (and I would have been irresponsible to do so). Would I do so now? YES. And I have, and I feel much more comfortable. True some drivers don’t get it, but they are far fewer than before there was a marked lane.
3. “We didn’t need it and it wasn’t discussed”.
-> Maybe it wasn’t discussed enough. I don’t know. My experience with any sort of infrastructure change on the east side is that there always vocal opponents (often in the minority, but vocal), no matter what. Sometimes things simply have to move forward without endless back and forth. There was a meeting to discuss it, people didn’t attend for the most part, I don’t know why. But it seems that the bike lane follows the maxim of potentially does good, and does not do any harm (other than slowing down speeding drivers and making the Blvd somehow “ugly”). On the balance this seems like a clear win. Moreover, we DID need it. It DOES slow down drivers - this cannot be in debate. But more importantly it is bringing many more people onto the Blvd for recreation. I think anyone using it would agree that many more recreational riders and people with kids are using the lane than would have ever used the Blvd without the lane. In general this is the phenomena of a bike path/lane - almost always opposed before installation and almost always a community (both socially and economically) positive once installed. We should be grateful to the city officials trying to make the city more livable - this is certainly one small step in that direction. Once connected to the East Bay Bike Path, this lane will become even more of a positive. Watch, see, and ride.
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October 8th, 2008 at 11:37AM
oceanswig Says:
some people might find this of interest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF7snTyCrJs
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October 9th, 2008 at 12:42PM
steve Says:
I still think that the lanes should be on the left. I know this will create some trouble at either end, but I think lanes on the left would make more sense to everyone.
However, I also think that this was not done for the good will of cyclists, it was largely done as traffic control. I say this not as a vote against, but just to point out that the neighbors of the blvd seem much happier with the slower traffic. Try to remember that this was not ever meant as a super-highway alternative to Rt. 95. It is not a bypass even though people use it as such. Frankly I like the bike path alternative a lot more than other measures such as increased police presence merely for the purpose of writing tickets. I am a type A personality but even I understand that it is better for everyone in that area to not have traffic going 40 mph, even if my own personal goals would be settled better by doing so.
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October 9th, 2008 at 4:49PM
Frymaster Says:
I love cars. I can take them apart and put them back together. I think NASCAR is for sissies ‘cuz they don’t run in the rain. F1 is proper motorsport.
But Rhode Islanders are just ridiculous in their obsession with cars and parking.
One of you resisters explain how the B-stone Blvd bike lane is different from the bike lane on Allens Ave/Narragansett Blvd. Go on…
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