Month: October 2012

[B’ Spokes: My comments proceed by "->"]
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by Jim Walsh, The Arizona Republic
After spending decades building wide streets, Valley cities are retrofitting them to improve bicycle and pedestrian safety, cut down on chronic accidents and shift to a healthier, less stressful way of life.
Phoenix, Peoria, Glendale, Scottsdale, Gilbert, Tempe and Mesa have joined a national trend by shifting their design philosophy to seek transportation equality for pedestrians and bicyclists by reconfiguring streets with wider sidewalks, more landscaping, bridges and a few specialized crossings.
National and state statistics show Arizona has a chronic problem with pedestrian deaths. Phoenix ranks fourth on a list of cities with the highest percentage of pedestrian fatalities, behind New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago, according to federal statistics.
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->[Just to note that in 2009 pedestrian road fatalities Maryland ranked the 4th highest and Arizona the 8th highest in pedestrian fatality rate. ]
Among the unique additions across the Valley is the HAWK, which stands for High-Intensity Activated Crosswalk. Its three lights are activated by a pedestrian in the intersection and are displayed just long enough for a pedestrian to cross. It doesn’t hold up traffic as long as a conventional traffic signal.
->[Please note that AZ is not without it’s traffic lights every mile just like Maryland, HAWK is to accommodate the pedestrian desire line in between major roads, sometimes inaccurately referred to as jaywalking.]
Other efforts to make streets safer include:
Peoria widened sidewalks near several schools and installed two-stage crossings, with pedestrian refuge islands to improve safety, near three high schools. A HAWK was added near Desert Harbor Elementary School at 91st Avenue and Tumblewood Drive. Underpasses separate pedestrians and bicyclists from traffic on major roads along the New River multiuse path.
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->[Did you catch that? A grade separated trail, no major road crossings at all.]
Glendale installed two HAWKs. One, near 63rd Avenue and Loop 101, connects with a bridge over the freeway to promote bicycle and pedestrian use along a path. The second allows pedestrians to cross from an apartment complex to a shopping center in the 6500 block of West Glendale Avenue. Glendale High School is also nearby.
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->[A bike/ped bridge over a freeway? Can you imagine that happening in Maryland?]
Valley cities still lag Tucson, which has made a science of pedestrian safety and attracted national acclaim from a federal study for pioneering the HAWK.
Valley cities combined have 24 HAWKs in use or planned, while Tucson has more than 100 after inventing them 12 years ago and using a transit tax to pay for them.
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"I think there is a recognition that to have a more sustainable community, you have to have less reliance on the automobile," said Kay Fitzpatrick, senior research engineer for the Texas Transportation Institute who authored a July 2010 study that showed the HAWK reduced pedestrian collisions by 69 percent.
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Arizona’s bleak pedestrian-fatality statistics show residents have reason to fear crossing major streets.
Crash Facts, an annual report on highway crashes produced by the Arizona Department of Transportation, recorded 153 pedestrians killed statewide in 1997, 166 killed in 2001 and 154 killed in 2011.
->[For Maryland 107 in 1997, 101 in 2001 and 101 in 2010 (2011 is not up yet on FARS.) And just to note 114 pedestrians were killed in 2009. So while we have seen a decrease in road fatalities primarily for auto drivers we have yet to see that reduction in pedestrian fatalities, despite being called for in the decade old State’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Access Master Plan and state laws requiring appropriate funding levels for pedestrians (and cyclists.) ]
Nationally, pedestrian fatalities dropped from 5,321 in 1997 to 4,280 in 2010, a 19.5 percent decrease, according to the latest statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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Tucson uses a variety of street crossings that sound like a collection of birds. They include:
HAWKs: Usually used midblock or near schools and business shopping centers, they help pedestrians safely cross wide streets where there is a clear source of foot traffic, such as an apartment complex, and a popular destination, such as a grocery store. Shoppers use a HAWK to cross Scottsdale Road between Kierland Commons and the Scottsdale Quarter, two popular shopping malls. The cost can range from $100,000 to $200,000, depending upon extent of wiring and utility work.
Pelicans: Two-stage crossings that help pedestrians cross narrower arterials. Pedestrians cross to a raised island in the median, then use a second crosswalk to reach their destination. The cost is $15,000-$25,000.
Toucans: Short for "two can cross," they allow pedestrians and bicyclists to cross at the same time. It has separate lanes, with a green bicycle logo marking the bicycle lane.
PUFIN: Stands for "pedestrian user-friendly intersection." Pedestrians trigger stoplights by pushing a button. A sensor keeps the lights on longer to allow a slow-moving pedestrian to cross safely.
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https://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2012/10/02/20121002arizona-road-safety-focus-switches-pedestrians.html
Continue reading “Arizona road-safety focus switches to pedestrians”

BY PETE DONOHUE / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Business booms along the streets and avenues the city has refashioned with plazas, protected bicycle lanes and Select Bus Service routes, according to a report Mayor Bloomberg’s administration released Tuesday.
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On 8th and 9th Aves., between 23rd and 31st Sts., the city created a curbside bicycle lane that is separated from traffic by parking spots and pedestrian safety islands. Sales receipts for businesses were up as much as 49% three years after the project was completed, compared with the full year before the changes, according to the report, "Measuring the Street: New Metrics for 21st Century Sts." The boroughwide increase was just 3%, the study says.
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https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/-article-1.1190648

By Eric Jaffe, The Atlantic Cities
In the past few weeks, the long march toward equal road rights for urban bike riders took two big steps forward. In late February, Berkeley instituted a law protecting riders from harassment by granting them the right to civil action, and last week San Francisco officials gave preliminary approval to legislation that requires commercial buildings to let riders take their bikes inside if there’s no bike parking outside. Both laws are the second of their kind in American cities — and perhaps prelude to a wider trend.
Berkeley’s anti-harassment law gives riders the option of filing a civil suit against any driver who assaults, threatens, injures, or intentionally (and maliciously) distracts them. Those acts were already illegal, of course, but they could only be prosecuted as criminal offenses before the new legislation. A successful suit under the new law will require offenders to pay three times the damages or $1,000, whichever is more, as well as attorney’s fees and any other awards.
The city modeled its law on a similar one in Los Angeles — the first city to pass an anti-harassment ordinance for bike riders — which went into effect last September. Before these laws riders were left at the mercy of an urban police force often reluctant to bring criminal charges against drivers who harassed bicyclists. Writing for Streetsblog last fall, attorney Ross Hirsch said the anti-harassment law is "a recognition that that criminal enforcement of harassment and battery laws that currently outlaw certain behavior is essentially non-existent."
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https://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/03/california-bikers-rights-movement-continues/1483/

by Angie Schmitt, Streets Blog

Just a few generations ago, streets were places of commerce and play, places to socialize, places where public life happened. The author of the Chicago-based Get Around Blog just finished reading Peter Norton’s book, Fighting Traffic, which outlines in fascinating-yet-depressing detail how the rise of the automobile rudely interrupted this whole way of life.

We’re not going to delve too deeply into history except to offer this quote from a judge, shortly after cars came on the scene: “It won’t be long before children won’t have any rights at all in the streets.”

The Get Around Blog takes the opportunity to show just how far we’ve traveled from the notion of the streets as a public space:

In the century since the automobile first muscled its way to the top of society’s transportation food chain, we have legislated other modes of transportation into a thin sliver of grudgingly reserved leftover space: pedestrians may cross the street at the occasional crosswalk; bicyclists, while technically allowed to operate in the same space and under the same restrictions and protections as cars, are mostly just in the way (and liable to be harassed) if they don’t yield space; and transit users in all but a handful of North American cities suffer poor service and shabby facilities. To add insult to injury, we often turn a blind eye even when cars overstep their formal bounds.

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This is to say nothing of on-street parking – the notion that one has the unquestioned right to store their private property in the public way. A few years ago, I interned for a non-profit downtown civic organization in the small town where I grew up. The city was mulling a proposal to remove median parking from the road that separates the downtown from the the Snake River in order to improve access to the popular parkland along the banks. Item #1 on every person’s list of complaints: where am I going to park my car when I go to work? That’s not to say I don’t understand their concern, but this illustrates how far we’ve gone down this uncharted path: where once we railed against the car’s invasion of our public space, we now rebuff nearly all attempts to re-allocate even a modicum of roadway to truly public use.

https://streetsblog.net/2012/10/24/remembering-when-our-streets-belonged-to-everyone/

[B’ Spokes: I’ll note that the graphic does a good job on what the safety priorities need to be and I’ll point out that enforcement is near the top and "Hey, drivers too!" To that I will reply "I am still waiting for good traffic law enforcement for all road users."]
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via bikeyface
Every bike commuter knows is that safety is a complicated issue. They face it every day. However, some safety campaigns focus entirely on helmets. But that means there’s been a crash. What if it could have been prevented? Wouldn’t that be safer?
See graphic: https://bikeyface.com/2012/10/18/serious-about-safety/
There’s many points along the way where an individual, a community, and a city, can prevent more tragedies from happening. Helmet or not, when you put a car against a vulnerable road user, you know who the victim will be. Cities need to get real about safety. No excuses.
https://bikeyface.com/2012/10/18/serious-about-safety/