email:  scott@...
website: http://www.bike-pgh.org
*****************************
Bicycle advocacy, safety, & community


On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 2:19 PM, Richard Moyer <moyerrpm@...> wrote:

>  I do NOT want to spend money to make streets so narrow that motorists will
> not be able to pass bikes in the normal course of traffic---I hope PA Bikes
> and Walks does NOT follow Santa Rosa's ideas. Biking is better when we have
> continous shoulder or wide outside lane clearance, not when motorists get
> aggravated because we are going 15-20 mph when they want to go 30 mph. NOT
> EVERYTHING THAT COMES DOWN THE "TRAFFIC CALMING" PIKE IS A GOOD IDEA! This
> Santa Rosa project is a waste of money and a waste of good road clearance
> space we should not try to duplicate in most areas of Pennsylvania I know.
> Richard
>
> ------------------------------
> Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:21:20 -0400
> Subject: [PA Bikes and Walks discussion] council OKs bike boulevard
> From: larryshaeffer@...
> To: pabikewalk-discussion@...
> CC: info@...
>
>
> These are the kinds of facilities that have to asked/demanded for
> specifically. The PCPC just can't bring themselves to propose things like
> this on their own. in the article they talk about bikes slowing down
> motorists (taking of their time) but in reality when these types of projects
> (retrofitting intersections w/roundabouts) go in, speeds go down but so do
> travel times. So, motorists win too.
>
>
> http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20090414/ARTICLES/904149890?Title=Santa-Rosa-council-OKs-bike-boulevard
>
> Santa Rosa council OKs bike boulevard
> By MIKE McCOY <mike.mccoy@...>
> THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
>
>  Published: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 at 6:56 p.m.
> Last Modified: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 at 6:56 p.m.
>  Santa Rosa’s City Council gave its unanimous go-ahead Tuesday to plans to
> turn a 1.5-mile stretch of Humboldt Street into the county’s first bike
> boulevard where cyclists and motorists will share the road equally.
>  The six-month experiment will involve adding traffic circles at four of
> the 14 intersections along the route, sidewalk “bulb-outs” at two other
> intersections with heavy pedestrian traffic and added signage to make the
> street as safe as possible, said transportation planner Nancy Adams.
> The two-lane street would be turned into a bike boulevard where motorists
> and cyclists follow each other in single file, neither having preference
> over the other.
> Councilman Gary Wysocky, who lives near the project area and is a member of
> the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition that is backing the project, said
> motorists who now use Humboldt as a short-cut between Lewis Road and Fifth
> Street downtown won’t see much difference in their travel time even if they
> are stuck behind slower-moving bike riders.
> “Drivers will find these annoying cyclists are only taking up 30 to 40
> seconds of their time,” he said.
> Wysocky, and about a dozen audience members who came to support the idea,
> agreed the trade-off for slower traffic is a residential street in the heart
> of the Santa Rosa Junior College neighborhood that will offer greater safety
> for all ages and levels of cyclists traveling across town.
> “Safety is the No. 1 impediment to people getting on a bike,” Wysocky said.
> Adams said cyclists and motorists would follow each other single file along
> the 25 mile-per-hour street but that motorists could pass slower-moving
> riders when there was no traffic in the oncoming lane.
> The plan to eventually convert this stretch of Humboldt, traveled by
> between 2,800 to 4,800 cars daily, into the city’s first bike boulevard was
> added to the city’s general plan in in 2001.
> It is viewed as a safer alternative for less experienced cyclists to travel
> across town or to neighboring schools, including Santa Rosa High School and
> Santa Rosa Junior College.
> The other major biking route to the two schools, four-lane Mendocino Avenue
> located just two blocks east and running parallel to Humboldt, is traveled
> by up to 29,000 cars a day.
> Dexter Street resident Howard Adler, among the neighborhood cyclists
> supporting the experiment, said, “We’re not asking for special treatment,
> we’re asking for a level playing field.”
> But Howard Street resident Kay Tokerud, who lives a half-block from
> Humboldt, called the test project, which will cost $36,500 to implement, a
> waste of money.
> She said her own observations, along with that of five others helping her
> monitor traffic on Humboldt for six hours Monday, found no conflicts between
> motorists and cyclists.
> She noted that while all the “drivers obeyed the red lights and stop
> signs,” she said that cyclists often did not.
> “They made very little effort to observe the traffic rules,” she said.
> Adams said the temporary structures needed to implement the bike boulevard
> — signage, sidewalk extensions called bulb-outs and traffic roundabouts —
> should be in place by August.
> After six months, the results will be reviewed and neighborhood meetings
> will be held to determine whether to implement a permanent project at a cost
> of $200,000, revise it or drop the idea.
> Several council members indicated they likely will move ahead if the
> results are favorable. The city could end up adding more controversial
> measures that would make the boulevard even more bike-friendly, but at the
> expense of motorists.
> Christine Culver, executive director for the Sonoma County Bicycle
> Coalition, said a true bike boulevard would include diverters, concrete
> blocks that would block traffic at various sections of Humboldt and force
> motorists onto side streets.
> “The boulevard should give bicyclists priority,” she said.
>
>
>
>
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