We hear frequent calls for more funding for bicycling — for painted bike lanes, door zone bike lanes, sharrows, protected bikeways, bicycle parking, giant motor traffic intersections for Trader Joe’s, programs to encourage people to ride and any number of things.
We don’t need all of that special funding. We may specifically not want that special funding.
Asking for funding for bicycle facilities is backwards. It’s inefficient, can result in poor or over-priced outcomes, and sometimes the funding can be sidetracked for projects that have little or nothing to do with making walking and bicycling better and safer.
Imagine that you and I asked our boss for a bunch of money for a project. Our boss asks what kind of project and we reply, “Well, a business project”. Boss asks what it will do, and we say “It’ll make business better.” Specifics are demanded, and we chirp “we’ll figure that out when we get the money.” We’d be kicked out on our cute little kiesters.
Worse than the above, funding limits what can be done for the safety of those endangered by drivers, to the limits of the funding. “Sorry mate, we only have funding for wider and faster roads, nothing left to protect children riding bicycles to school, maybe next year.”
“Sorry Mate, we only get funding for the bridge. Just stay within the lines and you’ll be OK. If you want curbs or guardrails you’ll need to get special funding for that.” (Photo of Nagoya Flood Bridge: Unknown origin)
We need to think about it differently. Not as bicycle projects or pedestrian projects or people with disabilities projects or guardrail projects, but as one comprehensive transportation and space project. Mitigating the negative impacts imposed by motorists must be a core element of traffic engineering and of every roadway, not an optional add-on.
If I want to do something in my yard that will negatively impact my neighbor, my city will require me to mitigate the negative impact (and I’d want to anyway). That mitigation is not a separate project. It is not something that I can do later if I decide to set aside funding for it. It must be a core bit of what I’m doing. Yet we build roadways with immense and deadly negative impacts on a lot of people without any mitigation of these impacts:
Boon or Boondoggle by David Levinson – Transportist.org
When engineers design a bridge, they don’t use a painted line to keep cars from driving off and plunging to their death. NO! They design it from the outset to be safe. Can you imagine if bridges didn’t have guardrails and we had to fight for funding for them?
Soon after the IDS tower was constructed a problem was found with icicles falling from the top and endangering those below (and the sound of them hitting the roof of the Crystal Court was quite awesome). Fortunately we didn’t have to wait until pedestrians all got together and pleaded for funding to protect them from the dangers imposed by this. Safety measures were implemented immediately to mitigate the danger. These measures are now standard on such buildings. (Photo: Bizjournals)
In 2015, drivers in MN killed 52 people walking and 10 riding bicycles. MN drivers also injured an estimated 3,522 people walking or bicycling — 392 critically and permanently. Remember, these are only the people walking or riding bicycles who were killed or injured, not the thousands more in cars. These people who were innocently walking and riding were, not of their choice, needlessly negatively impacted by drivers.
My sister-in-law is one of the thousands injured each year. She, fortunately, doesn’t count as one of the fatalities but she has spent the past year dealing with extreme and often debilitating headaches that have caused her to miss a fair bit of work and incur some pricey medical bills — her portion of the $267 million that MNDOT estimates these deaths and injuries to people walking and riding bicycles cost in 2015.
Our response is that we’re going to spend 99% of our money making roads smoother and faster for drivers and 1% to improve safety for those endangered by the fast drivers. We protect people from falling icicles and from plunging off of high bridges but not from errant drivers? That’s messed up.
Edgerton Street received a Mill & Overlay this summer. Along with this the width of the shoulder over a culvert was widened and bike lane symbols were painted in the 5′ wide shoulder. Motor lane width is 12′ with a posted speed of 45 MPH and an actual of well over 50 MPH. About 390 bicycle riders in the US were killed last year being hit from behind on roads like this, nearly half of all bicycle rider deaths. Another 47,000 were seriously injured and 9,000 permanently disabled. Someone walking or riding a bicycle is over 9 times as likely to be killed or injured on this road design as on a protected bikeway built to CROW standards. Why is Ramsey County building something that they know is so dangerous? Why do we let them?
Rather than start with funding, we should begin with what we should do — build safe roads — and then let the funding follow. If there is only enough funding available to reconstruct 22 miles of roadway to the new safer standards rather than the planned 25 miles of fast, smooth, and unsafe road, then that’s life. If a road cannot be built safe for all of those impacted then it should not be built or reconstructed or repaved.
A Base Requirement
We need new minimum requirements for all roadways. Requirements that will equitably and safely serve all users with as few negative impacts as possible. Somewhat similar to requiring guardrails on bridges.
All users begins with people walking, riding bicycles, those with disabilities, and those who work or live adjacent to the roadway. Next we add transit, motor traffic, parking, sidewalk cafés, street vendors, aesthetics, and other elements.
The roadway itself looks something like this:
And for junctions this: Bicycle Dutch – Junction Design.
This is what has worked well in The Netherlands and is now being copied by cities and countries around the world. This is the direction that MassDOT is going and that the new NACTO Global Street Design Guide recommends (review coming soon).
Getting It Done
Option A: Require that every reconstruction, mill & overlay, or new roadway be designed and constructed to meet CROW standards[1].
Option B: Require that 10% of all roadway miles and junctions within a jurisdiction be upgraded in each 2-year period. This will result in a safer roadway system in about 20 years vs the likely 40-year period of Option A[2].
While costing only slightly more than a less safe US street, a street that meets CROW standards is much safer and overall more cost effective. These riders are in a safe bicycling course that all school children are required to take each year. Judges are out on their course to note, using the numbers, how well they do. Also note that there are three driveways and five access walks in this photo and that per CROW specs the bikeway has right-of-way and so is continuous in material, color, and grade.
A roadway built to CROW standards will cost between 5% and maybe 15% more than current US standards. But, as Dr Lindeke recently pointed out, will result in an overall net savings:
Seven Ways Automobility Undermines A City’s Bottom Line by Dr. Bill Lindeke — streets.mn
Back to my earlier business analogy, if an employee tells me that spending $1 billion in business ‘A’ (safer roads) will save us $2 billion in business ‘B’ (healthcare, welfare, etc.) then I’m all ears. Government and politicians need to learn to function the same way — we need to introduce the right hand to the left hand.
But this shouldn’t matter much, because we’re talking about people’s lives, and a solution that we know works, is affordable, and that currently works elsewhere. What is the value of someone’s life?
The Paint Didn’t Work. When I was shooting the cover shot this car swerved in to the bike lane and then suddenly jerked back in to the motor vehicle lane. We don’t trust paint to keep people from driving off of a high bridge and plunging to their death, why do we think it will keep people from killing bicycle riders?
[1] Or standards outlined by MassDOT in … or NACTO in …
[2] Measuring over two years instead of one allows jurisdictions to better plan projects without being forced to incur unnecessary costs trying to meet annual targets. Going beyond two year targets can result in things sliding.