As a quick follow up with one thing I forgot to mention:
At the City Council meeting in October of last year, the decision was made to bifurcate different elements of the Middle Avenue complete street project and postpone any decision about the "removing of parking" from the resolution.
I noticed that during this meeting, every time the item was discussed, it was referred to as the "parking issue", and not the "bike lane" issue. When the language the Council uses regarding this project solely refers to it as "the removal of parking", it sends a signal to the community that the removing parking is the primary action thats being taken.
When this item is up for discussion at the February 14th meeting, I believe it might more accurately represent the goals of the project to refer to it as something along the lines of the "bike lane improvements", so as to not communicate that the removal of parking as the sole concern.
Thank you.
On Thu, Feb 9, 2023 at 4:33 PM Ross Silverstein > wrote:
City Council of Menlo Park,
My name is Ross Silverstein. I live in District 2 but frequently bike along Middle Avenue. I have 3 young kids whom I frequently transport around town on our cargo bike - to school, the library, the farmers market, grocery shopping, their friends’ houses, and often to Nealon Park. Im very nervous, however, for the time when they become old enough to bike themselves, because many of Menlo Park’s "bike corridors" are at best inadequate and at worst unsafe.
For example, my son will be attending TK at Laurels Lower campus this fall. I initially thought this would be a great opportunity for him to begin riding his bike beyond our block and begin to build the road awareness required to become a safe and competent biker as he grows up. After doing some research, however, I was dismayed to see that Ringwood and the area around the school lack safe bike lanes: in particular, the existing lanes are not protected, and as a result are blocked by cars during pickup and dropoff periods - exactly when they are most needed for child bikers. I previously reached out to Jacqui Cebrian and Councilwoman Taylor about this issue, noting that the “Safe Routes to School” program highlights Ringwood as the suggested bike route for Laurel Lower campus bike commuters. Despite the insufficiency of the existing bike infrastructure, it seems that the answer is essentially: "its a hard problem, but we have to cater to the needs of the cars over the needs of the bikers.”
I understand that transportation for Ringwood & Coleman is currently being studied, but in the meantime, I strongly urge the City Council and Complete Streets Commission to create a safe and accessible bike route for Middle Avenue by adopting Option 1 of the proposed plan. I believe Option 1 is the only proposal that protects bikers, encourages bike adoption, and satisfies all elements of Menlo Park’s Transportation Master Plan. Some additional thoughts and details are below.
1. Biking cannot become a default mode of transportation unless residents feel safe. It pains me every time I hear a friend, colleague, or neighbor say that they wouldnt bike somewhere - to school, downtown, to the park, etc. - because of a lack of a safe bike route. And they’re not wrong: a study published in December of last year listed Downtown Menlo Park as the 3rd most dangerous place for cyclists in Silicon Valley (source: [Study] The Most Dangerous Places for Cyclists in Silicon Valley). To encourage more biking in the community, we need to make it comfortable for the marginal biker, who otherwise wouldn’t be taking their trip by bike.
1. When we don’t encourage biking, we perpetuate the problem. It is unreasonable to expect most parents would allow their young children to bike to school on a route that feels unsafe. Unfortunately, this also delays kids’ abilities to become safe and confident bikers themselves, decreasing the likelihood that they will consider biking as a viable form of transportation in the future, and increasing their risk if they do so.
1. Biking does not need to be unsafe. Option 1 protects bikers by properly buffering bike lanes from traffic and parked cars. This design moves closer to the gold standard of Class 4 protected bike lanes that are fully separated from traffic, such as those found in bike-friendly cities like Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and more and more of San Francisco. In contrast, bike lanes between driving and parked cars - as indicated in Options 2 and 3 - are inherently unsafe: they require bikers to ride right next to moving vehicles, navigate cars coming in and out of the parking spaces, and risk potentially getting “doored” by someone getting out of their car. Middle Ave is identified by the “Safe Routes to School” program as a preferred bike route to multiple schools in Menlo Park. The city should commit to making this route actually be safe.
1. Option 1 aligns with Menlo Park’s Transportation Master Plan (TPM) and Climate Action Plan. Menlo Park’s Transportation Master Plan has 4 stated goals:
* Safety
* Sustainability
* Mobility Choice
* Congestion Management
It has already been acknowledged by the City Council and the TMP itself that making safer bike routes and encouraging biking satisfies all 4 of these goals. The TMP specifically highlights using a “Complete Streets approach” which considers the needs of all transportation users.
Given that Menlo Park plans to implement a formal Vision Zero by the end of this year, I hope that establishing more Class 4 bike lanes, especially for school and work commuters, would be a part of that plan. It seems unwise to keep this route with bikers next to parked cars for now, when we’ll likely want to improve it later as a part of Vision Zero.
Making biking a more preferred mode of transportation is also an explicit action item of Menlo Parks Climate Action Plan. For the reasons described above, I think it’s clear that safe bike lanes are one of our best options to potentially move the needle here.
1. Parking concerns are missing the big picture. I know that a repeated concern with Option 1 is that it removes parking that would otherwise be available for Nealon Park and the New Community Church. However, I noticed that while both of these facilities have large parking lots, neither has adequate bike parking (if any)! Building safe bike routes to encourage bike adoption, while dedicating just a small amount of space used for car parking to bikes, could actually reduce parking pressure in the community. (As an aside, the same applies to many other public places around town.) Parking is also a hyper-local concern. The community members affected by these decisions go well beyond just those who live on Middle Ave, or feel that they would be impacted enough by losing parking to make public comments. I know that the city has put a lot of effort into making sure that nearby neighbors were notified of these meetings and decisions, but am not sure if the same effort was put in to notifying all the parents of kids who use that bike route (or those who dont, but would want to if it were safer).
To conclude, thank you for working on this project and working hard for the betterment of our city. The council has the ability to signal to the community that its okay to prioritize methods of transportation beyond just cars and I hope that you seize this opportunity.
Thanks again,
Ross
P.S. Clarification question:
I know decisions right now are for a pilot. For any permanent implementation where parking is removed and there is a proper bike-lane installed, are there plans for that to be actually separated from traffic, or will bikers still be riding right next to cars without any formal separation (e.g. curb, planters or bollards)? If there wont be any formal separation, is there a specific reason why that wouldnt be feasible or recommended?
P.P.S. I know some data has been requested that might indicate these proposals would increase safety. While data collection isn’t always comprehensive and easy here, there have been some studies I’m happy to cite:
* Title: Bike lanes next to on-street parallel parking (2018)
* Highlights:
* Most crash data sources do not include crashes where a bicyclist comes in contact with the door of a parked motor vehicle. The main source of U.S. data on bicyclist crashes is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which provides both a nationally representative sample of police-reported crashes and a complete inventory of road fatalities. However, both databases are restricted to crashes involving a motor vehicle in transport. Bicycles are not “motor vehicles” and parked motor vehicles are not “in transport.” Therefore, dooring collisions are excluded by definition from these national databases, as well as from U.S. state crash databases.
* “Dooring” accounts for an estimated 12%-27% of urban bicycle-motor vehicle crashes
* Multiple studies have shown that in almost all circumstances where there is a bike lane and adjacent parked cars, “bicyclists would have to ride at least partly outside of the bike lane in order to be outside the door zone” and that “almost no bicyclists were riding outside the door zone”
* In 30% of the 3198 observations where bicyclists were passing parked cars, they were simultaneously being passed by motorists.
* Requiring a buffer for standard bike lanes will require cities to acknowledge that bike lanes do not fit next to on-street parking without at least 3 ft more of width than is currently provided in the minimum guidance, thereby necessitating at least 25 ft between the left edge of the travel lane and the curb, rather than the 22 ft that is possible under current design guidelines for standard bike lanes. Under such constrained conditions, if it is not deemed possible to remove parking, bicyclists should be encouraged to ride in the travel lane.
* Title: Separated Bike Lane Crash Analysis Report - (US DoT, 2014)
* Caveat: There are significant data and methodological limitations with any study of this nature. Also, because crashes are rare in general, a small number of crashes can lead to very large percentage changes (increases or decreases).
* Results: All 17 sites studied showed an increase in bike ridership volume before/after, with an average increase of 121%. 15 of 17 sites showed a decreased in bike crashes per volume. Of the 10 sites that started with at least 4 annual bike crashes before, 9/10 of them saw a decrease in bike crashes per volume.
* Title: Some protected bike lanes leave cyclists vulnerable to injury (iihs.org) (2019)
* Highlights:
* "Pedestrians also sometimes enter street-level bike lanes, which can cause cyclists to swerve and fall."
* “the types of bicyclist crashes seen in street-level protected lanes werent the type that are typically most severe. Most fatal bicyclist crashes involving motor vehicles occur midblock, while cyclists in protected bike lanes in the study collided with vehicles most often at intersections or junctions with driveways and alleys.”
* "Typically, protected lanes are installed on busy roads that pose more of a risk to cyclists in the first place," Cicchino says. "Our finding that conventional bike lanes were less risky doesnt mean that cyclists on roads with protected lanes would be better off without that separation."
* Title: User-Rated Comfort and Preference of Separated Bike Lane Intersection Designs (2020)
* Caveat: this was done via survey data and is related to comfort, not explicitly safety.
* Results: 7,166 ratings were obtained from surveys. 33% rated a standard bike lane as “comfortable” with a mean comfort score of 2.79 (1-5, where 5 is most comfortable). 91% rated a Protected Bike Lane as “comfortable” with a mean rating of 4.54. [data on page 17]
