Bicycle Boulevard Thoughts

I must admit, I’m not exactly an avid cyclist. Normally I only ride my bike when I’m running late for class and I need to get somewhere faster than I can just by walking. As such, I’m not a very firm supporter of the “Share the Road” concept. I never ride defensively and I never really assert my place on the road. If that car coming up behind me wants to pass, it is more than welcome to. Take all the room you need you need pal, I’ll just scoot over to the right here. You’re bigger and faster than me; I know my place in the food chain.

Despite this (or perhaps because of it), I love the concept of the Bicycle Boulevard. It’s an excellent way to get a nice, bicycle-friendly route into a neighborhood without having to build some kind of separate trail and without banishing automobiles, avoiding the angry reactions that come with that kind of stuff.

It’s been almost a year since our Bicycle Boulevard system was first implemented, with new signage and street stencils on Silver Avenue, and the reactions have been mixed. While no one seems to think giving cyclists a priority street was a bad idea, the efficacy of the Boulevard system has been called into question. That Duke City Fix post by Johnny Mango shows the result of a near-fatal accident at Silver and Tulane, where apparently a cyclist on the Bicycle Boulevard blew through a stop sign, hitting a car coming up Tulane that did not have a stop sign.

What follows the story is some comments and suggestions made by Duke City Fix members about how to improve the Bicycle Boulevard. Nearly all of them run along the lines of putting in stop signs for cross streets to Silver (Tulane being the main example here) and a couple of infrastructural improvements like roundabouts and traffic diverters. So I thought I’d give some thoughts on the Bicycle Boulevard.

It’s not just Silver, you know.

First off, I think the Bicycle Boulevard has been a little more of a success than some on Duke City Fix seem to think, based on the whole system, which includes not only Silver near UNM and Nob Hill, but Silver, 14th, and Mountain from Downtown past Old Town to the Bosque. However, it’s the stretch of Silver between Yale and Carlisle that is the most visible segment of the Bicycle Boulevard because in the beginning, the concept only covered Silver Avenue between University and Carlisle; not to mention that its place near UNM and in Nob Hill means more Duke City Fix members experience this part most often.

Perhaps the main success of the Bicycle Boulevard thus far is that it is a sign of hope for many Albuquerque cyclists that the city genuinely cares about them, enough to at least put up some signs and make some nifty street markings. But the segment from Downtown to the Bosque also shows some real care in which streets were selected. With the exception of Mountain east of Rio Grande Boulevard, traffic is quite light on the whole stretch, even on Silver within Downtown. And while I had originally doubted that Mountain would do well as a bicycle route without some major infrastructural changes, what I actually found shocked me – drivers were doing a good job following the 18 MPH Bicycle Boulevard speed limit. A stroll down Mountain revealed that no one seemed to be driving above 25 MPH, and at first I thought I was imaging it until I got to Mountain and 14th and saw one of those “YOUR SPEED” signs:

As I watched some cars past, the same thing happened each time: they started at around 25 MPH and, catching sight of what their speed was, slowed down almost all the way to 18, some even going past that. It was rather shocking seeing how effective the sign was (although I may have helped by standing there and taking pictures of it as people passed) and I can’t help but wonder what would happen if a couple of these babies were installed on Silver.

Let’s talk traffic.

But we need to get to brass tacks here. Even if the rest of the Bicycle Boulevard system is looking fine, the fact remains that the most visible stretch of it is still not much safer than it was before, and may in fact be a little worse. Adding yet more signage, even if it’s one of these “YOUR SPEED” signs, won’t do much good.

The basic solution to the matter brought up in the Duke City Fix post is to install stop signs at all the cross streets to Silver between Yale and Carlisle (except for Girard). This would certainly be a huge improvement, but a few people want to take it a little further – to make it so that there would be no stop signs for Silver between Yale and Carlisle (again, except for Girard), basically make Silver into a bicycle expressway. There are three reasons why I like this idea: Firstly, stopping and starting up again takes a lot of energy on a bicycle, so making it so that you do that as little as possible would be quite ideal. Secondly, that kind of scenario would send a strong message: in this neighborhood, we value our cyclists as much as our automobiles (music to my ears). Thirdly, and most importantly, many Albuquerque cyclists seem to be oblivious to large red octagons, so accepting that fact and giving them a street where they can zoom through to their heart’s desire might have the bizarre effect of actually making the street safer overall.

However, one of the main problems with this stretch of Silver is that there’s too much through traffic on it, and removing the stop signs without putting in some major traffic diverters would make that situation even worse. Now, a bunch of people have voiced a desire for some roundabouts along Silver, but I don’t think that would do much good. I say this because there’s a roundabout near my apartment (the one at Santa Clara and Columbia) and while it does slow traffic down at the intersection, the traffic just speeds way up again once they’ve passed the roundabout, similar to how some drivers treat speed bumps. No, slowing down the traffic isn’t enough; we need to get it OFF Silver.

Diversion tactics.

Now what’s ironic is that Silver probably has more traffic diverters than any other street in the city, it’s just that none of them are on the stretch between Yale and Carlisle. Since we’re trying to get traffic off of the street, let’s start by saying hello to the bad boy of them all – the Terminator of Traffic. The Big One of ‘Get-Your-Car-Off-The-F***ing-Street’. The Ultimate Diversion Tactic. Meet…the traffic diverter at Silver and Sycamore:

As you can see, it stops auto traffic in both directions, allowing only bicycles to pass through. However, the obvious drawback to it is that a driver who heads up to it from the west is forced to turn around and drive back all the way down the block. What would be more ideal is something that allows drivers to get out, and then force them off the street.

And Silver’s got a couple of those too. How about a simple “Do Not Enter”, like the one at Silver and Yale?

Or Silver and Morningside?

The real beauty to these is that they don’t have to be nearly as elaborate as the two shown here; a couple of concrete barrels (or planters, if you prefer) in the inbound lane and a “DO NOT ENTER” sign is all you really need.

And then you can also slice up the intersection into two, pushing traffic either right or left onto the cross street, like at Silver and Montclaire:

The drawback with this option is that it also forces traffic on the cross street onto Silver, so perhaps not the ideal solution.

The point is there are options out there, they are extremely effective, and they can get pretty dang affordable.

Room to go.

We’ve got the cross traffic to stop at Silver and we’ve gotten cars off of Silver. One last suggestion I’d like to make regards the amount of space on the street itself. The stretch of Silver between Girard and Tulane is quite narrow, yet allows parking on both sides. When you have cars on both curbs there’s barely enough space for two cars to pass each other, a scenario which plays out a lot on this stretch of Silver. Throw a bicycle or two into this mess and you’ve got a disaster waiting to happen.

So what I want to suggest is to reduce the amount of parking on Silver. Eliminating it on one side of the street would really free up some space, as can be seen on Silver west of Girard, where parking is prohibited on the south side of the street and allowed only by permit on the north side.

I still hold a great amount of faith in the Bicycle Boulevard concept and retain confidence it can improve cycling in Albuquerque, if the proper steps are taken.

(I’m still trying to figure out what CYC wants with our cyclists. What do you AI people want? The public has the right to know!) [/tinhat]