Weekend Report: Bicycles as Traffic Calming Devices

When I ride my bike down Glenway to the bike trail, I am now a traffic calming device.  I do not like it.

On Glenway, as you approach the trail from Mineral Point Road, there are three of those islands designed to narrow the roadway. As a result there is no room for a car to safely pass a bicycle.  As you tool along, cars stay on your rear for a distance of close to two blocks.

The driver does have an option. Accelerate quickly, pass, and pull over before the next 'calming device.' Calm my ass.

This cars are right on the bicyclists ass and you can feel their frustration.

I suppose all of this makes the folks on Glenway happy but I do not like serving as an obstruction to cars headed to Monroe Street.  Someone  was  not thinking when they installed those islands, especially the last one, when they should know this is one of the most heavily bicycled street segments in the city.

I did 50 miles past Mount Horeb on Saturday and another 20 around Madison Sunday. Mount Horeb was part on the trail, part on the highways. The trail is tough on the bike; lot of dust. As usual, trail riders continue to believe that helmets are optional. Silly people.

Comments

[Tom Bozzo]

From some perspectives, this may be a feature and not a bug. I think the desired behavior is that the motorists slow down, and f*** 'em if their time is too important to drive something close to the speed limit and/or wait to get around a bike. That is, letting the traffic flow "freely" (which is to say, extralegally fast) isn't the goal. I have mixed feelings about this myself. I support the goal, but I'm not keen on sacrificing myself for it. As it happens, I'm less worried about the attentive but impatient driver -- which I've been in my dissolute youth -- than the driver of a huge SUV wielding a cell phone with one hand and a latte with the other.

Specifically regarding Glenway, at least there's the path/sidewalk as an alternative (esp. useful for the uphill direction), and downhill it's easy to make 80-100% of the posted speed limit. Glenway's parking lane also is lightly used most of the time, whereas say Breese Terrace (on my work commute) is heavily parked-up and has obstacles like broken safety glass that inhibit riding as far to the right as might be optimal.

[Dan Sebald]

This is a similar situation to Odana. I once road Odana quite a bit, but then the street became so bumpy that I avoided it. When it was repaved, some islands were put in that sends cars over toward the bicycle lane. Although I see the "slow down" drivers angle, I also think that an unsuspected swerve can be dangerous as Paul points out. Odana was essentially two straight lanes and had all the room a bicyclist could want; I liked it that way.

As for slowing down automobiles, the city could issue more speeding tickets, which at the same time would bring in revenue for the city--hence lowering our taxes.

[Madison Guy]

I know what you mean.
http://letterfromhere.blogspot.com/2007/07/former-mayor-becomes-traffic-calming.html

Almost as bad as the Vilas Park deathtrap.
http://letterfromhere.blogspot.com/2006/08/vilas-park-deathtrap-revisited.html

[Tom Bozzo]

The current Odana situation is a big net improvement, IMHO, as it removes most of the former ambiguity over whether there are one or two automobile lanes in each direction. (I say 'most' because I've seen one or two drivers with evident white-stripe blindness along there.) Light parking on Odana makes the smart move most of the time to ride in the parking lane.

The Vilas Park area Madison Guy mentions is definitely the worst, not just the bridge situation but also the poor visibility exiting the Park and Pleasure Drive and the Vilas Park path.

[Kate Morgan]

At least it's not as bad as the bike lane/traffic calming combo the traffic engineering geniuses installed on Winnequah Rd. in Monona. In that scenario, they rebuilt the road with bike lanes, but then put traffic calming bricks in the bike lanes every few yards, thus narrowing the lane to about six inches wide, and in effect, making it purposeless, as the familiar rider will merely ride right on the car lane knowing that he or she will inevitably end up there.

[Craig Wilson]

At Sawmill and Westfield Rd the neighbors all just simply wanted to add 2 additional stop signs creating a 4 way stop to slow traffic. What was delivered was a "calming circle" that sends all traffic into the crosswalks to navigate the intersection. The buses must go counter clockwise around the circle to clear the obstruction, while cars go clockwise. The snow plows have already damaged the calmer and the curbs in the intersection as they try to move the snow awkwardly away from the corner. These things are really expensive, stupid, illconceived, and in fact dangerous.

[Dan Sebald]

"The current Odana situation is a big net improvement, IMHO, as it removes most of the former ambiguity over whether there are one or two automobile lanes in each direction."

Well, yes there was always the ambiguity issue. I think it actually was two lanes on that stretch of Odana, if I remember correctly not that two lanes were needed. The calming circle/island as described by Craig is sort of what I'm getting at. It does seem precarious to me, especially when I drive around one. The odd thing is that they seem just as dodgy for bicyclists. There is one on Kendall somewhere that has a small uphill climb going west where there is a sunken sewer access cover or pothole on the northwest corner. Of course, the pothole may be more the problem, but there is no avoiding it head on because of the calming circle.

As for the Vilas Park bridge, I too have been approaching the bridge when a car has come speeding across. Definitely, there should be something to slow down cars. Perhaps a yeild sign with a yellow bicycle underneath it.

[DoryO]

Over on Seminole Hwy we are now dodging those "islands" -- busy rush hour traffic veers around them and into the bike lane -- one of the most used bike lanes leading out of town to Paoli. Seems extremely dangerous to me.

I honestly wonder what the traffic engineers are smoking.