Traffic Safety is a Matter of Design

originally published on the Mary Black Foundation blog, December 3, 2010

Commuting by bicycle allows me a different perspective on streets and street life than motorized users have.  Slowing down provides part of the perspective, as I’m not speeding by the sculptures, the fountains, or the other non-motorized users of the street.  I see and feel the contrast between the often hostile, high-speed, quick actions of the automobile driver and the slower responses and more deliberate actions of the cyclist. 

I also note how these contrasts differ depending on the setting.  Riding on Main Street through the central business district is a whole other experience than riding on the four-lane East or West Main Street sections.  Traffic moves more slowly downtown, drivers seem less rushed, and maybe because I can go the speed limit on my bike, I feel much safer.

Pay attention next time you drive our busiest roads to the number of cars changing lanes in front of you, turning left either in front of you or across on-coming traffic, turning right or left out of businesses, running red or yellow lights, or stopping fully across the crosswalks at a red light.  You’ll notice several near accidents; as a driver you focus fully on the other cars, and may hardly notice the guy on the bike, or the woman walking on the sidewalk.

The two settings feel safe or not because of the design of the road.  Though driver behavior does come into play, most of the behavior is related to the ways cars and trucks have to move in certain contexts.  Road designs tell us how to drive on a certain stretch of roadway.   Main Street through downtown slows down not just because the speed limit drops, but because the roadway changes. 

I recently read a report by the US Department of Transportation that studied the effects of raising or lowering the speed limit on certain road sections.  The study found that traffic will move at the rate of speed deemed reasonable for the roadway, not that mandated by speed limits.  Lowering speed limits alone may do nothing to lower travel speeds.

East Main Street from Dean Street to Pine Street is a great example of this phenomenon:  the marked speed limit is 25 miles per hour, but on the road, which looks like a drag strip, speeds have exceeded 60 miles an hour according to Spartanburg Public Safety officers.  Try to drive 25 next time you’re on that section.  The roadway simply tells us to drive faster than the marked speed limit. 

If we really want traffic to slow down, we need to give the drivers signals to do so:  narrowing the width and reducing the number of travel lanes, and adding landscaping all have significant traffic calming effects.  Well marked or raised crosswalks alert drivers to pedestrian activity.  Besides giving cyclists a safe travel lane, bike lanes also tell drivers where to drive.  Lowering the speed limit without making any other physical changes puts the onus on public safety to enforce the law that isn’t necessarily reasonable for the road conditions.

Investments in a Healthy Community

origianlly published in the Spartanburg Journal, October 2010

Why all the recent interest in “active living”?  A quick glance at statistics on obesity rates in the United States offers a telling story: since 1980, obesity rates have more than tripled; according to the Centers for Disease Control more than two out of three Americans are obese or overweight.

Ask folks about these statistics, and most will focus on social dynamics: too much television, laziness, the proliferation of video games, and the stranger-danger fears that keep parents from allowing their children to walk to school or the park.  Sometimes they will get to other causes, like poor nutrition in school lunches, or not enough physical education. 

What they never refer to are the running and aerobics crazes, the proliferation of gyms, the intense focus on healthy eating and exercising.  According to marathonguide.com, more Americans participated in and finished a marathon in 2009 than ever before.  The number of marathons in the US also increased by about 10% last year.  How can these two sides of the same issue exist together?

This is where the active living piece comes in.  As a society, we have become less active in our daily lives.  According to the US Department of Transportation, only 13% of school age children walked to school in 2001, where 41% walked in 1969.  For a variety of reasons, new schools are typically sited far from the neighborhoods they serve.  Many are built in areas where the road system is not adequate to handle so many cars, much less to support children walking and biking to school. 

Add to that dynamic our disjointed community design caused by the ways that conventional zoning separates uses such as residential and commercial spaces, forcing residents to drive rather than walk to the store for a gallon of milk.  While we may walk for exercise, we are not walking to lunch from work, or walking home from school, or biking to the post office or the coffee shop. 

Another factor in our bodily expansion is that obesity inordinately affects low income populations.   These communities tend to have fewer healthy food outlets like grocery stores and produce stands, and crumbling infrastructure, lack of adequate play areas, and high crime rates only exacerbate the problem.

It is indeed the activity of our daily lives that makes the difference in our fitness.  When the CDC recommends that adults exercise a half hour a day, or 150 minutes a week, we wonder where to find those extra minutes.  We feel as though we need to go out to exercise. 

I take care of my half hour a day riding my bike to and from work.  But I’m an active person, and have been riding in urban settings for over 25 years.  The absence or presence of bike lanes doesn’t affect whether or not I ride.  But the absence of a neighborhood grocer makes it hard to use my bike for that errand.  The difficulty of crossing major streets like Pine and Church Streets keeps me from walking or biking with my kids to the library. 

That’s why you’re seeing more bike lanes in Spartanburg, and sidewalk improvements like curb ramps, which allow those in wheelchairs and those pushing strollers to move about more easily.  That’s why Partners for Active Living and others advocated for complete streets resolutions that Spartanburg City and County Councils adopted in 2006 and 2007, which encourage efforts to ensure the safety of all users—pedestrians, cyclists, drivers, and bus riders—by including plans for sidewalks and bike lanes in all roadway projects. 

These kinds of policy changes, and the physical changes that go along with them, will serve as truly sustainable measures paving the way to “active living.”  We should consider any costs associated with them as investments in a healthy community.

Life from the Bike Lane

orignally published in the Spartanburg Journal, September 2010

I ride my bicycle to work most days.  I ride when it’s coldest, and hottest, but usually not when it’s raining.  My ride is short, about ten minutes and less than two miles, and I’ve come to value the time I spend doing so.

I ride for transportation only.  Occasionally I’ll go for the Friday lunchtime ride hosted by Partners for Active Living, and every so often someone will ask me to go for a ride. 

Having ridden in a variety of contexts from downtown Philadelphia to rural California mountains for the past 25 or so years has given me a broad understanding of how to ride.  For the past three-and-a-half years I’ve worked for organizations that advocate for active living policies, planning and design, so I have an added knowledge of the current trends and developments. 

The recent focus on spiraling obesity rates, in particular among children, has resulted in a new sense of urgency for active living and healthy eating advocates.  Much of that new energy has focused on changing the physical environment to accommodate pedestrians and cyclists.  Here in Spartanburg we have added bike lanes on many downtown streets, and improved sidewalks to allow for more equal access for people with disabilities and families with strollers.  I wrote a column recently about the addition of a simple sign placed in some downtown crosswalks that remind us that automobiles must yield to pedestrians crossing.  Spartanburg’s designation as a Bicycle Friendly Community by the League of American Bicyclists is another sign of our progress.   

Because I have a short ride, I’ve made just a few adjustments to my schedule.  In the summer, I keep my speed slow to avoid sweating.  It appears for me that 10 miles per hour, measured on my handy bike computer, is the threshold.  That means my summer ride is a few minutes longer than my winter ride, when ride as fast as I can to maintain some body heat. 

I’ve also made a few observations from my rides.  The same exposure that makes me a vulnerable target on a bike makes me a more involved street user.  Folks walking on the street are more in my realm than those in cars.  Some nod, some say hello in response to my greeting, some ignore me.  But when I drive I rarely have the same kind of interaction. 

When I turn right, it seems I know more people.   Think about the right-turn hand signal—left arm out, elbow bent, hand in the air.  I throw that one up, and all of a sudden drivers are waving to me.

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised by the anger some drivers show when they pull in front of me, or start to.  Despite my front and rear lights, I am often blamed for their own inattention.  I’m heartened, though, by those who yield the right-of-way to me in situations where I don’t have it, at four-way stops, or when turning left. 

Only some of my route includes bike lanes, or the shared lane marking called “sharrows.”  But I do stay off the major roads like Church Street, Pine Street and Henry Street.  Those roads are just not made for bicycle travel, and most drivers are so concerned about their own safety that they are not looking for cyclists.  I prefer the slower speed streets, like Kennedy Street, or Main Street through the central business district.  Though drivers are not always aware I’m there, they are generally going slowly enough and with little enough traffic that they can avoid me. 

The more I ride and the more I’m noticed, the safer I feel.  Familiarity brings kinship—I’m the guy who rides, and I feel as though drivers begin to recognize me.  No one wants to hit someone they know.