[Electronic-lan] bicyclist injured in collision with auto on 9th

Wed Jun 13 18:38:12 CDT 2018

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While I'll bike most anywhere rarely have I ever felt "necessarily comfortable" due to lack of respect from too many drivers. 

Also riding against the traffic seem more safe on busy traveled streets = see what is coming at you. This would take some serious adjusting.

On the bicycling survey:

Bicycling should be discouraged on busy commercial streets due to lack of respect by too many drivers. Safer routes should be encouraged. This thinking could change if Lawrence would provide protected bike lanes on all selected commercial bike route streets. Of course to reach this goal will require dedicated spending of about $2 million a year for new construction plus ongoing maintenance.   

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5. Additional comments about bicycling on residential/neighborhood streets?

I marked very uncomfortable or somewhat uncomfortable on most all survey questions due to lack of respect by too many drivers. Lawrence might consider doing 24/7 advising drivers of bicycle right of way and bicycle rights perhaps using a variety of public media such as newspapers, radio etc etc etc. Signage is helpful but not enough. 

Education is key even in Lawrence, Kansas.

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15. Have anything else you want to share with us about bicycling in our community?

Serious dedicated funding is long over due.

    On Sunday, June 10, 2018, 9:17:25 PM CDT, Steve Lopes via Electronic-lan <electronic-lan at lists.ku.edu> wrote:  

 This infuriates me. 
At about 6:30 PM tonight, traveling east on Seventh, I started biking across Tennessee only to be nearly hit by a jerk turning South off Seventh not looking my way. But Old West has an issue with this dangerous intersection that we are trying to address.

Will try to make it an d share many stories of near misses.
Steve

The plural for "anecdote" is not "data."

-----Original Message-----
From: maf--- via Electronic-lan <electronic-lan at lists.ku.edu>
To: Michael Almon <paradigm at ixks.com>; electronic-lan <electronic-lan at lists.ku.edu>
Sent: Sat, Jun 9, 2018 7:03 pm
Subject: Re: [Electronic-lan] bicyclist injured in collision with auto on 9th

Michael -
I am sorry that I can't be there - Joe and I are participating in Bike Across Kansas, and this cyclist was on the list to come but of course now cannot make it...
marci francisco 

On Sat, Jun 9, 2018 at 04:30 PM, Michael Almon via Electronic-lan <electronic-lan at lists.ku.edu> wrote:
 You may not have seen this buried in the back pages of the LJW.  Last Tuesday, 5 June, a 63 year old man bicycling legally on 9th St. collided with a motor vehicle that illegally failed to yield right of way at Indiana St.  He was taken to Stormont-Vail Hospital in critical condition.  The police collision report is attached (3 docs).  The motorist was cited with failure to yield - a stop sign violation.

 The cyclist was traveling east and approaching Indiana St. in the right hand motor vehicle lane of 9th St. (there's no bicycle lane from Illinois St. to Indiana St. because - guess what? - motor vehicles are given primacy at the Mississippi intersection approaches).  What "protects" bicyclists in that two-block stretch?  Sharrows - right.  

 The motorist was heading north on Indiana St. and had stopped at 9th St., waiting for a break in traffic.  Imagine it now - she was glancing back and forth watching autos passing in all four motor vehicle lanes, saw a break and gunned it across, not trying to, or not able to see a small two-wheeled vehicle on the opposite side of the street and a good way west of her, approaching probably at 20-25 mph.  Her automobile reaches the south side of 9th St. an instant before the cyclist reaches Indiana St., who collides with the side of her car.  Consider, if she had been one second slower, or he one second faster, he would have been in front of her car and run down.

 The 9th St. bicycle lanes are completely inadequate - too narrow, unprotected, littered with debris, and with sections missing from Kentucky into downtown, from Tennessee to Ohio, from Indiana to Illinois, and from Avalon up to Iowa and beyond.  9th St. is the location of the highest bicycle-motor vehicle collision rate in Lawrence.  These lanes were one of the first examples by the City in 2009 to retrofit bicycle lane striping during a mill-and-overlay project.  Public Works had no intention to do them until the Sustainability Action Network forced the issue with petitions and testimony.  So they were implemented at the bare minimum, and piecemeal.  It's time to revisit their design with all the knowledge we have accumulated about safe bikeways in the past nine years, such as the NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide.  

 Next Tuesday the City Commission will review the draft City Mgr's recommended 2019 budget_12June18.  Please come and advocate for safe bikeways.  All that's included is a bicycle boulevard on 21st St. and the ill-advised bicycle boulevard on Lawrence Ave.  The downtown link of the Lawrence Loop is scheduled for 2021.  The Bicycle Track along Naismith Dr. from 19th to 23rd is in the "unfunded" category.  

 Michael Almon

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