<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /></head><body><div data-crea="font-wrapper" style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 16px; direction: ltr"><div>Michael -</div><div><br></div><div>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...</div><div><br></div><div>marci francisco </div><div style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 16px"></div><br><br><div></div><br><br><div data-anchor="reply-title">On Sat, Jun 9, 2018 at 04:30 PM, Michael Almon via Electronic-lan <electronic-lan@lists.ku.edu> wrote:</div><blockquote><div><div style="color: #000000;background-color: #FFFFFF">
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.<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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 <u>in front</u> of her car and
run down.<br><br>
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 <a tabindex="-1" href="https://nacto.org/publication/urban-bikeway-design-guide/" target="_blank" rel="external">Urban
Bikeway Design Guide</a>. <br><br>
Next Tuesday the City Commission will review the draft <a tabindex="-1" href="https://assets.lawrenceks.org/assets/agendas/cc/2018/06-12-18/fws_cm_recommended_budget_memo.html" target="_blank" rel="external">City
Mgr's recommended 2019 budget_12June18</a>. 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. <br><br>
Michael Almon<br></div></div></blockquote></div></body></html>