This is a $25 million dollar project that just so happens to be right next to Childrens Hospital, indirectly listed as one of the “area stakeholders” in the city plan. Supposed benefits:
“improve roadways along Parsons and Livingston Avenue, creating a Parsons/Livingston Avenue Gateway, which will support economic development and neighborhood revitalization as well as create a friendly environment for area stakeholders.”
The current plan poised to go forward will neither attract economic development nor assist neighborhood revitalization. Turning the intersection and stretches of Parsons and Livingston into real complete streets, however, would do much more to attract economic development. Instead, the city is choosing a route for which there is ample evidence demonstrating the opposite will occur. While wider sidewalks, better lighting, pavement replacement, and medians, depending on the design, are a few positives the city wants to widen the street to include a left-turn lane, include bike lanes, and is silent on adding more places for people to walk across the street.
Here is the picture from the file above of the intersection.
Just a brief glance and it is clear that widening this is the last thing that should be done, unless the economic development they want is in the form of more parking lots. Right now, this intersection is Anyburb, USA with no distinguishing features and is readily disposable for new shiny anyburbs.
There’s no need to include a left-turn lane. If people want to insist on living far from where they need or want to go or just choose to drive everywhere regardless, let them reap the rewards of their choice. People subject themselves to insane amounts of traffic nationwide. These streets as they are now would be a god-send in a city like LA. This city has no money and now when they do get millions they just throw it away to shave a few seconds off of motorists’ commutes.
It’s obvious that no one involved with this plan does any urban cycling. As one of the prominent urban cyclists who ride up and down High on a daily basis I know what I’m talking about when I say the last thing this city needs to subject cyclists to is a bike lane. Bicyclesafe.com shows how biking where a bike lane would be is much less safe for cyclists. Giving novice cyclists a false sense of security and opening them up to more dangers is reckless on the city’s part. Aside from the dangers listed above, you’ll have cars parking on the bike lane, people driving on the bike lane, and when snow plows come around these bike lanes are going to be buried and unusable. Simply turn the entire right hand lanes in to bus/bike lanes with sharrows and signs. Right now, this is what the city of Columbus wants to do to us:
I propose that the city require all traffic engineers to ride entire lengths of bike lanes they have already installed before adding more. I guarantee after riding down the Morse Rd bike lane not a single one would propose any more bike lanes.
As for pedestrian access, nothing in this plan addresses the fact that there aren’t enough places to cross the street and cars all too often speed over the limit. From Grant to Parsons one has to walk about 1,800 ft to the next intersection to cross. The equivalent would be having nowhere to cross the street between the Cap and Hubbard in the Short North, which actually has two traffic lights in between that provide real pedestrian-friendliness and ensures traffic isn’t speeding which is good for pedestrians, cyclists, and even drivers. Wide sidewalks and more lighting will not fix such fundamental flaws or provide an attractive environment for good urban development. See High St. in the Short North for what kind of street treatment is necessary for development.
For neighborhood revitalization; taking steps to prevent the hospital from tearing down entire streets of solid housing will support that. Quite a few are pictured in the Livingston Park neighborhood page. At this pace there will be little neighborhood left. Childrens Hospital has a bounty of surface lots where they can expand vs. tearing down entire streets of homes to the east, which is their current plan. Of course they could build more garages, but it must not be as fun as being the neighborhood bully.
Childrens Hospital could invest in the neighbrohood by giving incentives to employees to live in the neighborhood. That’s how you revitalize a neighborhood, not by razing it to the ground.
In the end, the measures taken will only provide superficial changes. Cars will be accommodated, but pedestrians and cyclists will still get the shaft while the area stagnates from further lack of economic investment. This criticism is being passed on to the city to point out major, basic flaws which should never have made it to the final stage of this plan.
“This city has no money and now when they do get millions they just throw it away to shave a few seconds off of motorists’ commutes.”
What makes you think this project is about reducing delay? It seems to be that the left turn lanes are primarily a safety improvement, for peds and bikes as well as cars.
“It’s obvious that no one involved with this plan does any urban cycling.”
I haven’t seen the proposed plan view of the intersection. Please provide a link. Or are you saying that no cyclist would ever install a bike lane?
The plan didn’t read that way to me.
If they wanted to make it safer they’d slow traffic to 30 MPH all along the planned stretches of Livingston and Parsons and install improvements that enforce the speed limit. If that were to include left-turn lanes then I could see all of it working together. The current plan still doesn’t really improve pedestrian safety or access and is a step backward for cyclists. They might as well put up another “Pedestrian Awareness Zone” sign on Livingston so it appears to accomplish something but does nothing.
I meant the latter, but to clarify the term “cyclist” that you’re using remember that I’m talking about cyclists that know how to ride properly, not those biking against traffic at night with no lights.
I know a lot of cyclists that know how to ride properly who design bike lanes for a living.
I think you may be a little misinformed about Nationwide Children’s involvement of the neighborhood. The current construction is on top of former parking lots and a building that they hospital had used for other purposes.
They have plans for future expansion of the research institute, not in residential areas, but where the old kroger used to be, where their surface lots currently are (it is also to the west; there is no planned expansion to the east or in residential areas, see plan here: http://www.nationwidechildrens.org/gd/templates/pages/AboutUs/AboutUs.aspx?page=9563).
When they did build a small surface lot next to the new ronald mcdonald house that is residential, they actually didn’t raze the houses, they paid to have them moved only a few blocks away and redid them completely as well as housed the people in the process.
The hospital is currently buying houses in the neighborhood, rehabing them and selling them at a loss, similar to the Home Again program the city does. Their first one was recently sold on carpenter st. just south of livingston.
So, far from being the neighborhood bully, the hospital take pains to be considerate to the surrounding neighborhood. I am not saying they are perfect in everything they do, but painting them as completely inconsiderate is unfounded. This is not to mention the thousands of jobs the hospital currently provides for the columbus area (including the neighborhood) and the thousand more that will be available when the construction is complete.
John,
That’s sad. Tell me in what situationan is it OK to put a right-turn only lane to the left of a forward-only lane for cars? I’ll take some liberties and assume the answer is “never”. Same situation, different vehicle, and the answer is still “never”. A traffic engineer would be fired, and rightly so, for even suggesting something so ludicrous. The fact that we’ll put cyclists in that situation is even more insane and just provides further evidence that our culture values hunks of metal more than human lives.
ngnelson1204,
I have heard from reliable sources that the hospital is going to tear down homes for eastward expansion. I hope you’re right and that doesn’t happen, but the hospital has torn down homes already, so I’m wary. Case in point: http://thisweeknews.com/live/contentbe/EPIC_shim.php?story=sites/thisweeknews/022207/GermanVillage/News/022207-News-308319.html
That’s not how you take pains to be considerate your neighborhood. Sure, there’s a bounty of surface lots they could have easily built on, but let’s knock down a whole stretch of homes along Livingston instead.
Installing a car right turn lane to the left of a through bike lane is illegal per the MUTCD’s section on bicycle facilities. I’ll agree that an engineer should lose have their professional qualifications reviewed for such a design. What makes you think that will happen on Livingston though?
Well, for the simple fact that the plan calls for bike lanes. At every intersection where a car can turn right you’re going to have cars turning in front of the lane, so I’m pretty dumbfounded that a right turn next to a bike lane is illegal. The Morse Rd bike lane has several curb cuts for drive-thrus where cars turn and drive over the bike lane. along with optional right turn lanes posing additional threats. I don’t understand how a lane like that is legal whereas a right-turn only lane to the left of a bike lane is illegal. In either case, cars are turning right across a lane of traffic.
That isn’t how bike lanes are supposed to work. Cars shouldn’t just turn from the left lane (the car lane) across the right lane (the bike lane). They should merge into the bike lane, checking for bike traffic first, then turn. Bike lanes usually end in advance of a major intersection with right-turn-only lanes to force cyclists into the through lane. There are usually dashed lines at minor intersections to show that drivers can merge right across the bike lane.
It shouldn’t be too hard for a driver to check for bikes first since he or she would have just seen them while passing. A road with two car lanes and two bike lanes really doesn’t operate that differently than a road with four car lanes. You can’t turn right from the left lane on a four-lane road. Why would you on a road with bike lanes? You have to merge right first, as soon as the dashed lines tell you that merging is permitted.
Bikes lanes really do seem to work just fine in just about every major city and plenty of smaller cities. I do realize there are bad drivers out there though. So as a bike, it doesn’t hurt to look over your shoulder as you approach intersections to make sure there isn’t some idiot behaving badly.
If bike lanes were *the* right turn lane for cars and bikes I could see this being less problematic, because cars would have to move over to the curb. Drivers don’t see bike lanes like that and I know I wouldn’t, since I’d assume it’s just for bikes. With large visible signage and not allowing right turns from the right hand lane, only bike lanes, and that painted in large lettering on the car-width lane, drivers wouldn’t have to guess.
@johnwirtz
What “should” and “shouldn’t” happen is irrelevant. What DOES happen is what matters. What is happening is that motorists don’t give a shit about cyclists, cycling lanes, or any of that. What they care about is getting from A-B as quickly as possible. Drivers DON’T check for bikes, and bike lanes DON’T work just fine. Unless they are divided and dedicated to cyclists, cars will ALWAYS find their way into the lanes, and 2000lbs. of steel beats my 200lbs. of flesh no contest. All bike lanes do is lull inexperienced cyclists into a false sense of security, a white line does not offer protection from mr. yuppie texting on his blackberry while driving. and neither does you suggestion of “look over your shoulder as you approach intersections to make sure there isn’t some idiot behaving badly”. It’s not gonna make a damn bit of difference if you see that minivan a few seconds before it hits you or not. period.
I thought this was illegal. Here’s one on Schrock.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=columbus&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&split=0&gl=us&ei=oIA-SrO2FZe1twfQ_eGqBA&ll=40.102137,-82.997332&spn=0.009552,0.032015&t=h&z=15&layer=c&cbll=40.1021,-82.997444&panoid=XWoNq2Uf9O-yuTMzc34I-A&cbp=12,281.25,,0,16.15
That is an UNACCEPTABLE design – unless that bike lane is signed as right-turn-only. Someone clearly had no idea what they were doing. You should absolutely report that to the appropriate city (I think that section would be Columbus). See section 9C.04 here for more details and images of appropriate designs.
Also, the diamond pavement markings are only meant to be used on HOV lanes, not bike lanes, not bus lanes.
If I was a man of faith I’d say I would pray that the city doesn’t start installing bike lanes. However, I’m not, and the city if full of planners and engineers that obviously don’t ride bikes in traffic. I fully expect the worst in these situations and I’m sure that thats what will happen. “appears to accomplish something but does nothing” is exactly what Columbus is all about. There are too many yuppies here that are too dependent on car culture to ever make Columbus into a truly cycling friendly city. It just wont happen.
Speaking of “”appears to accomplish something but does nothing” I’m going to start praying now.
Militant,
Thank you for the excellent third opinion. It is interesting that we have three avid cyclists discussing this with three different opinions:
1. You advocating for only class 1 bike facilities (fully separated).
2. Me arguing that class 2 facilities can can be safe when designed properly. I would also argue that they can help to create a culture of cycling that will make everyone safer.
3. Columbusite opposed to any on-street bike facilities, but in favor of slower speeds instead.
Very interesting. I assume that we would all like to encourage more people to bike. I’ll ask the same question I’ve asked on the Bike Commuting in Columbus blog. Are there any cities, preferably US cities, that have successfully increased bike mode share without bike lanes? That’s not to say it’s impossible to do without bike lanes, but I’m not sure it’s ever been done before.
[...] Posted by columbusite under Transportation Leave a Comment So I forwarded a copy of my criticism of the Parsons & Livingston plan to the transporation division’s on 6/18 and received no response. I sent a reminder and [...]