Newton Streets and Sidewalks

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

More on vilage-to-village bike routes

This comment makes it clear that I need to flesh out the village-to-village point a little more:

Given the relative distances and travel times involved, people walk from their homes to village centres. They >bike> from village centre to village centre to village centre and beyond. In choosing where to allocate scarce bicycle infrastructure resources, inter-village upgrades promise far higher impact per resource unit than intra-village collectours. This argument by SR baffles. Do readers agree or disagree?

A commonly made suggestion, as I understand it, is that the provision of village-center-to-village-center bike paths should be a high priority. Such bike paths would be lovely amenities. I look forward to the day that they exist.

But, any focus on village-center-to-village-center bike paths ignores a cold, hard reality. For the most part, it's not that easy to bike to any village center in the first place. And, I presume, biking to village center A would be a prerequisite to enjoying the path from village center A to village center B.

There are a bunch of different types of cycling we want to promote, undertaken by cyclists of varying skills. One particular activity/skill combination is the riding by cyclists of modest skill, experience, and confidence to take care of errands that they do by car, currently: pick up coffee, go to the drugstore, get some food, &c. There are plenty of people who, contra the commenter, don't walk to the nearest village center, but drive. Providing them with safe, comfortable, and convenient bike opportunities might convert some of those car trips to bike trips.

To be clear, these are the people who live near village center A, but are discouraged from biking there by current conditions. They are not prepared to bike from village A to village B, because they can't get to village A in the first place.

So, the goal should be to improve access to village centers, in every expanding circles and by ever more points of entry. Not only would such access increase the amount of a critical bike use and provide the pre-requisite to village-center-to-village-center travel, it ends up providing the paths. It's not, strictly speaking, an either/or proposition. If you can provide someone equi-distant to two village centers access to both, you've created a path between them.

But, let's first focus on getting people from their homes to village centers.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Bicyclists need to "earn" respect? Really?

Despite the headline -- What cyclists neglect: After a fatal crash, they want more respect on the road. They need to earn it. -- an opinion piece in the Globe Magazine isn't terrible. But, it's another in a long-line of unfortunate blame-the-victim broadsides that impose a disproportionately higher burden on bicyclists than on motorists.

I can't quibble with author Dan Most's recommendations:

Give lots of room to buses. Good advice for other large vehicles. Trash trucks seem to inflict a higher body count than most vehicles.
Wear a helmet. But, that has nothing to do with avoiding conflict, only surviving it.
Don't wear earphones.
Wear bright clothes.
Ride defensively.
Strive to be visible. Assume you're invisible. (Can't go wrong citing NS&S fave David Watson.)

But, he uncritically quotes a Boston police officer misunderstanding the law. Bicyclists are not supposed to abide by the same set of laws. Bikes can pass on the right. Drivers have special obligations to avoid bikes. Cars can pass bikes in a single lane of traffic. Bikes can go in bike lanes. Cars have to be registered. There are special bike-specific lighting requirements. Drivers have to be registered and insured.

Even more objectionable is Most's suggestion that the motorist v. bike problem is at least as much a problem of biker's not respecting motorists, that cyclists somehow share an equal burden for the difficult environment cyclists face. He reduces (to zero?) the special obligation drivers should have as pilots of potentially lethal multi-ton vehicles. And, he completely ignores the fact that driver indifference (at best) or aggression (at worst) plus an overallocation of our streets to cars keeps potential cyclists off the streets entirely.

As I laid out in more detail here, it's not necessarily the sensitivity like Most's to cyclists' flaws that irritates, it's the fact that the blame-the-bikers attitude reveals the extent to which we've normalized the often atrocious behavior of motorists.

And, it's unfortunate that Most doesn't take any policy stand. With Nashville underwater, record rains in Massachusetts, a Gulf of Mexico oil spill that would fill Cape Cod Bay and then some, traffic eroding our quality of life, &c., there's good reason to favor bicycles over cars. Why exactly should there be a burden on cyclists to earn respect?

Automating to solve the wrong problem

Newton's going to go high-tech to catch people who feed the meter beyond the posted time limit. The Globe had a story today. The TAB covered it in March. License plate reading cameras and zippy software identify cars that have been parked too long, allowing traffic enforcement agents to troll the streets for scofflaws quickly and efficiently.

But, it's a modern solution to enforcing outmoded parking policies.

Time limits are a crude tool to enforce turnover. Too low meter rates make it attractive for too many people to park on the street, so you need time limits to get people moving in and out of spaces. But, uniform limits and rates across most of a village centre make it attractive to feed the meter, especially when there is no alternative.
Variable meter rates are a better solution. Variable according to time of day and variable according to proximity. It takes some trial and error to find it, but there is a rate for every stretch of on-street parking that will yield 85% occupancy in a particular period. Eight-five percent occupancy is the level at which there is (nearly) always a space available for the next person who needs one, satisfying the turnover requirement. No need to impose a time limit on the person willing to pay for several hours of such parking privilege. Among other things, a time limit doesn't differentiate between someone having a long lunch and browsing in stores and an employee taking advantage of cheap rates to park close to the front door.

High rates on prime spots and lower rates on less desirable spots moves the less desirable parker out of the prime spots. If we have sufficient parking in our village centers to accommodate long-term parkers -- commuters and employees, principally -- let the market decide where they should park and how many spaces they should take. Price the second tier spaces to yield 85% occupancy. If need be, create a third or fourth tier. But, so long as there is turnover in every tier, who cares if some spaces are occupied by long-term parkers, so long as they are willing to pay the market rate.

Variable meters require some higher tech than the meters we've got. Too bad the city invested in high tech that enforces an outmoded model rather than high tech that would allow us to modernize our parking policies.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Crosswalks and the Burden of Anxiety

Over on the TAB blog, TAB editorial cartoonist Mark Marderosian takes umbrage with pedestrians who exercise their right to use the crosswalk:

People suddenly turning 90 degrees and walking out onto the street, no matter how close a car is, not caring that a pileup or screeching of brakes is imminent. It happens too many times that people are bound and determined to prove they have the right of way, even if it literally kills them.

The crosswalk is not in a plexiglass bubble.

Mark has, implicitly, raised the key policy question: who should have the burden of anxiety in a crosswalk? Should every motorist be responsible for making sure that there is no conflict between car and pedestrian in a crosswalk, approaching each crosswalk at a speed and with necessary attention to stop for any pedestrian? Or, should the pedestrian approach the crosswalk wary of cars that aren't prepared to stop?

There's a certain logical appeal to Mark's outrage. Drivers go through many more crosswalks when there aren't pedestrians present than they go through crosswalks when there are. There will be a whole lot of wasted caution if every driver going through every crosswalk needs to be alert for the possibility of a pedestrian and be able to stop safely. Pedestrians, on the other hand only need to be worried about a potential conflict when they are actually approaching a crosswalk. There is no wasted caution for pedestrians. There is a pedestrian in the crosswalk every time a pedestrian enters a crosswalk.

It's much more efficient to have pedestrians shoulder the burden of anxiety.

The problem with the efficiency argument is that it masks serious, negative policy implications.

When you put the burden of anxiety on the pedestrian, you discourage people from becoming pedestrians. You forfeit roads to cars. Roads become barriers between neighbors.

Cars may be a necessary evil, but we urgently need to reduce car use. Global climate change. The catastrophic ecological damage caused by our dependence on oil (see the Gulf of Mexico). Traffic that's ruining our city.

Our policies need to be in harmony with our social goals. If we want to promote walking (and biking), we need to create an environment where pedestrians don't fear for their lives in crosswalks.

Inefficient as it may seem, we really do need drivers to treat crosswalks as plexiglass bubbles. The law unequivocally gives pedestrians the right-of-way. The risk of serious injury or death arises because of the size and potential speed of cars. There's everything right with expecting that motorists live up to the letter of the law, even if it doesn't seem so efficient.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Stop signs are costly, roundabouts rock

Five minutes explaining why stop signs are cheap to install, but impose a heavy cost, and why roundabouts are good for everybody. Not sure about that weird sign proposal, though.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Newton Pedestrian Crossing Sting

As the TAB is reporting, Newton and BC cops conducted a sting operation at three Newton crosswalks and ticketed or warned 48 drivers for failure to yield to pedestrians. Excellent work, but what lasting impact will / should come of it?

1. It demonstrates, pretty vividly, the breadth of the problem. All three are significant crosswalks. I travel over the crosswalk on Beacon near Lawrence every day. It's clearly marked. It's in an area -- by a college campus -- that you'd expect to see pedestrians. Site lines, especially during no-parking times, are excellent. Yet, motorists routinely ignore pedestrians. Eleven examples in 90 minutes seems, if anything, low.

2. It might just increase compliance. It's frequently noted that enforcement is only effective enforcing speed limits and stop signs when the enforcement is substantial and frequent at a particular problem location ... a commitment that no police department can make. But, I've often wondered if that's true for crosswalks. I wonder if publicity from such stings -- more than even the threat of tickets -- might gain for Newton the reputation as a place where crosswalks need to be monitored by motorists. Unlike speeding and running stop signs and traffic signals, most motorists probably recognize a duty to stop for pedestrians, they just aren't paying close enough attention when they approach crosswalks. Which leads to the next point ...

3. It demonstrates that we need more pedestrian-operated signals -- flashing lights. People don't pay close attention to crosswalks because, in all but a few places with high pedestrian traffic and no traffic signals, the odds of a pedestrian in a crosswalk are very low. Travel cross the city and its likely that you'll drive over a bunch of crosswalks and see no pedestrians. The beauty of a pedestrian-actuated signal is how it captures the attention of a driver when the attention is needed: when there is actually a pedestrian in the area.

4. It's not just a safety thing ... directly. Safety is clearly an issue. Too many people get hit or killed in what should be a safe zone. There is also, though, an insidious effect on walking based on the perception of safety. If crosswalks aren't respected, people don't feel comfortable crossing busy streets on foot. Which means that people either drive when they don't need to, or those busy streets divide our neighborhoods. On a personal note, the nine-year-old son of NS&S has friends to the east and friends to the west within a quarter-mile of our home. He's far likelier to do something with the friends east because he has to cross Parker Street to get to the friends to the west.

So, bully for the cops for confronting an important public safety issue. If this is going to have any lasting effect, though, it can't be a one-off. And, it's only one piece of the puzzle.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Reflecting on Clean Water

This whole episode has me reflecting on the water quality that we take for granted in the US. In India (where my family and I live frequently) urban areas generally have two plumbing systems:

1) city water, which is treated for drinking, and usually comes on for an hour or so early in the morning. One job of the average housewife is to leave the tap open at night with a large pan or bucket under it, and then wake up at 4:30 am or so to turn it off when the bucket is full. One gets accustomed to the sound of water suddenly ringing in a metal pail in the pre-dawn darkness.

2) raw water, which is only minimally treated. This water is used for showers, toilets, and laundry, and usually available all day in an apartment, but only because most urban buildings are outfitted with a large cement tank at ground level, a pump, and one or more big plastic tanks on the roof. Water comes on at odd times & fills the tank. It comes on less and less the longer it's been since the rainy season. Last summer, water shortages in Pune were dire, and raw water supplies needed to be supplemented by tanker-trucks.

I've helped lug water up several flights of stairs from a local outdoor community tap when the raw-water supply to the buildings fails. Let me tell you, when you're finished carrying water up four flights of stairs, you're pretty careful with how you use it.

It led me to wonder, while boiling our drinking water, what we'd do in a real crisis: say, if the water supply was cut off entirely for a week. We've got two supplies (Quabbin for drinking, and the emergency reservoirs to keep the system charged for fires) but only one set of pipes, which leaves householders over a barrel. I'd go down to the Charles with buckets, I suppose, and learn to tolerate the taste of chlorine.

What does this all have to do with walking and biking? Well, I hear a lot of people are wasting time and fuel driving all over creation looking for bottled water.

To get my clean water today, I walked from my bedroom to my kitchen, turned on a tap, filled a pasta pot, and boiled it. It's that easy. Why drive, when the water in your kitchen is nearly free?

Gas Prices Up

At $2.869, the cost of a gallon of regular unleaded is up $.06 this month, $.24 on the year, and up $.83 from a year ago. (Figures from AAA Southern New England.)

Meanwhile, fuel economy goes up, making gas-tax revenue per mile driven lower. And, the cost of road maintenance and construction, which is highly tied to the cost of oil, will go up.

It's time for a gas tax hike.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

View of Water Main Break from Charles Street, Auburndale

The precious stuff that usually runs UNDER Newton's Streets and Sidewalks:

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

To villages, not between

Updated to cure some imprecision pointed out by a commenter.

In about every discussion of bike lane priorities, there seems to be consensus about one point: wouldn't it be nice if we had bike routes connecting one village center to another. I must confess I don't understand this sentiment. It's a nice goal, but it doesn't represent the highest priority.

Among the first priorities we have to solve is how to get to the village centers. What good is a route between village center A and village center B if people can't bike to village center A in the first place (except, I guess, those who live along the proposed inter-village route)? Are people going to put their bikes on the back of their cars, drive to one village center and then bike to the next?

If we want to encourage people to bike to do some of the errands they currently drive to do, it needs to be a high priority to provide multiple routes to get to each village center from the surrounding neighborhoods. It has to be possible to get to the Newton Centre commercial district comfortably, for instance, from the residential areas of the village: from Beacon Street east and west, from Langley Road, from Parker/Cypress, Centre, &c. Once you get there, it has to be safe to bike within the commercial district. And, there needs to be adequate bike parking.

Once we make biking a safe and attractive alternative for getting from homes in the village to that village's center, then we can focus on getting from village to village. The good news is that the second order problem will probably be relatively easy to solve. The paths to each village will likely connect up to create paths between them.

Traffic Council clears way for Beacon Street bike lanes

Yesterday, Traffic Council approved changes to the parking regulations along Beacon Street east of Hammond Street, which changes will provide sufficient room to install bicycle lanes in both directions. Obviously, this represents an important moment for biking proponents. Soon we will have the first striped bike lanes in the city. And, parking is going to be re-arranged to make it so.

But, what struck me was the nature of the debate. The objections to the proposal were, surprisingly, not about preserving parking proposed to be eliminated, but about whether new parking proposed as an offset made sense. Alderman Lisle Baker argued against adding parking spots west of the bus shelter. (I said that I thought that there might be enough room for parking, bike lane, and travel, but on reflection his point about the buses coming out around parked cars and then pulling back to turn right at College Road is compelling and justifies the decision not to add those spaces.) Traffic Council member Sergeant Jim Norcross argued that preserving some spaces along the south side and extending the hours created an unnecessary hazard.

Not what I would have expected.

Again, kudos to Jim Danila and Clint Schuckel for their thorough analysis of the situation and creative solution to the parking problem, to the Ward 7 aldermen Schnipper, Baker, and Fuller for their effort to work with DPW staff to come up with a solution that ensured bike lanes, and to BC, which as an abutter and a consumer of parking could have been a real obstacle, but was instead an enthusiastic supporter.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Why partial bike lanes matter

Before Boston striped under a half-mile of Beacon Street, I never heard a single person complain that there weren't bike lanes in front of Boston College. Now that Boston's bike lane stops abruptly at the Newton border, it's a glaring omission, soon to be remedied.

Obviously, the more complete bike routes that can be striped, the better. But, small sections beget longer sections.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Rethinking Beacon Street parking to allow for bike lanes

Tomorrow afternoon at 3, there will be a Traffic Council meeting to consider an item sponsored by Aldermen Baker, Fuller, and Schnipper to reconfigure parking between Hammond Street and the Boston city line. The purpose of the parking reconfiguration is to create some room at the pinch point(s) in the stretch that aren't wide enough for travel lanes, parking, and bike lanes.

It's a really thoughtful approach to the problem. And, of course, the resolution promises to continue Boston's bike lanes from the city line to Cleveland Circle.

The following design diagrams work their way down from Hammond Street towards Boston (west to east). Click for bigger versions.

Bike Commuting Workshop

If you're thinking about commuting by bike, and you should, you can get some helpful advice on how to get going at a workshop hosted by Watertown's Bicycle-Pedestrian Committee.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010 at 7:00 PM
Watertown Public Library
123 Main St., Watertown

Topics to be covered:

What bike and gear to use
How to pick a route
How to feel safe on Boston’s road
Riding safely and legally
How to care for your bike and your body
Resources to support your choice

This in preparation for Bay State Bike Week, May 17-21.

How to handle bike parking

The lack of racks in Newton and elsewhere is a real problem, but, on a lighter note, if you have training wheels ...

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