bike-friendly traffic calming

Submitted by rebecca on Thu, 2010-10-14 14:19

Speed kills (as the PEDS sign reads) - and as bicycle riders, we know this is true. Traffic calming projects are designed to slow down motor vehicles in order to increase the safety and well-being of other roadways users, especially pedestrians, but they can also provide a huge benefit to cyclists, if done correctly.

Yet all too often in Atlanta, traffic calming projects have not taken bicyclists in account, and have even resulted in fewer bike friendly roads - McLendon and East Wesley being the best-known examples of how bikeable shoulders that functioned like bike lanes were removed to make way for on-street parking and curb extensions/bulb outs. Today McLendon is still a popular bike route, but it's also seen an increase in bike crashes as our visibility to cars has decreased.

Yesterday, we met with at-large Atlanta City Council member Michael Julian Bond and representatives from Atlanta Public Works, to discuss how traffic calming projects could become more bike-friendly going forward. This discussion was sparked by a traffic calming project on Whitefoord Avenue brought to ABC's attention by one of our members. The meeting was quite positive, and we believe will result in policy and engineering changes moving forward.

On Whitefoord, the curb extensions don't jut into the street beyond the on-street parking, so there does not appear to be a good way to provide a "slip" for cyclists without encouraging weaving in and out of parked cars, but the city has agreed to re-stripe the center line in order to create two 12-foot lanes (wide enough for at least some cyclists to share) and add sharrows to the street.

Further reading

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