Comments on hike-n-bike trail material at Mueller also requested
I found this e-mail in my inbox this morning from local bicycle advocate and Orange Bike Project organizer Tom Wald. He is active in the Mueller Transportation Subcommittee to ensure bikes are accomodated in this new development. He’s need feedback on a couple of things. If you want to put in your 2 cents, comment on this story and I’ll forward the comments to Tom.
Here’s what he wrote:
As a result of a Mueller Transportation Subcommittee meeting this last Thursday Jan. 29th, I am looking for feedback that I can send back to ROMA and the rest of the committee regarding how to accommodate bicycle use on Zach Scott St. and Tilley St. ROMA has asked me to get suggestions from the bicycling community on this, so you’re being asked.
Zach Scott St. and Tilley St. are set to be built in the same way, so your feedback would apply to both situations. For simplicity, let’s just refer to Zach Scott St. here. Zach Scott St. is partially built, from Airport Blvd. eastward. It will go east-west across the entire development to Manor Rd. when complete.
The curb-to-curb width is 46′. This cannot/will-not be changed on Zach Scott St., even on portions not yet paved. Currently, Zach Scott is painted with door-zone bike lanes. The measurements are approximately 13′ for parallel parking plus bike lane in both directions. Main travel lanes are approximately 10′ wide each way. Note that there are also bulb-outs at each intersection that narrow the street to the width of the main travel and bike lanes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulb-out
The current configuration requires a bicyclist to ride outside of the bike lane to avoid the car-door zone. Novice bicyclists will likely just put themselves in danger by riding in the bike lane and within the door zone. The bike lanes were designed according to the AASHTO 1999 standards.
Here we are in 2009. Some of Zach Scott St. is already built and some (all?) of the portion that isn’t paved does have some components already in place such as utilities. I had suggested that the curb-to-curb width either be slightly widened or slightly narrowed, but those are said to be precluded by what’s already built on the ground. I could try (probably in vain and unpaid) to push that point for unpaved sections, but let’s see if we can come up with some ideas for a 46′ curb-to-curb scenario. Also, I am guessing that parallel parking will probably have to be preserved on both sides.
So what’s left? Sharrows? No markings? I’d like to hear your ideas. So would the future of Austin bicycle planning love to hear your ideas.
He also followed up with this request for feeback:
The other question coming out of Thursday’s meeting regards the hike-n-bike trail material at Mueller.
The decomposed granite (DG) material at Mueller is said to be denser than the material along Lady Bird Lake downtown. It is meant to be a compromise material between bicyclist, runner and other needs. (However, this question does not cover the material recently installed along I-35 at Mueller. This material was not installed correctly.)
What do bicyclists think of this material at Mueller? Please send me your feedback (here, via e-mail, or via unambiguous telepathy) and I will pass on that information to ROMA and the Mueller Transportation Subcommittee.
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on Feb 2nd, 2009 at 7:04 pm
Sharrows. The bike lanes definitely have to go since they’re death traps. Those streets are going to have a decent amount of traffic on them, so there needs to be some sort of markings that say “bikes belong here” for both drivers and potential cyclists.