300 South Bike Lane (Structural Issues)

Protected bike lanes on 300 South in downtown Salt Lake City

     The introduction of the protected bike lanes that run along 300 South in downtown Salt Lake City are a great move in the right direction away from a compact automobile dependent society. In this post I am going to talk about the benefits of this new infrastructure as well as some things that are problematic with the way it functions currently. This bike lane like any protected bike lane gives bike riders peace of mind that they would not otherwise have riding among car traffic or dodging pedestrians on the sidewalk. Novice riders can choose bike riding as a mode of transportation without feeling like they have to compromise their safety to do so. Another benefit of these concrete curb protected bike lanes is that it would be very difficult for a car to block them unless a person physically drove their car into the lane. These bike lanes can also prevent an angry driver from following a biker and threatening bodily harm to the bicyclist with their vehicle.


The Salt Lake City Government Transportation website sites some other benefits that they hope to achieve with the implantation of these lanes:

Increases bicyclists' comfort and safety, attracting new riders:

• Ridership increased by 55% in Chicago, on the Kinzie Street protected bike lane
• Ridership increased by 40% in Washington D.C.
• Ridership increased by 28.5% in New York City
• 86% feel safe or very safe, compared to only 17% in traditional bike lanes
• 49% consider driver behavior to be safer around protected bike lanes

Decreases motor vehicle speeds, leading to fewer fatal/serious crashes:

• 75% of motorists exceeded the speed limit before, and only 20% after, in New York City

• Average motorist speed was 34 mph before, and only 27 mph after, in New York City

• 66% of motorists exceeded the speed limit before, only 26% after, in Washington D.C.

• Average motorist speed was 29 mph before, and only 22 mph after, in Washington D.C.

Provides safety in numbers:

• Repeated studies of crash rates in locations across the globe have concluded that the risk of injury or death from crashes with motor vehicles declines as ridership increases

• These studies have come from: Portland OR, Berkley CA, Davis CA, New York City NY, Australia, Canada and Europe.

Now here are some structural problems that I see with the planning and realities of this new system:

• Unless a novice rider's destination and starting point are on 3rd south, this bike lane may be of little use to them. Obviously this just points to a need for the city to expand the project to other streets throughout the city and even the state. 
• The curbs, parked cars, and planters between the biker and the street traps bicyclists and makes it difficult for them to change directions or turn left at intersections, as they would be trapped on the right side of directional traffic. 
• Visibility, visibility, visibility is an issue for cars and bicyclists. 
• On 300 south there are a lot of intersections and driveways. The parking in front of the bike path makes it difficult for drivers to see wether or not there is a biker in the protected lane when they are turning into a driveway or at an intersection. 
• Cars can easily accidentally turn into the bike lane (which is just wide enough for most cars) instead of the lane for automobiles, and because there is a concrete curb and parked vehicles between the bike lane and other traffic the car can be trapped in the lane till the next block. Cars that aren't quite wide enough can end up getting high-centered on the curb. 
• During bad weather such as rain storms in SLC the water near curbs and therefore in bike lanes can get up to 8 inches deep. Bikers have no escape if they are in the protected lane and come on one of these puddles. 

     

This is a picture I took in downtown SLC on 200 South after good rain. When it rains hard this can be expected on many intersection from 100 South to 400 South and 600 East to State Street (100 East).

My Issues with TRAX

TRAX: Above ground light rail in Salt Lake City
Photograph by CountyLemonade on Flickr

Salt Lake  Trolley Map - Deseret News

Salt Lake City used to have a wide-spread trolley system, covering almost every street in the downtown area and beyond. These trolleys were open air, moved at a pedestrian friendly speed, and were entirely powered by a small hydro-electric plant located up Big Cottonwood Canyon. You could get almost anywhere in the city by hopping on a trolley and then walking at most a block or two. Because the trolleys were on almost every street people were very accustomed to interacting with them and were not dangerous or a cause for worry.

Unfortunately as the trolley systems began to wear down here in Salt Lake and in other places that they were located across the country like Baltimore, Los Angeles, Philadelphia they were allowed to fail as the country moved on to small capacity automobiles. This was, in large part, due to the influence of Henry Ford and his campaign against public transportation in order to sell his individual automobiles.

UTA TRAX Map - UTA

 Salt Lake City has made some headway in bringing back public transportation as the country realizes how detrimental and unnecessary automobiles have been, especially in the interiors of dense cities. The TRAX system was implemented in time for the 2002 olympics, and has been slowly expanding since. TRAX is great for people who must travel from one end of the valley to the other, but does not allow for people to easily travel through Salt Lake City's dense urban landscape. TRAX can get you moving towards your destination, but you will usually need a combination of car, TRAX, bus, and walking in order to make a complete trip, even for relatively short distances. Also, unlike the early trolleys we once had, TRAX is not easily accessible and is marginally less safe.

Urban Development - Then and Now

A comparison of how Minneapolis changed as an urban ecosystem from 1953 (left) to 2014 (right)
Provided by The Institute for Quality Communities at the University of Oklahoma

       There are many changes that can be observed in these two images. I think that one of the most important changes made to the city of Minneapolis between 1953 and 2014 was the addition of highways, which appeared right in the middle of this bustling urban city. While highways were introduced in order to allow residents to travel quickly from one major area to another and to therefore connect people and different parts of the city, it is important to note that in many ways they achieve the opposite effect. These massive automobile arteries do more to divide a city than anything else. Areas that were once densely populated with vibrant and diverse neighborhoods no longer exist and the distance between the neighborhoods that were allowed to remain is so large that they no longer are part of the same community. This division between walkable areas also means that local shops and stores are less likely to thrive because their lifelines to residents have been severed and the pool of possible customers is now quite small. Because they are small stores that cannot offer as diverse options as large chain outlets people are not willing to travel via the highway to them when major stores are often placed right at highway exits.
       Highways also create major class divisions. Unsurprisingly, they are rarely built in affluent areas, instead they bulldoze straight through areas where residents don't have access to legal representation and may have less time and resources at hand with which to combat decisions made by local government. This means that poorer people are often displaced or forced to live next door to noisy and polluting freeways, which of course aren't catering to them in the first place. I feel like communities that are so auto-centric lose the many benefits of having a more localized populace where you actually know your neighbors, and stores aren't a half-hour drive away. When communities are not so divided and dispersed by roadways there are more opportunities for the local economy and small business owners to thrive.