Open Thread: Electric and Motorized Bicycles
A post today on Streetsblog New York raises the question of whether electric bicycles should be allowed in New York City. They are currently prohibited from using roadways under New York state law, which has apparently led to people riding (driving?) them on sidewalks.
Neither California nor the City of San Diego places any legal restrictions on where motorized bicycles may operate, but state law does limit their speed and power output, and prescribes specific safety measures that must be taken.
Bike San Diego would like to know what you think about electric and/or motorized bicycles. Aside from the vague notion that they may constitute "cheating" when climbing hills, let's discuss their virtues or drawbacks as a mode of transportation. What sorts of safety concerns do these machines raise? Should special licensing or training be required? What obligations do the operators of electric/motorized bicycles have towards other motorized and non-motorized traffic? Are there types of roadways or separated bicycle infrastructure on which these vehicles should be prohibited? Any specific experiences, good or bad, with electric or motorized bicycles?
Talk, talk...
Road Standards Hearing this Friday - Your input is needed
Kathy Keehan, the executive director for the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition, is urging all bicyclists in San Diego County to attend the road standard hearing this Friday, October 23rd or at the very least offer comments (see the last paragraph of this post). The hearing will be held at:
The DPLU Hearing Room,
5201 Ruffin Road, Suite B,
San Diego, CA.
Kathy says, "The standards they are proposing are better than what it out there now (they call for 5-8 foot shoulders on all roads), but not as good as they could be (they allow parking in a lot of those shoulders so they wouldn’t be much good for bike use). "
She elaborated further:
"In San Diego County they are almost universally a double sign – no parking and bike lane. We don’t usually have to worry too much about the bike lane/parking situation, unless it is people violating the parking restriction. It’s rare that we have bike lanes that allow parking. With the County Road Standards, the shoulders will almost all not be bike lanes, but simply shoulders. That’s what makes it possible for people to park in them. It’s a tricky situation for the County, because you have so many different types of roads –
1. Rural roads between villages. These roads are long, don’t have a lot of driveways or intersections, and don’t have a lot of signage. For many of these a shoulder acts almost the same as a bike lane (except at intersections). It would not be used for parking since there isn’t really any demand for parking along those stretches of road. There might be an occasional car or pedestrian on the shoulder, but for the most part these would be pretty much left to the bikes.
2. Village main streets. These are short stretches of roadway through the middle of rural community centers. They tend to have lower speed limits (hopefully!), but more demand for on-street parking. In these cases, there might be a need for extra space to be added to the right of way to accommodate space for parking or bicyclists, depending on the configuration of the road. These are the main points of contention on the standards, because the current and proposed standards design these roads with wide lanes, no bike facilities, on-street parking, and fairly high design speeds. These would be tough streets to ride on.
3. Little residential streets. These don’t need bike lanes or any bike facility really, but they need to be designed to keep traffic speeds low in residential areas. And they need to allow on-street parking so people can park in front of their homes.
4. Large expressways. These are alternatives to the freeways, and tend to be in more urban parts of the county but go through unincorporated communities. Scripps Poway Parkway is a good example. These are multilane arterials, will have shoulders, and will probably not have parking since they are high speed roads.
Right now the standards specify that if a street is called out in the bike plan as having a bike lane, then an additional 10 feet of right of way (five feet on each side) is needed to accommodate both the bike lane and the parking. Unfortunately, the bike plan does not have every street that needs a bike lane on it. So there could potentially be a bunch of streets that need bike lanes that wouldn’t get them under the standards. Our proposal is to change the wording so that if parking is required, an additional 12 feet of right of way would be required. We’ll see if the Planning Commission goes for it.
To support having bicyclists accommodated on EVERY county road, send an email to Cheryl.Jones@sdcounty.ca.gov. Thanks the planning commissioners for their hard work on putting together the road standards and encourage them to adopt road standards that make sure bicyclists can ride safely on every county road. Please cc me (execdir@sdcbc.org) on the email so I have a sense of how many emails end up going to the commissioners. Please be sure to email them as early as possible, but certainly by Thursday (10/22) evening."
Feel free to copy the email below:
Subject: bicyclists should be accommodated on EVERY road in San Diego County
Dear Ms. Jones,
First I wanted to offer my gratitude for all the hard work you and other planning commissioners have done in putting together the road standards hearing. To further improve the quality of life that San Diego County offers its residents while ensuring compliance with the California Complete Streets Act of 2008, all roadways in San Diego County should be designed to accommodate all users of the roads.
As you are aware, a year ago, Governor Schwarzenegger signed into law the California Complete Streets Act of 2008. The law will require all cities and counties in California to ensure that local transportation plans account for the needs of all roadway users by 2011. These roadway users include not just motorists but also, pedestrians, transit riders, children, older people, disabled people as well as bicyclists like myself.
To ensure compliance with the Complete Streets Act, it is imperative that the wording of the county road standards be changed to require an additional 12 feet of right of way on every road that parking is permitted. This will not only ensure compliance with the California Complete Streets Act by 2011 but also ensure that San Diego's quality of life will be an inspiration for the rest of the country to emulate.
Report from North Coast Highway 101 Streetscape Project
Kate, our reader in Encinitas attended the most recent North Coast Highway 101 Streetscape Project and sent us this update:
This presentation was a really tight, succinct presentation that gave great detail along the entire 2 mile stretch between La Costa and Encinitas Boulevard. The presentation compared the new Alternate 5 with the Alternate 4A (newly modified from 4) big picture items:
- 3 versus 4 lanes
- Roundabout
- Reverse angle parking
The goals for all have always been a balance of use in the right of way - an approximate width of 90 feet - for a walkable stretch with slower traffic. Additional parking plus the community demands for tree canopy, sustainable design, fixed drainage in a walkable and bike friendly streetscape. The 4A was the best balance of all users and 5 placed the emphasis on motor vehicles. The Leucadia Blog has some good summary points on the streetscape project, though again I caution that this is an unmediated blog with anonymous comments veering often into personal attack, rude and uninformed opinions.
I made a point to seek out people and conversations regarding biking. The 7-8' wide bike lanes of 4A were clearly superior to 5' widths of alternate 5. I spoke to one biker who had a leg injury, I introduced myself and let him now I was a beginner wanting safety to re-learn my bike riding skills. We had a brief but good chat and he told me that Kathy Keehan of San Diego Bike Coalition was present, but I didn't find her in the crowd. I was pleased when this man, Randy Roberts stood up during the Q and A portion and talked about getting doored recently and hearing in the emergency room that this was the number one injury for bikers in the emergency room. He stressed that this Streetscape project is vitally important for the bikers in shadows, afraid to bike through our community. He was talking about me and I was pleased he stressed this. And, today I had the proof. Leucadia isn't safe and maybe what I heard at last week's workshop is true; Leucadia is the worst stretch of highway for San Diego County bikers.
Thank you Kate for sending us this update.
Once approved, construction work for Phase 1 of the Streetscape project is scheduled to begin within the next two years. From what we've learned so far, the goals of the organizers promoting walkable, people-centric design in Leucadia will also benefit bicyclists. An excerpt from the FAQ follows (emphasis is ours):
How do you create a “walkable” community?
1. Reduce the highway design speed to 25 to 30 mph. At the present time, the North Coast highway 101 is a raceway for drivers. The excessive speed encourages cut through commuter traffic diverting from Interstate 5. It is not safe for drivers, persons parking their cars, bicycle riders or pedestrians. 25 to 30 miles an hour is the same speed as downtown Encinitas’ new streetscape area.
2. Reduce the drive lane widths to 10 feet. Traffic studies demonstrate that reducing lane widths slows traffic down. Narrower driving means will also add right of way to provide for wider bike lanes and space for diagonal parking, street popouts for increased landscaping and sitting areas, and sidewalk widening.
3. Wider sidewalks. This will lead to more sidewalk oriented retail and outside dining. It also will increase the distance between pedestrians walking on the sidewalks and the traffic drive lanes, as well as permitting enhanced landscaping, more outside public seating and the display of public art.
4. Diagonal parking. The separation of this type of parking enhances walkability. The pedestrians feel safe and more secure. The diagonal parking also increases the number of parking spaces that are available. Providing sufficient public parking will be a major challenge in planning our streetscape. Wide bicycle lanes will also offer additional space for diagonal parking maneuvering.
5. Creating safer pedestrian crossings. Lane width reduction results in shorter distances for pedestrians crossing the highway.
6. The addition of street lights. Negotiating the Highway 101 corridor at night, even in the areas where sidewalks have recently been added, is still a daunting adventure because of the lack of street lighting. Once lighting of the sidewalks has been installed, more pedestrian traffic will be encouraged to walk through the corridor at night to enjoy the corridor’s outstanding restaurants, art galleries and retail shops.
This Week in the San Diego Bike Blogosphere
Our weekly roundup of the best of the week's local bike blogging:
- Bic Control gave more thought to distracted drivers than most distracted drivers devote to their driving. Dang.
- Bike 21 spotted the not-too-elusive bike salmon.
- Vélo-flâneur pondered the weighty question of just why we consider it "good news" for there to be only 16,000+ traffic fatalities in the first six months of 2009.
- And the Old Bike Blog made something shiny.
We also discovered the new blog Farewell to My Car. Welcome, Farewell. Also joining the fray are City Heights on Two Wheels, Cycling Unbound, and Resist Much.
Got a blog we should know about? Let us know in the comments!
Search for Hit-and-Run Driver in El Cajon
We are posting this story in order to disseminate the information to as large an audience as possible. San Diego News Network is reporting a hit-and-run of a bicyclist in El Cajon late last night:
A hit-and-run driver who struck and critically injured a 47-year-old man on a bicycle was at large Thursday, a police lieutenant said.
The bicyclist was struck shortly before 10 p.m. Wednesday on East Madison, near Lindsey Street, said El Cajon police Lt. Jeff Davis. The driver fled before police and paramedics arrived, he said.
Paramedics took the cyclist to a hospital in critical condition, he said. Witnesses described the driver’s car as a dark-colored, 90s-model GM vehicle, similar to a Pontiac Grand Am or Buick.
The vehicle most likely has some front end and windshield damage, and may be maroon in color, according to Davis. Anyone with information about the motorist was asked to call El Cajon police at (619) 441-5559.