Marsha, Thanks for seeking input on this.
It may be helpful if we ask the rhetorical question: What is the appropriate response from the city if road is blocked to all vehicular traffic during a construction project in a similar manner - i.e. all lanes in one direction, suddenly, without warning, without anyone present to help direct traffic? Answer: We've come up with a system that enables to keep this from happening. When one direction of automobile flow is completely blocked, there are signs up ahead of time informing us of the upcoming lane closures. When available, there are signed detours that allow us to drive around the construction area, and when necessary, there are members of the construction crew dedicated to making sure that auto traffic passes safely. It may cost more from the city up front, but I think it should be written into construction contracts that are on or will spill onto public lands that bike lanes and bike paths should be safely maintained throughout the construction project when possible. Otherwise there ought to be ample signage declaring the lane/path closures, along with reasonable signed detours for cyclists - meaning that they don't have to dismount or go more than ~1/4 mile out of their way (this is similar to sending a car ~8 blocks out of the way on a detour). When a detour is not available, then auto/cycling traffic should be directed by dedicated construction crew members as to make it safe for all users of the road. As a cyclist sharing the road with cars, I view this as a road rights and road-use priority issue, but I think the city should put this squarely in the realm of A-1 public safety. If I were driving a car down E. Johnson and a bike was forced to suddenly swerve into the lane I was occupying it puts us, and the other road users around us, all in an extremely dangerous situation. -India Viola On 08/30/10, "Rummel, Marsha" <[email protected]> wrote: > Hey All- > > One of my constituents emailed me and TE staff wondering what the > responsibility of contractors is to maintain bike lanes during construction. > The location in question is Blair at E Johnson. > > "Today, for the fourth time in about a week, the bike lane was blocked on > East Johnson. Right in front of the Krupp construction project--sorry I don't > know the cross street, but it should be obvious. This is very dangerous, a > sudden block of a path with no warning, and heavy traffic speeding by (far > over the speed limit). This isn't the first time this has been a problem with > construction blocking a bike lane. Specifically as this site, there is often > debris (sand, gravel, etc), vehicles, and materials blocking the path." > > David Dryer sent the attached pdf files with the following comments: > > "This is an on-street bike lane, TE reviews and makes conditions for two > types of permits, Street Opening, and Street Occupancy. SOpening permits are > administered by CE and SOccupancys by BI (for now). When there is a violation > of the permit and TE is made aware-as people think these are TE permits, we > contact the contractor and request compliance, we read em the riot act, the > whole drill---often times they say they will comply, some do, some do for a > period of time, some do not, and some repeat. TE does not have any authority > to terminate a permit, to kick a permittee out of the street, nor do we have > any authority to write a citation. We do have the “threat” of not signing off > on a permit renewal. It is often cheaper for the permittee to use a street > than to make accommodations for themselves on private property. We do > recognize that in an urban setting often there is no alternative than the > publics space, in those cases then we want accommodations made for the > displaced public users. They are told this. Attached is a scan of this > permit. In this instance you can see the blue line on the plan that shows the > bike lane is to remain open and outside the WZ fence." > > My constituent responded after getting the above: "Seems to me that it's > clearly not working, and that contractors have no incentive (positive or > negative) to keep public spaces open and safe. And a good example of > enforcement, review, and control being disconnected. Can you imagine if a > construction site just randomly closed a car lane during rush hour--I'm > guessing then there'd be some consequences." > > TE read the contractor the 'riot act' but it does seem like there is a > disconnect...I'd like your advice on this. > > Thanks > Marsha > > _______________________________________________ > Bikies mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org -- India Viola Stretton Lab 115 Zoology Research 1117 W. Johnson St. Madison, WI 53706 608.262.3336 "How can we learn from our mistakes if we don't first acknowledge them?" -Anonymous _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
