Not to pile on here, but this has been a frustrating experience for me as well. It's especially frustrating because I raised this issue as soon as the announcement was made. I specifically called out the concern of inadequate plowing on the connecting streets of Hargrove and Ivy. While I was able to get a commitment that the park path would be closed, there was no such commitment or followup regarding the sections of street that were included in the official detour. (See last email trail on this topic from November)
*Grant Foster <[email protected]>* *11/19/12* ** ** ** *to Anthony, Kristin, Charles, Craig, Thomas, Arthur, bikies, Kathy* ** *Thanks for working on this.* * * *Maybe it has already been covered, but I think it may be a mistake to assume that the streets along the detour will get plowed in a way that will accommodate detoured bike traffic. I live in this neighborhood and most of the side streets have very low priority and are often plowed the night after a big snowfall. Walter and Fair Oaks are always plowed early and often, but I have a hunch that the sections of Hargrove, Starkweather and Ivy may not be currently on a plowing schedule that will make this work for morning bike commuters. If these sections of road aren't plowed early/often, we won't be able to get to the OB Sherry path and will be left with Atwood/Milwaukee as the alternatives. * ** *Klinke, Craig <[email protected]>* *11/21/12* ** ** ** *to Anthony, Kristin, Charles, Thomas, Arthur, bikies, me, Kathy* ** *We will add the OB Sherry section to our priority route. We will not be plowing any streets though. * * * *Craig* * * I stopped pressing the issue, but wasn't surprised to find the lack of plowing to indeed be an issue after our first several snow falls. Hargrove was actually pretty ok, but as has been mentioned by others, Ivy was never included. This is especially tough, since Ivy doesn't even have sidewalks, so it meant walking my bike through calf-deep snow on more than one occasion. The path through the park was always plowed well, but the bridge was not maintained (some of my fellow winter cyclists adopted the bridge on occasion to try and keep it passable). Since I'm not a glutton for punishment, I abandoned the sanctioned detour and started taking the lane on Atwood instead. It's quite a busy stretch, but it has gone ok so far. Of course I have to deal with the motorists who honk and swerve in front of me to try and show their displeasure with me riding on the road, but at least I haven't been struck yet. On most days I'm able to tune those thoughts out, but on some days I can't help but imagine the 40 mph car with a driver who just got a really important text message rolling over me from behind. My frustration is a little deepened in understanding that this work was never intended to happen during the winter. I understand the value of reducing impact to all users and that there are more users in the summer than in the winter, but it feels like we've given up access to this primary eastside cooridoor during 4 months of complete construction inactivity. Why wasn't this work started as soon as possible in late winter/early spring and completed in one pass? Keeping the path out of commission for 6+ months for 2 months worth of work seems like a poor decision. Winter is a really tough time to travel by bike and this lost route has been significant. I wonder if there's a way to incorporate feedback from the community for future decisions like these? There might be valuable opinions out there that could help shape these important decisions. I'd also put in an ask to develop a complete plan for snow removal on our bicycle infrastructure. Snow removal on our MUPs is typically quite good, but maintenance of on-street bike lanes and critical connector streets (like Kedzie from Starkweather to Commercial) seems completely off the radar. If we're going to promote a bicycle network that includes these routes, we should have a commitment to maintain them that is at least consistent with our approach for MV traffic (main arteries priority and then feeder paths as able). Grant
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