Bike trail at Jefferson – Part 3 of 3

[dbb]

The two crosswalks (the first is by the CaBi docks and the second is further east) have straight box style curb cuts. We discussed the potential for replacing them with a flared curb cut similar to the ones across East Basin Drive. Thoughts?

If you’ve not noticed, as you come down from the bridge you see no signs or notices that tell you that East Basin Drive is a one-way street. I’d hazard a guess the lack of signs would be grounds for dismissing any tickets for salmoning to the east. They may take the existing signs (that tell the two park police officers that park across the street the road is one-way) and install signs facing the cyclists. Look at the first photo in the “1 of 3” posting in this series.

I highlighted the challenges with crossing East Basin Drive and getting on the sidewalk during tourist season. We discussed the possibility for converting the “no standing or stopping” parking area into a 15th Street cycletrack style bike lanes. The cycletrack would extend for the block and would deliver cyclists to the curb cut east of the Jefferson driveway. For that to work would require active enforcement regarding the “No stopping or standing” prohibition.

Another idea to deconflict the trail in front of the Jefferson (that one block) was to extend the asphalt trail on the point of land between East Basin Drive and the I-395 on ramp. While it would reduce salmoning in front of the memorial, it would push the crosswalk to a location with slightly reduced sightlines. It is shown in the Google sat photo as a crudely drawn line.

Topic

[5555624]

Channing the box-style curb cuts would be a good idea. I’m not sure if extending the bike trail helps or not. The sharrows might help. The cones? I’ve never had an issue with them.

My only problem in this area is heading westbound and getting from the right lane to the left lane when there is a lot of traffic — usually just during the Cherry Blossom Festival and some other peak tourist times.

Well, I do occasionally have a “problem” in the morning, heading eastbound, but none of the ideas discussed will keep the Park Police from parking on the sidewalk. (I think they do it to see if I’ll hop off the sidewalk and onto the street — so they can give me a ticket for riding the wrong way.) The real trick is to make sure you see this far enough in advance to aim your light a little higher, so it’s at least parallel to the ground.

[Steve]

@bobco85 42976 wrote:

This is what I had in mind, a modification of dbb’s design.

Here’s what I came up with:[ATTACH=CONFIG]2387[/ATTACH]

Considering that the path would be mostly used by cyclists who would inevitably cross the street diagonally, I changed the crosswalk with that in mind. There would also be no reason to have the middle crosswalk, so I photoshopped that out. I also sent the path around the tree, whatever that weird gas line looking thing is, and the gutter drain. My only concern would be with the sight lines for people traveling westward.

I’ll be honest, I actually think moving the crosswalk east makes for a pretty unsafe crossing. There aren’t good sight lines for cars or cyclists there. The cars are going fast at that point, because many are going up onto 395, but the point of choosing is pretty late into that turn. I ride this part every day, and just don’t see it as being safe to cross at that new point. I also don’t understand the salmoning that takes place up East Basin, but that’s just me. There are places in the city that have hard 90 degree turns for cars, which helps slow them down. Cyclists and peds tend to support that kind of measure. Well this is a highly trafficed tourist area, lots of activity, etc. I think it is reasonable that the trail forces us to slow down there and not be rolling down the hill at full speed to get a diagonal crossing onto a busy MUP. We probably shouldn’t be carrying full speed thru this area, which is why I think it’s fine to cross early, make a right turn, and head up the trail. Bigger than the speed though is just where the proposed new crossing would be in terms of sightlines and car interaction.

[Mikey]

Could you put a stop sign on the road there for cars heading west on ohio drive. You basically have to come to near a stop when merging onto the slanted curb cut (to head up to the bridge) so there is not much of a loss to biking that section and coming to a stop. I would trade a stop sign coming off the trail if the cars had one too. Then a second improvement would be to take out the “parking/standing” lane (the one that is more to the north) of Ohio drive and put in a separated (with plastic bolards) two-way cycle track. This would allow bikes coming off the bridge to safely salmon away from pedestrains down Ohio. Also if you were heading Westbound on Ohio on bike, you have a safe place to travel yet still alow a merge onto the bridge access.

[Author]

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