North Avenue Rising: Let's Make it Better!

Baltimore Plans to Improve West North Avenue

This post has been updated to reflect additional information received by Bikemore after publishing.

Earlier this week, Senator Mikulski’s office announced Baltimore’s receipt of a $10,000,000 TIGER Grant for roadway improvements to North Avenue.

The project application, entitled “North Avenue Rising,” was submitted by the Baltimore City Department of Transportation and Maryland Department of Transportation including the Maryland Transit Administration. 

The $10 million in federal funding is being matched by $14.7 million of state funding, $1.6 million in already-committed FHWA funding, and $1 million of Baltimore City funding.

The bulk of the $27.3 million project, $8.9 million, will focus on sidewalk and crosswalk improvements. Investments in transit infrastructure including bus stop shelters, transit signal priority at intersections, investments in the Penn/North Metro Station, and dedicated lanes amount to about $7.5 million. Funding for bicycle infrastructure makes up less than $1 million.

Current Plans Have Flaws

While early in design, the project as currently scoped has major shortcomings. Dedicated bus lanes stop and start through parts of the project, because Baltimore City Department of Transportation does not want to fully prioritize bus service over private automobiles along the corridor. There are bike share stations planned for key intersections, but there are no dedicated bicycle facilities planned for North Avenue in the project. While the dedicated bus lanes will be signed as shared with bikes, other infrastructure is relegated to stretches of parallel facilities that are sometimes several blocks away.

This contradicts the 2015 bicycle master plan, which calls for North Avenue to be a “main route” for bicycles, requiring dedicated, protected bike lanes. It also contradicts a multi-year collaborative community design process undertaken by the Neighborhood Design Center, which culminated in 2015. That plan also calls for protected bicycle facilities along much of West North Avenue.

These improvements alongside dedicated transit lanes would further reduce personal vehicle travel lanes or parking, and Baltimore City Department of Transportation was unwilling at the time of project submission to sacrifice convenience of personal automobile users to accomodate safe, protected lanes for people who bike alongside fully-dedicated transit lanes throughout the corridor.

Through Advocacy, We Can Fix the Flaws

Luckily, it is not too late to improve the North Avenue Rising plan. North Avenue has significant right-of-way, and advocacy for expanded funding of this project and true prioritization of transit and bicycles as required by our complete streets policy, and as outlined in our master plans, could allow for fully-dedicated bus lanes along the corridor adjacent to dedicated bicycle facilities. 

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An offset bus lane street (NACTO)

Additional personal vehicle lane reduction or reduction of some parking along North Avenue would allow for design of an Offset Bus Lane Street with dedicated, parking or flex-post protected bicycle lanes. This treatment is endorsed by the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), of which Baltimore is a founding member.

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A median rapid transit corridor (NACTO)

Additional personal vehicle lane reduction or reduction of some parking along with additional funding would allow for a true dedicated Median Rapid Transit Corridor for the widest portions of North Avenue. This treatment would include protected bicycle facilities and a curb-separated right-of-way for transit operations, improving bus speed and reliability while allowing for a future upgrade to rail transit on the North Avenue corridor.

Additional funding should should be leveraged by this grant award to make it a truly great project for Baltimore. The TIGER grant money should not be used for routine resurfacing, instead it should be used to bolster this project's innovation in biking, walking, and transit design. Governor Hogan can pay for the overdue resurfacing of a state marked highway, like he is doing in every other county in Maryland.

Bikemore wants to see North Avenue rising.

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>33% of households are zero car in pink areas. >66% of households are zero car in red areas.

Neighborhoods along the project corridor have some of the highest rates of households that lack access to a car in Baltimore City. Dedicated transit lanes will make buses faster, more convenient, and more on-time on this critical transportation corridor. Protected bike lanes will allow people to safely use bike share while calming traffic and making the street safer for people who walk. There is no reason to prioritize personal automobile throughput over the safety and convenience of neighbors and people who walk, bike, and take transit on this corridor.

Agencies involved in this project are open to our recommendations, and we look forward to working with them to advance a vision for North Avenue that truly promotes biking, walking, and taking transit. But more advocacy around complete streets is clearly needed, because a project that does not completely consider and include all modes should not be constructed, and we should not accept a political climate unwilling to include adequate design for biking in project submission.

This is a great opportunity to make one of the only wide roads in Baltimore functional for all users, and a mistake in infrastructure here will have to be endured for years to come. We must get to a place where our city prioritizes people over personal cars by default, not as an afterthought.

As this project continues to develop, we will notify you of ways to get involved and ensure we get the best possible design for people who bike, walk, and ride transit. 

Maryland Avenue Cycle Track and Downtown Bicycle Network Project Update

In a meeting with Baltimore City Department of Transportation last week, Bikemore received an update on the 2.6 mile Maryland Ave Cycle Track. Current construction timelines estimate the project to begin construction in the Spring of 2016.

Here are some important milestones for the project we are watching to ensure the project does not experience any further delays.

• Toole Design is currently putting together the PSE (plans, specifics, and estimates).

• Baltimore Department of Transportation will advertise the project by 9/9.

• Timeline for advertising is four weeks.

• This means it will be mid November when the contract is awarded.

• Given construction schedules it is unlikely whichever company is awarded the contract will begin construction before winter.

• This means a Spring 2016 construction start.

• The project is estimated to take 90 days for construction.

Included in the contract is the work to implement the Downtown Bicycle Network. This will include conventional bike lanes on Preston and Biddle and protected cycle tracks on Centre, Monument and Madison.

Additionally Bikemore has been communicating with Baltimore City DOT our recommendations for creating better connection to the Maryland Ave cycle track. BCDOT is already at work to improve signaling at Maryland and 29th st, and listening to input to improve safety and wayfinding from all routes feeding into the cycle track.

And while we are all frustrated with the delays, BCDOT deserves credit for ensuring that the plans didn’t languish in State Highway Administration final review. This is a priority of ours and theirs, and we appreciate them doing all they can within a less than perfect system to get the cycle track installed.

Despite perceptions, construction of the Roland Ave cycle track did not contribute to the delay.

Our hope is that as more of these projects get underway, the more comfortable State Highway Administration gets in quickly approving plans and empowering BCDOT to build the connected bicycle network we deserve.

Recommended Improvement to Bike Master Plan

The proposed bicycle master plan update includes many ambitious and excellent proposals for improving safety and comfort for bicyclists in Baltimore, whether they ride for recreation or transportation. The proposed bicycle facility network, once fully constructed, would allow many thousands of Baltimore residents and visitors to be able to use bicycle-specific infrastructure to access their jobs, schools, grocery stores, favorite restaurants, and social activities by bicycle. The health, quality of life, and local economic benefits of a high quality bicycle transportation network are well documented, and the City should be commended for its plans to implement these measures.

However, recent events in our City underscore the fact that it is not simply the presence of a bicycle facility, but also the type of bicycle facility that really increase the safety and comfort of bicyclists. 

The Master Plan Update includes the possibility of standard bicycle lanes on "main routes," which are often identified to be located on arterial roadways, and shared lane markings, or sharrows for "minor routes." There may be some streets where these treatments are appropriate, but facility selection must be strategic and sensitive to the operating conditions of the street, in order to maximize the safety and comfort of all users.    

Bikemore's proposal is that facilities with some physical separation be the default preferred facility for streets with 85th percentile speeds above 25 miles per hour. This is the suggested threshold because it is an approximation of the speed beyond which crashes between automobiles and bicyclists or pedestrians become dramatically more likely to result in death or grievous injury. We propose using measured 85th percentile speeds as opposed to the speed on the speed limit sign because of the frequency with which drivers exceed the speed limit. 

Furthermore, sharrows are only an appropriate choice for local streets, and in conjunction with traffic calming and "bicycle boulevard" measures that keep 85th percentile speeds below 25 mph, or, ideally, closer to 20 mph. It may also be appropriate to use sharrows to connect short gaps between higher quality facilities. This position is consistent with NACTO Bikeway Design Guidelines and emerging research about the safety and functionality of different bicycle facility types. 

These recommendations will result in the selection of safer, more comfortable facilities, while also allowing for creative solutions in locations where space may be too constrained for a separated bicycle facility. 

For example: if the 85th percentile speed on a street is above 25 mph even though the signed speed is not, and a separated bicycle facility cannot be accommodated, we would find it an acceptable solution to install the standard lane or a paint-buffered lane in conjunction with bicycle friendly traffic calming measures. In severely space constrained locations, standard painted bike lanes may be acceptable in the absence of traffic calming measures for small lengths of narrower cross section on a street, if other factors such as adjacent parking, driveway conflicts, and door zones are taken into account. Where these compromises must be made, we recommend that Bikemore or other credible bicycle advocacy entities be consulted to help collaboratively develop the safest and most comfortable bicycle facility that is feasible in the space available.  

MARC Adds Weekend Bicycle Car

Great news from the MTA! Now you can take a bike on the MARC train from Charm City all the way to our nation’s capital. Whether you want to see the historic sights, delve into some bipartisan gridlock, or catch a glimpse of first rate cycle tracks in Washington, D.C., the opportunity has now arrived for you and your bike to travel south together on one of MARC’s snazzy new Bike Cars.

While service is limited to weekends in this pilot phase, we see great things on the horizon for intercity multimodal active transportation (aka…Bikes!).

This was a collaboration of many folks, including the Maryland Transit Administration, Bike Maryland, WABA, and of course you - Bikemore’s dedicated members. We look forward to two wheeling it down in D.C., but we’re even more excited to showcase our beloved Baltimore to our cycling brethren from D.C., as now it will be easier for them to come see all that we have to offer by bike!

You can read more about it here from our friends at WABA (just short bike & train ride away):

http://www.waba.org/blog/2014/12/all-aboard-marc/

Bikemore will continue to work with MTA, Bike Maryland, and WABA to expand bicycle access to all MARC trains, as mandated by Maryland law. This is a great step toward a more connected region.

Bikemore Statement About Street Attacks

As we posted earlier today, another person was attacked while riding his bicycle this past weekend on Guilford Avenue in Greenmount West. Attacks like this have been reported sporadically over the past few years — not just on people riding bicycles, but people walking as well — usually along Guilford Avenue and Charles Street between Mount Royal Avenue and 25th Street.

These incidents do not represent the actions of all Baltimore City youth. Many City youth ride bikes for transportation or otherwise get around Baltimore peacefully, and many engage in positive after-school bicycle activities like the Baltimore Bike Experience at Digital Harbor High School and Baltimore Bike Party.

The only way to know what motivated the specific group of youth who appear on the video is to ask them, but we suspect that if Baltimore had more productive adult supervision and more safe places for youth to learn and engage in positive activities, this incident would not have occurred.

Obviously, there must be consequences for assaulting another human being, but we should also use this unfortunate event as an opportunity to teach young people the impact of their actions and address the underlying causes of the assault.

Bikemore is actively engaging with the police and community leaders to ensure the neighborhoods along the Guilford Avenue Bike Boulevard are safe for commuters and residents alike, regardless of one's chosen mode of transportation. We hope this incident promotes a constructive dialogue about increased after-school and evening opportunities for youth in our city.

If you would like to be part of this dialogue, please feel free to contact us.