Description
A bike box would be great where the northbound bike lane on Prospect Street ends at Trumbull.
Why?
*There is a high volume of right turns across the bike lane, leading to a high risk of a right hook incident.
*The bike lane ends, so bicyclists need to start merging out into the lane anyway.
*This entire intersection is being rebuilt, so marginal cost of striping a bike box will be lower than any other intersection in the entire city.
9 Comments
Acknowledged Department of Transportation, Traffic and Parking (Registered User)
CT Livable Streets Campaign (Registered User)
Melissa (Guest)
Brian Tang (Registered User)
All of the striping on Prospect Street is going to be redone soon. I would just like to re-emphasize the fact that—if New Haven is serious about installing advance stop bars (bike boxes)—this is the time and place to do it. We will not have a more cost effective opportunity to do this.
I repeat, Transportation, Traffic and Parking could bust a gut and revise the striping plan for Prospect Street to include a bike box before the crew goes out, allowing New Haven's first bike box to be installed at a cost of not more than about $10 in paint and epoxy, $40ish in labor, and $100ish in time and energy spent negotiating with the contractor and other city departments to change the paint layout...
OR
New Haven could miss out on this opportunity and instead go back at some later date, secure funding for a whole new project, hire some firm to decide where the bike box should go and draw the CAD drawings of the road markings (which anyone in-house could easily do simply by looking at what already exists in NYC or Portland, OR), obtain approval, put out the design for bid, and pay the crew to paint the bike box, with a total cost in the $500 range.
It frustrates me (to say the least) to think that we could be faced with the choice of spending $150ish dollars now or spending $500ish dollars next year, and conclude that spending $500ish dollars next year is the better option. Especially considering that the more likely outcome if we choose the latter is that we will simply never actually get a bike box.
CT Livable Streets Campaign (Registered User)
CT Livable Streets Campaign (Registered User)
CT Livable Streets Campaign (Registered User)
According to today's press conference with the Mayor, the city just got approval from the FHWA for bike boxes around Gateway Community College.
Now can one be added here?
Department of Transportation, Traffic and Parking (Registered User)
CT Livable Streets Campaign (Registered User)
Sounds good. When I said "now," I meant now that things are moving forward, not "right now," it is a good time to think about installing them elsewhere.
In order for people following this issue to know what is going on, do you have a timeline / date that they will be installed at Gateway?
As you know, creating changes to infrastructure takes time. It's always helpful to get ahead of the timeline a bit.