We really need to fix Old Columbia Pike

Recently, I we had some nice weather in the area, so I just wanted to take my bike out for a little shake down before I begin my summer commutes on it.   Living in an area surrounded by busy, high volume roads, I generally seek out the safest, quietest routes.   

This was an unplanned route, but in my head, I thought I could get down to Randolph Rd, then turn around and return via Old Columbia Pike.   So I started out heading south knowing I was going to ride under the ICC via the bike trail on the east side of the interchange.    It's a bit isolated for me, generally, it's not visible from the road, and therefore I find this trail to be unsafe.   In retrospect, this trail should have been built for better visibility, either up higher, next to the roads, or along the neighborhood streets.  Hopefully in the future, new trails will be built keeping visibility in mind. 

Click image for larger image of the area I rode in the Fairland Area. 

Additionally, as you can see from my route, I didn't quite make it down to Randolph.  Unfortunately, there's no direct route southbound once I made my way south through the ICC interchange.   I would have had to ride through Calverton Park, local streets, and generally take a long way to get where I wanted to go.  I would be better if we just connected a trail to Randolph along the property frontage of Verizon on the east side of US-29 from Fairland Rd.   Certainly, explore the map in detail more to see the roads and connections that are needed. 

On my return, I wanted to avoid Old Columbia Pike, so I crossed and road zig-zagged through some neighborhood roads to avoid the narrow or non-existent shoulders and high volume of traffic.   North of Fairland Rd, and especially the point where Old Columbia crosses over the ICC, there is no extra room on the road for vulnerable users.   The section northbound on Old Columbia Pike could use a shared-use-path along the east side.   Even if it was a sidewalk, I would be on it as drivers failed to give me even 3-ft of clearance.   

Looking North on Old Columbia Pike at the ICC Bridge

Old Columbia Pike is a major connector for biking in the area between Burtonsville and White Oak.  Planning phases come and go, yet I still have no safe place to ride. 

Who is going to take the lead and get the money needed to build safe riding paths along Old Columbia Pike? 

Unplowed Lanes Reveal Overbuilt Roads

One of my favorite unplowed sections along one of the many @MDSHA roads.

John's Hopkins Road between US-29 and Montpelier Rd

With the map above, I filled in sections of road that went unplowed for about a week after the 2016 Snowzilla storm.   I'm only highlighting the westbound direction, but there were also lanes missing from the eastbound direction.  

As you can see by the graphic, the two exit lanes from US-29 South to Johns Hopkins Rd westbound disappeared as soon as the ramp ended.   Also the dedicated left turn lane that is protected by a cement curb was also unplowed.   With the latter, this meant that the signalized left turn would never activate since vehicles could not be present and therefore could not be detected.   For vehicles turning right onto Montpelier Rd, they needed to merge to the middle through lane and then make a right around the pedestrian island when they would normally have a large radius non-stop turn.  

So here we have a road designed with essentially 5 lanes westbound with one dedicated right and one dedicated left turn and 3 through.   With this snow pack on the road, it was reduced to two combination lanes (a yielding left turn/thru and a right/thru lane).

Did the reduction in lanes affect the LOS (a measurement used by the SHA as standard practice to determine how many lanes to build)?   We must remember that schools were canceled all week and OPM allowed liberal leave or late start times, but most people were back at work by Thur/Fri, with OPM starting work on-time Friday.   The rush hour traffic moved smoothly through this area and nobody had to wait extra light cycles to navigate through this intersection.  

Is this road overbuilt?   Probably.    Can the extra lanes be changed into protected and separated bike lanes?  Yes, with the enormous amount of space available by just one 12-14 FT wide lane, wide bike lanes with wide buffer protection would be absolutely possible.  The buffer could be large planters that would offer a great deal of protection, although many other options exist.  

Do you know of other roads that handled traffic at an acceptable LOS while a lane or two was covered with snow?  

Vehicular Cycling = Failure

I just couldn't help but link to the Copenhagenize blog post about vehicular cycling.   You should read it too.  

http://www.copenhagenize.com/2010/07/vehicular-cyclists-secret-sect.html

In Maryland, the SHA has the option to build protected bike lanes.  If we want to give people a chance at all skill levels to bike to school, work, the store, or just to see a friend, we need protected infrastructure with dedicated bicycle lanes (separated from pedestrians and motor vehicles).  

I don't mean ones with paint only:

Huffington Post

I mean real protected bike lanes so kids, adults, grandparents can ride on it:

http://www.stalbertgazette.com

MD-SHA Offers Protected Bike Lanes with updates to Policy & Engineering Guidelines

The SHA has updated their design guide and most notably are new options for protected bike lanes.   WABA has a great write up about SHA's policy update along with good comments about where the new policy still has gaps.   For example, the SHA can still build narrow, unsafe bike lanes along high speed traffic.

A great project currently in design phase that could benefit is the MD28/MD198 Improvement Project (between MD-97 and I-95).  The number of vehicles that travel this section should warrant safe pedestrian and bicycle accommodations being made (even in the no-build phase).   If the project moves forward with anything other than a no-build option, the road is destined to be widened with plans for minimal on-road bicycle facilities.   Switching to one-way protected bike lanes on each side would certainly make this section a great east-west connection for cyclists of all experience levels.   Let's also be clear that a 'protected' bike lane needs to be protected, not just buffered by a 2ft wide white line as shown in figure 10.3 of the guidelines.  This setup creates problems with 'dooring' from parked cars on the right and no physical buffer from vehicles on the left leaving people on bikes vulnerable to major physical injury.  

Feel free to contact me about this project by posting comments or connecting with me on twitter (@makeitbikeable).