Bike Safety at the Alameda Theater
Way back in March 2008, Alameda city staff, decided that all the traffic planning surrounding the new Alameda Theater was off-base and that chaos was going to ensue.
The plans had some good ideas, but they also created a potential new safety hazard for cyclists by encouraging drivers to pass left turning vehicles on the right, using the bike lanes.
From the California Driver Handbook (which is supported by the CA vehicle code):
The white line will usually be broken near the corner and the words “BIKE LANE” will be painted in the lane. When you are making a right turn and are within 200 feet of the corner or other driveway entrance, you must enter the bike lane for the turn. Do not drive in the bike lane at any other time.
Long story short, the Transportation Commission voted against supporting the proposal (5-2). The item was called for review and ultimately approved 3-2 with Council members Tam and Gilmore dissenting.
At the time, there were late-breaking concerns that increased traffic in front of the theater, combined with pick-up/drop-off double parking, would lead to a veritable traffic loony toons. The crazy traffic would then lead to safety issues for pedestrians and bicyclists and cause traffic to back up across Park Street.
In the end the council opted for the nuclear option (do everything we can, don’t wait, do it now!) and study it later. Tonight that report will come back to the council, (it’s online now) but what’s interesting is what’s glaringly missing.
During the council meeting, no fewer than four council members discussed bicycle safety issues and yet it isn’t mentioned once in either the original staff report (which came to the TC for comment last month) or the revised one.
Check out this short video (and please excuse the terrible editing job, I have no good excuse for it, I just stink):
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As you can see from the video, Councilmember Gilmore raised concerns about the new street design encouraging people to pass on the right at the intersection of Oak and Central, using the bike lane in a violation of the California Vehicle Code.
In response to these concerns, staff specifically says that officers would be out writing tickets and giving verbal warnings to halt the behavior (this isn’t creative editing, she asks specifically about this situation, staff answers is equally specific, “since we are creting a design that will encourage this dangerous behavior, we will have to enforce for a while to keep it to a minimum”).
The original staff report made no mention of this enforcement, and at the TC they were asked whether any tickets, warnings, etc. were issued. The answer was clear cut: “No.” When it was suggested that this be included in the staff report, an addendum was added, it reads:
…while the California Vehicle Code prohibits overtaking a left turning vehicle by utilizing a bicycle lane, traffic enforcement is discretionary in nature, and minor violations that do not result in safety concerns are either handled with a warning or citation. In the situations where a vehicle crosses a bicycle lane and a bicyclist’s travel is impeded, enforcement action would be taken, and the driver may be cited. If the vehicle does not interfere with the bicyclist’s travel or if no bicyclist is present in the bicycle lane, a citation would not be automatically issued.
I’m not clear on who wrote this, despite the Chief’s signature. In a conversation with the Chief yesterday, he indicated that it was not written accurately. However, the end result is the same, no enforcement (including verbal warnings). So see, it doesn’t matter that this enforcement was a part of the council’s motion, or a part of the proposal that was presented to the council. All traffic enforcement is discretionary, so I’m not clear on the point. We enforce a lot of safety laws when the action is not immediately threatening another person (think red light running late at night, speeding on an empty street, etc).
The idea that you would only enforce (verbal or citation) the law if you see it directly affecting someone is troublesome. The case being made here (again, I’m not sure it’s the Police’s case) is that there is no role for prevention in Alameda’s law enforcement, at least in cases of bicycle safety. Did the council pass a policy that we didn’t hear about?
We obviously have to prioritize, and personally, I don’t want to live in the city that tickets for every minor violation of every law, but I’m willing to put money on the fact that the council walked away from the discussion on May 6th feeling that enforcement was going to take place as a mitigation to the increased safety concerns.
Almost more troubling is that the report talks about all the research done into these issues, and yet not one word is written about bike lane violations. The response from the City Manager’s office is that “a lot of things were studied” which I don’t doubt, but the more I hear, the more unclear I become on what was actually done. According to the Chief, no person was out on the street watching conditions, and officers were not assigned to enforce that intersection.
There was at least one collision between a pedestrian and auto, but that’s not included in the report because the driver was a disabled person using a modified vehicle. I’m unclear on whether the collision happened during the reporting period (though the fact that it came up in a conversation about the reporting makes me feel it did), but if it did, it completely debunks the reports conclusion about the area being safe because nobody was hit. (I’m happy to accept that these things happen, but if the report is going to rely almost solely on reported collisions as its sole backup for safety, and the data says nobody was hit during the same period in the report in the three years prior to the theater opening, then I would submit that an infinite increase (from 0 in nine months, to 1 in three months) in pedestrian collisions is equally as meaningful).
While in a perfect world, the council would ask staff to prepare a report that addressed the major issues of discussion back in May. I’m not holding my breath, the issue isn’t that big. But, since recommendations that were made in May regarding maintaining bicycle safety in the area were dismissed because of traffic concerns, and since the traffic volumes in the area are lower than before the theater was built and therefore the congestion concerns did not come to pass. (There is nothing in the report that suggests that the changes in front of the theater were necessary, only that now there’s lots of room in front of the theater to build bulb-outs and bike parking)
So on Tuesday, hopefully the council will ask staff the following related questions/requests:
- Since the possible congestion never arose, and the enforcement that was previously suggested did not take place, are there plans that can be put in place to return the intersection of Central and Oak to its lower-risk geometry? (Painted bulbouts at the corner that do not inhibit emergency vehicles perhaps). There are definite solutions that do not require a tradeoff between auto congestion and bicycle safety. We should pursue them.
- Why did staff not measure bicycle safety impacts, despite their being a large part of the council discussion at May’s Council meeting? Or if they were studied, why were they not included? Does staff feel that only reporting that no tickets were handed out is a sufficient response?
- Traffic enforcement is discretionary; does staff’s response indicate that APD has no role in collision prevention? How is that done if citations and warnings are only handed out when “a bicyclist’s travel is impeded?”
- A proposal for a city-wide policy on limiting the removal of street parking at corners with bike lanes to one car length, and the implementation of some mitigations to prohibit the use improper of the bicycle lane as a de facto through-lane.
At its core, this is an issue beyond bike lanes. It is about responsiveness to council requests and direction. It is about reflecting and reporting on the success of a project, which can only be meaningful when compared to the goal of the project. In the case of this project, the stated goal was congestion reduction and related safety improvements from the reduction.
Which begs the question, can a mitigation project be successful if the impact never would have existed? Whatever the answer, one certainly can’t claim “it worked!”
***After watching the May 6th meeting on video, it is incumbent on me to state that I respect the Alameda PD and do not in any way feel that they do not care about the safety of Alamedans. I do not believe that this means that their every decision is perfect or beyond criticism. We are all human after all.
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