Bikeway Safety/Traffic Issues

ARLINGTON October 4, 2005 BICYCLE ADVISORY TO: Arlington Board of Selectmen COMMITTEE CC: Transportation Advisory Committee

FROM: Jack Johnson, chairperson, Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee (ABAC) www.abac.arlington.ma.us RE: Bikeway safety issues in Arlington Center and at Mill and Lake Streets

At our committee-member reappointments, you asked us to work on recommendations for improving bicyclists’ and motorists’ awareness of traffic-safety issues at the following roadway crossings of the Minuteman Bikeway:

. Arlington Center (Mass Ave and Pleasant/Mystic Streets) . Mill Street . Lake Street

We have discussed these issues at length in our monthly ABAC meetings earlier this year, and I have distilled our comments and suggestions into the enclosed report. We would be happy to attend one of your upcoming meetings to discuss these issues further; please contact me with any comments.

We wanted to wait to report on these issues until Anne Lusk’s sign project was underway, which is related to the bikeway crossing in Arlington Center.

This report is also available for downloading, with color photographs, from ABAC’s website at http://www.abac.arlington.ma.us (MS Word document).

We welcome any feedback you may have for us on this report. I can be reached at [email protected] or 781-646-4724.

Report on Bikeway-Traffic Safety Issues • Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee October 2005 • 1 Bikeway-Traffic Safety Issues: Arlington Center, Mill Street, Lake Street

This report contains the following sections:

. Background . Bicycle crash data . General issues and recommendations . Bikeway crossing at Arlington Center . Bikeway intersection at Mill Street . Bikeway intersection at Lake Street . Mass Ave intersections at Orvis/Grafton and Forest Streets . Attachment A: Guidelines for using Minuteman Bikeway . Attachment B: New signs on bikeway in Arlington Center

Background The Minuteman Bikeway was completed in Arlington in 1992–1993 and has since become Arlington’s most used open space and one of the nation’s most popular rail-trails. The facility is widely used by Arlington residents, regional visitors, and tourists.

The bikeway is 11 miles long, running from the Alewife MBTA Station in Cambridge through Arlington, Lexington, and into Bedford. The bikeway is a multi-use paved route that is widely used by bicyclists, walkers, joggers, in-line skaters, and (when snow conditions allow in winter) cross-country skiers and snowshoers. ABAC volunteers maintain an informational website for the bikeway at www.minutemanbikeway.org, which includes guidelines for using the bikeway. A printed bikeway brochure is also available.

In Arlington, the bikeway crosses these roads at grade (in order, from east to west):

. Lake Street . Linwood Street . Swan Place . Mass Ave / Route 60 (Arlington Center) . Water Street . Mill Street

All of these intersections are marked with “STOP” signs on the bikeway and crosswalks plus “Bicycle Crossing” caution signs on the roadway.

See Attachment A for guidelines on using the Minuteman Bikeway. These guidelines have been accepted by all four bikeway communities: Cambridge, Arlington, Lexington, and Bedford.

Report on Bikeway-Traffic Safety Issues • Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee October 2005 • 2 Bicycle crash data According to MassHighway data supplied via the Transportation Advisory Committee, there were approximately 8,000 total crashes in Arlington involving motor vehicles in the 12 years from 1990 to 2001. (This is the most recent crash data that is readily available to us.) Approximately 3,000 of these crashes involved personal injury, including 231 incidents involving pedestrians and 145 involving bicyclists.

Bicycle-accident “hot spots” (locations with 3 or more bicycle/vehicle crashes) are listed in Table 1.

Table 1: Locations with 3 or more bike-motor vehicle crashes, 1990–2001 Intersection Reported Crashes Notes Mass/Route 60 6 Arlington Center. Mass/Orvis/Grafton 4 Not related to bikeway. Mass/Forest 4 Not related to bikeway. Bikeway/Mill 3 Bikeway-related.

Two of these locations involve non-bikeway-related intersections on Mass Ave: Orvis/Grafton and Forest Streets. Minor, unreported accidents or near-misses are not included in this crash data.

During this same 12-year period, Arlington’s worst hot spot for all crashes in town (Mass/Rte 60) had 230 total crashes, with the vast majority involving only motorists. Of the 230 total crashes in Arlington Center, 6 (or 2.6%) involved bicyclists.

Table 2 lists reported bicycle/motor vehicle crashes at the bikeway crossings in Arlington. All locations had crash rates of substantially less than one per year.

Table 2: Bikeway crossing: bike-motor vehicle crashes, 1990–2001 Intersection Reported Crashes Notes Mass/Route 60 6 Arlington Center. Bikeway/Mill 3 Bikeway/Water 2 Bikeway/Linwood 1 Reported as Hamilton/Linwood. Bikeway/Lake 1 Reported as Lake/Margaret. Bikeway/Swan Place 0

Report on Bikeway-Traffic Safety Issues • Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee October 2005 • 3 General issues and recommendations This section discusses Town-wide issues and recommendations related to engineering, education, and enforcement for bicycle safety.

Provide community education. ABAC helps educate the community regarding safe bicycling practices through our outreach efforts at Arlington Town Day, the annual BIKE-Arlington Tour, and our ABAC Winter Social event. Jack Johnson, ABAC chairman, recently became certified as a League Cycling Instructor, and he is now team-teaching local courses on bicycling safety. The Town of Arlington is providing space for upcoming Introduction to Bicycling Safety and Bicycling 101 courses on October 14–15; these courses are organized by the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition (MassBike). In addition, we have contacted the Arlington Advocate about running a monthly Bicycling Safety column next year, and we could also develop and post more bicycling-safety information on ABAC’s website.

Train police officers on bicycle-traffic laws. The state’s Municipal Police Training Committee has recently adopted MassBike’s curriculum for training local police officers on traffic laws involving bicyclists. We strongly recommend that some Arlington Police officers receive this formal training and then share it with additional officers. ABAC could help to facilitate the connection with MassBike’s police-training program.

Encourage our police officers to enforce bicycle-traffic laws. For community safety, ABAC supports local enforcement of bicycling traffic laws, and we would welcome additional enforcement. (As a prerequisite, we recommend the aforementioned training program for police officers.)

Fix non-responsive traffic signals. Arlington has many traffic-actuated signals which do not respond to bicycles. These are of particular concern on the side-street approaches to major streets (e.g, Brooks/Lake, Linwood/Mass Ave, Brattle/Mass Ave, etc.) Just as a non-functioning “Walk” signal sends a message to pedestrians that they are expected to jaywalk, non- responsive traffic signals send the unfortunate message to bicyclists that they are expected to run red lights. Specific recommendations include:

. Any major work on traffic-actuated signals should include steps to ensure that the signals respond to bicycles as well as motor vehicles. (At the request of both ABAC and TAC, this is being done for the Summer Street reconstruction.)

. Review other signals in Town, and develop and execute a prioritized list for fixing them.

. Confine any police enforcement of bicyclist red-light violations to those intersection approaches where this is known NOT to be an issue.

Specific suggestions for each intersection are addressed in the following sections of this report.

Report on Bikeway-Traffic Safety Issues • Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee October 2005 • 4 Bikeway crossing at Arlington Center In Arlington Center, Minuteman Bikeway users need to cross both Mass Ave and Route 60 either on bicycle or as pedestrians — which requires two walk-light cycles to cross the Center. For bikeway users, Arlington Center is often seen as an obstacle to get across as opposed to a destination.

Arlington Center (photo taken in front of Uncle Sam statue). For new bikeway users and visitors, it’s not easy to figure out how to get to the other side of the bikeway — which is not visible through traffic and nearly 2 blocks away at Swan Place. We are hopeful that the new Mass Ave corridor project will provide improved bikeway access through Arlington Center.

New stencils and signs at bikeway crossing in Arlington Center ABAC and the Transportation Advisory Committee (TAC) have been working with Anne Lusk (Harvard School of Public Health) this past year to develop improvements in Arlington Center to make bikeway travel safer and easier. Anne received $30,000 in grants for pilot projects in Arlington, including the bikeway crossing in Arlington Center:

. Stencils will be applied on sidewalks in Arlington Center (where the bikeway breaks), encouraging inexperienced bicyclists and visitors to walk their bicycles and cross Arlington Center as pedestrians. (Experienced bicyclists who know this intersection already know how to ride through it.)

Report on Bikeway-Traffic Safety Issues • Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee October 2005 • 5 . New signs have recently been installed at both bikeway breakpoints in Arlington Center, providing visitors and newcomers with a map of how to cross to the other side of the bikeway, in addition to providing some information on the public amenities in Arlington Center. See the photographs below.

The goals of Anne Lusk’s grant were to create design innovations to encourage more active forms of transportation and recreation, including walking, bicycling, and in-line skating.

New bikeway signs in Arlington Center, installed in September 2005 at Swan Place near Carberry’s (left) and behind Uncle Sam statue (right). These signs provide newcomers with a map of how to cross safely to the other side of the bikeway.

See Attachment B at end of this report for a close-up of the sign graphics.

Recommendations for improving bikeway-crossing safety in Arlington Center

. Enforce “no turn on red” regulation in Arlington Center at Mass Ave/Route 60. Otherwise, it’s dangerous for pedestrians and bicyclists to cross at the Walk lights. From a bicyclist/pedestrian safety perspective, this is the biggest issue.

. Enforce traffic laws for scofflaw bicyclists who run red lights in Arlington Center. While it’s probably impractical to enforce bicycle-traffic laws throughout town, we suggest enforcing bicycling-traffic laws in Arlington Center periodically (maybe as a pilot project). Except in Cambridge, it’s unusual for a scofflaw bicyclist to be given a police ticket or warning in this area, but we would welcome it if Arlington developed a “tougher” reputation for controlling irresponsible bicyclists. ABAC could help to publicize such a change to the local bicycling community.

Report on Bikeway-Traffic Safety Issues • Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee October 2005 • 6 . Incorporate an improved bikeway connection for Arlington Center into the proposed redesign/reconstruction of Mass Ave. The new federal transportation bill, signed into law in August, includes $1.6 million earmarked for the reconstruction of Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington, specifically targeting safety improvements for pedestrians and bicyclists at the bikeway crossing. We are hopeful that this new Mass Ave corridor project can provide improved bikeway access through Arlington Center.

Bikeway intersection at Mill Street The Bikeway/Mill Street intersection is unregulated, and ABAC has agreed that it is the potentially most dangerous bikeway crossing in town. This intersection is particularly problematic because of its close proximity to Summer Street, with fast-turning traffic from Summer Street suddenly upon the bikeway crossing at Mill Street.

With the nearby Mirak lot on Summer Street about to be redeveloped, resolving the intersection issues here are potentially even more important.

Eastbound on the bikeway at Mill Street. Upon approaching this intersection on the bikeway, the STOP sign is partially obscured by bushes on the right. In addition, the STOP pavement markings are faded. Sight-lines are an issue at this intersection — for both bikeway and roadway users.

Report on Bikeway-Traffic Safety Issues • Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee October 2005 • 7 Recommendations for improving bikeway-crossing safety at Mill Street

. Install “Dangerous Intersection” caution signs on the bikeway before this street crossing, alerting bikeway users that this is a busier, more dangerous street crossing. (A similar sign was installed on the bikeway recently in Lexington; see the photo on the next page.)

. In addition, the painted lines and graphics on the bikeway pavement are faded and should be replaced at this intersection. We might also consider painting “CAUTION: STOP AHEAD” graphics on the bikeway pavement before this intersection.

. Trim and prune overgrown trees and vegetation that block STOP signs along the bikeway.

. Make the bikeway intersection more visible to motorists, perhaps by elevating the bikeway crossing — with a raised crosswalk, mini-island in the middle of the road, or some other method. In addition, such a device would serve to calm motorists’ speed when approaching the bikeway intersection. This is a longer-term, more expensive suggestion.

. Reconfigure Mill/Summer intersection to lessen danger at the bikeway crossing, perhaps involving traffic-calming devices (e.g., speed hump). This is a longer-term, more expensive suggestion.

. Install a flashing yellow light on the roadway to alert motorists of the bikeway crossing. Perhaps this light could be sensor-controlled to warn motorists of approaching bicyclists or pedestrians. (A traffic signal installation would be complex, because of the proximity with the existing signal at Mill/Summer) Again, such a device would improve motorists’ awareness of the bikeway crossing.

. Present citations/prizes to bikeway users for correct behavior at dangerous intersections to help educate and encourage bikeway users to cross intersections safely. Such a program could be staffed occasionally by volunteers during peak bikeway usage. Community volunteers can easily recognize and reward good behavior on the bikeway, but — for personal safety — unlawful behavior needs be enforced by police officers.

Bikeway intersection at Lake Street Although the Bikeway/Lake Street intersection is potentially less dangerous than Mill Street, these two intersections are similar — and might be addressed in consistent ways. Please refer to the previous section on Mill Street for related discussion, suggestions, and possible improvements.

Report on Bikeway-Traffic Safety Issues • Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee October 2005 • 8 Eastbound on the bikeway at Lake Street in East Arlington. Note that the STOP sign on the bikeway is totally obscured by overhanging trees. The pavement graphics are also faded on the bikeway.

This “Caution: Dangerous Intersection Ahead” sign was recently added on the Minuteman Bikeway at the driveway crossing for Seasons Four in Lexington. In recent years, Seasons Four has expanded its wholesale nursery business, which has increased truck traffic into their site — and also increased safety issues at this bikeway intersection. We suggest installing similar signs on the bikeway in Arlington at Mill and Lake Streets.

Report on Bikeway-Traffic Safety Issues • Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee October 2005 • 9 Mass Ave intersections at Orvis/Grafton and Forest Because of the frequency of motor vehicle/bicycle accidents reported at the Mass Ave intersections of Orvis/Grafton and Forest Streets, we suggest that we continue to monitor these intersections and look for ways to improve them in the future. Mass/Orvis/Grafton would be included in the proposed Mass Ave improvements in Arlington — as part of the federal transportation bill project. We should look at ways to improve bicycling safety at this intersection — as well as other intersections along Mass Ave — during the design process of this project.

We recommend doing the same with Forest Street when that intersection or section of Mass Ave is slated for major repairs or redesign in the future. The Mass/Forest intersection is particularly problematic because of the curve in Mass Ave, acute angles, visibility issues, and grade changes.

Attachment A: Guidelines for using Minuteman Bikeway The following guidelines, which all bikeway towns have agreed to, are posted on the Minuteman Bikeway website (www.minutemanbikeway.org) and printed in the bikeway brochure.

General Guidelines . EVERYONE: KEEP TO THE RIGHT except to pass. . Look carefully before entering or crossing the bikeway. . Pass on the left, only when safe. Give an audible warning before passing another bikeway user. . Make a complete stop at all intersections. . When stopping, move off the pavement to allow other bikeway users to pass. . Yield to emergency and maintenance vehicles. . For bikeway updates on the web, see News and Events on this website.

Bicycling . Helmets are recommended for all bicyclists and required by state law for children under 13. . Stop your bicycle, if necessary, to yield or to prevent an accident. Bicyclists must yield to pedestrians. . Bicyclists may ride two-abreast only when safe (when the bikeway is uncrowded). Never ride three-or-more-abreast. . Bicycle headlight is required when riding at night. . Ride at a safe speed. (When the bikeway is crowded, you might need to slow down.)

Walking / Jogging . Keep to the right when walking or running on the path. . Look before entering the bikeway or changing direction. . Don’t walk or run more than two abreast.

In-Line Skating . Helmets, kneepads, and wristguards are advised. . Keep to the right so that other users may pass safely.

Report on Bikeway-Traffic Safety Issues • Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee October 2005 • 10 . Skate single-file when the bikeway is busy. . Skate at a safe speed, and be prepared to stop suddenly.

Common Courtesy . Do not litter or trespass on private property. . Keep your dog on a leash. Pick up after your dog. . Respect other bikeway users. Share the path.

Attachment B: New signs on bikeway in Arlington Center New table-top informational signs were recently installed on the Minuteman Bikeway in Arlington Center as part of Anne Lusk’s grant project. The signs provide a detailed map for Arlington Center, including how to cross safely to the other side of the bikeway — information that is especially useful for newcomers and visitors.

This informational sign is installed at the bikeway endpoint near the Uncle Sam Statue. The sign provides directions for navigating to the other side of the bikeway.

Report on Bikeway-Traffic Safety Issues • Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee October 2005 • 11 This informational sign is installed at the bikeway endpoint in Arlington Center near Swan Place. The sign provides directions for navigating to the other side of the bikeway.

Report on Bikeway-Traffic Safety Issues • Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee October 2005 • 12