Complete Streets is About Transportation for Everyone

The following letter by Robert Baker was sent to the Concord City Council concerning Monday night's priority setting meeting, to be held at the Beaver Meadow Golf Course at 7 p.m.

To: The Honorable James Bouley, Mayor, City of Concord, NH

Dear Mayor Bouley,

As you set the priorities for the City of Concord on Monday February 3rd, 2014, please consider that Complete Streets is an important policy resolution for the City of Concord. The details of the policy matter as they impact choice for all people of all ages and abilities in the 21st century.

Riding my bicycle throughout the 2013-2014 winter has resulted in several conversations about cycling - which often includes a comment about how cold it is, and the challenge of riding a bicycle in Concord at any time of year. At the White Park Carnival yesterday, I spoke with a parent of a 17 year old who recently received a bicycle. This young person is figuring out how to get around Concord and where to look for work. Riding a bike for transportation doesn't seem to be a very safe choice. What alternatives to the automobile does anyone have?

The Main Street, Loudon Road and the Sewalls Falls Bridge are priority infrastructure projects for the City. Langley Parkway North is being considered an improvement by some, yet this project would be very disruptive and destructive for my neighborhood.

Weekly, if not daily I talk with residents who are reluctant to ride a bicycle in Concord for fear of traffic on our roads and lack of safe infrastructure. In winter many sidewalks remain unusable for days or weeks at a time after a snowfall. For me, riding in the street is often safer than contemplating walking on ice covered sidewalks. The other option is to drive, which is the only choice for most people.

Complete Streets is about designing and building roads for use by all people of all ages and abilities – be it walking, riding a bicycle, taking transit or driving a car. Given the hundreds of miles of highway and freeway already dedicated to traveling by car, our city streets could be for all users.

The City adopted a Complete Streets Resolution in 2009, yet as a transportation cyclist reviewing future plans, current designs and riding on recently completed projects the infrastructure does not live up to the goal of the resolution. Concord continues to prioritize automobiles over people - the details matter.

Infrastructure and Complete Streets Design

The Main Street redesign perpetuates front in angle parking. This is dangerous for cyclists and makes auto traffic the priority. Could we instead consider Main Street a pedestrian priority place with safe access for all modes of transportation? Back in angle parking would improve cyclist safety enormously. Alternatively, by placing the parking in the middle of the street, as in Downtown Keene, NH, cycle lanes could be placed safely next to the sidewalks and pedestrians and cyclists would have improved safe passage.

Fear of Jaywalking is perhaps misplaced. If the traffic speed was closer to 15-20 mph maximum, and the focus was on the people working, shopping and visiting Main Street then the pedestrian would be welcomed, not feared. Traffic would slow down but isn't that a good thing? If one wants to drive 30 or 45 or 75 mph there are alternatives routes available on our highways and arterials. Main Street could be about people, not automobiles.

On Loudon Road the proposed two travel lanes, single turning lane and bike lanes improves the current road. Yet the intersections, where the cyclist is most vulnerable, are not scheduled for modification. How is the cyclist expected to deal with intersection traffic? Moreover a 5 foot bicycle lane provides a 1.5' to 2 foot ridable lane next to the traffic lane: The drainage grates, debris which collect at the curb and winter snow pack limit the usable width. Reducing the center turning lane from 14' to 12 feet could make 6 foot bike lanes possible: Result - a 2.5' to 3 foot ridable bike lane and another foot buffer to the pedestrians on the sidewalk.

As for the proposed Langley Parkway - this bi-pass will effectively end my choice of bicycle transportation in Concord. I live near the terminus connection of the proposed Langley North with North State Street. From the plans presented so far, the designs will more than likely:

• Create a one block drag race as two Westbound-turning left lanes from North State Street merge before the Bradley Street and Penacook Street intersection;
• Limit my ability to safely enter and exit my property on bicycle or car;
• Restrict my ability to take my child by bicycle to and from school or anywhere else;
• Remove an off street parking space from the front of my two-family home;
• Severely diminish my property resale value;
• Change the current two a day, 5 days a week rush-hours for Bishop Brady and Lincoln Financial, to 24/7 auto and truck traffic in front of my home;
• Effectively cut my neighborhood in half, endangering foot or bicycle users;
• Endanger users for the Bradley Street intersection to both the Boys and Girls Club and Kimball Park;
• Destroy the safest route available to me from Auburn Street to the Winant Park area (which I travel twice a week);
• Encourage highway speeds in 12 foot travel lanes.

All this in the name of saving a few minutes to the hospital by automobile and reducing “cut through” traffic in Concord neighborhoods. It makes no sense to destroy the livability of my neighborhood and destroy what has been called the crown jewel nature trail in Concord, in the name of the automobile and reducing neighborhood traffic.

Complete Streets: Details Matter.

The US Route 3 improvements have been touted as a success of Complete Streets (concordnh.gov/gallery.aspx?pid=132). The road is an improvement but I do not believe it extends into Penacook Village as mentioned in the link above. The improvements end near the North Fire Station, short of Penacook Village. On the southern end, near the Central Fire Station, the bicycle lane southbound squeezes into a two foot lane at the Penacook Street intersection. The cyclists is essentially on their own to navigate this heavily trafficked intersection. Unfortunately a similar treatment is forecast for the Loudon Road bike lanes.

Although the Route 3 improvements are better than nothing, they are far from the Complete Streets vision of building infrastructure for all people of all ages and abilities. If we want to give people a choice of transportation then we have to provide safe infrastructure, not lip service and incomplete implementation.

The Complete Streets Resolution was adopted November, 20, 2009, but sadly is not easy to find on the Concord City website, if it exists there at all. The policy is available at: cyclemainstreet.blogspot.com/2013/02/complete-streets-is-it-really.html

Complete Streets design does not add considerable cost to a project. Portland Oregon's 300+ mile bicycle network estimated replacement cost is approximately equal to one mile of urban freeway, in a city of half a million people portlandoregon.gov/Transportation/article/370893. We can provide the citizens of Concord choice for a fraction of what we spend on projects. The details and transitions that will attract would-be cyclists are being adopted across the nation. The National Association of City Transportation Officials (http://nacto.org/) has design guides which extend AASHTO standards to make cycling a safer choice.

My hope is that you will consider Complete Streets as a way to achieve livability as defined by former secretary of transportation Ray LaHood who stated:

"Livability means being able to take your kids to school, go to work, see a doctor, drop by the grocery or Post Office, go out to dinner and a movie, and play with your kids at the park -- all without having to get in your car"

It is imperative that we prioritize people and not the automobile. Let's give people a safe option to get out of their automobile. The status quo will not serve us well into the 21st century.

Please choose to: Strengthen Complete Streets policy and infrastructure details to prioritize people over automobiles; Remove Langley Parkway from the list of City priorities; Ask Engineering to rethink Loudon Road lane and intersection design; Reconsider Main Street so it lives up to the expectations of it's name, Downtown Complete Streets Improvement Project. 

Concord can be the place where people want to live because it's livable, not a traffic jam.

Sincerely, Robert T. Baker, Concord, NH, TPAC-Bike member