Instead of screaming into the void of Twitter, I bring you a weekly highlight reel of what it’s like going places in Greater Hartford when one is gloriously car-free. These posts are on a slight time delay because nobody needs to know exactly where I am when I am there.

FLEXING
I won’t link to it, but there was an article about the newly installed flex posts on Capitol Avenue at Flower Street, Lawrence Street, and Babcock Street.

This is my neighborhood. I’m having a lot of conflicting feels about this. The Internet is cheaper than therapy, so I’m gonna work through these thoughts here.

This is a nice addition. Slow every single road ever.

It’d be better if every other post were filled with concrete. And if some spiky bollards emerged from the pavement at the stop line that nobody ever stops at coming off Babcock Street. For whimsy and safety. On the one hand, yes, to see well you have to pull all the way out, but this intersection has a light, not a mere stop sign, so nobody should be inching out until they get the green light anyway. In the meantime, pedestrians have a jaydriving car to contend with.

It’d be lightyears better if this installation happened at Capitol and Broad, where people drive much faster. . . not because they get stupider a few blocks away, but because the road design allows for their pre-existing stupidity to shine like the sun.

Strangely not mentioned in that article: how flexposts had been installed on Brookfield Avenue, but never replaced when knocked over. They were installed on Prospect Street in downtown, then removed. They were installed at the corner of Main Street and Charter Oak Avenue, then…you guessed it. At least with that location, the sidewalk was expanded somewhat after. While making those sidewalk changes, though, pedestrian access was not really preserved in the construction area. I keep thinking about how those in cars are treated so gently, and those on foot or cycling are usually left to figure things out for ourselves. What kind of riots would we have in a city where travel lanes were suddenly blocked off, no warning, no alternatives?!

On the last marathon day, I witnessed a motorist freaking the fuck out because the traffic cop was not letting her pull out of a parking lot onto the street. Why? Because the window for that had closed. Road closure times during the marathon were well marked, and that time had passed. The race was seconds from starting. Eventually, after some walkie talkie back-and-forth with others, the cop decided she had thirty seconds to get out of dodge, or she would be waiting for runners to clear. She was having no emergency. She just really really had to get back on the highway. I would’ve made her wait. Yield to all the pedestrians!

Flex posts are better than nothing, but not the best the City could be doing. They make sense to use when experimenting, before installing something more solid. Does this mean something more solid is on its way? None of these seasonal things, as if people aren’t using streets from November through April.

Here’s the thing: if we pat everyone on the back for stuff like this, without demanding better, then what are the odds we’ll see anything better? Level up.

ROUNDABOUT THOUGHTS ON THE ROUNDABOUT CYCLETRACK
Case in point.
I walk through this thing, the roundabout, all the time because it’s between me and my source of income.
I have written and rewritten what I want to say about the roundabout so many times you’d think I was actually composing a text to a crush. What I have to say I want to get right, but like the flex posts, I have shifting opinions because I’m human and want so, so badly for Hartford to be a functioning city.

When the idea was first floated out eons ago to the neighborhood group — that is, installing a roundabout — there was some excitement, but residents were immediately like “whoa, whoa, whoa, where the eff are the bike lanes up in this piece?!” and this steered the planner/engineer people to have to look at the design again. At the next meeting, it sounded like bike lanes on both sides of the street were going to happen, then a cycletrack, then the plan was continously revised until the design was weak again. You wanna know why?

Bad design does not happen all on its own. This is how we’ve ended up with a plan to force cyclists to do weird salmoning via a two-way cycle track on a two-way street.

Notice what side of the street that track isn’t on. I was at one of those neighborhood meetings years ago when Aetna’s community liaison joked about how insurance company employees would aim to hit pedestrians while pulling out of the parking garage. Whether or not that’s true — that those employees were that flippant about human lives — doesn’t matter. Leave the pedestrian and cyclist gallows humor to the pedestrians and cyclists.

I think the two-way cycle track on a two-way road can work in some situations — those being where the cycle track does not stop after a block and turn into nothing.

Sharrows, for the record, are nothing. They’re garbage. I saw them applied correctly once, and that was not in Hartford. Sharrows are engineer/planner’s way of saying “actually, we don’t give a rat’s ass about your safety, and we’re letting you know this through sharrows because it’s illegal to put the decapitated heads of cyclists on stakes at intersections. Let these sharrows be a warning to you that nobody cares about your life unless you’re wearing a car.”

So, we get this proposal to both spend a lot of money while not actually helping.

I could be wrong, but I look at this and wonder how vehicular traffic is being slowed down enough to make the intersection crossing not a looming disaster. Bicycle lights and paint are all well and good, but if the Farmington and Sigourney intersection is not narrowed, I wonder why anyone thinks motorists will suddenly begin acting more responsibly here.

When design is crap, people ride on the sidewalks. You see this up in West Hartford by Bishop’s Corner. Did they add “bicycle facilities” on North Main? Yes. Are they worth a damn? Let the kids riding on the sidewalk answer that question for you.

Back to Hartford: if you’re not irritated by Aetna, you haven’t been paying attention. There’s a reason that the awful, raised section of I-84 was dubbed the Aetna viaduct. So many buildings in Asylum Hill were demolished to accommodate highway construction. Aetna remained. This was not happenstance.

Fast forward to the current day, and you can see how many spaces in the insurance company’s garage are empty every day because the number is announced on a digital screen facing the street. I’m guessing the screen was installed to tell garage users if they should enter or find an overflow lot, but it really serves to tell the public how much space Aetna wastes, all while the City kisses their ass to keep them from moving headquarters. Insurance is a racket, and their land use and influence on street design is just one more way.

Look, a two-way cycle track on a one-way street makes sense. On a two-way street? I will say it again: don’t be dazzled by bullshit.

Are the people who designed this going to ride this route themselves? Daily? When not surrounded by other cyclists? Do that for a month, you guys, and then you might convince me you have cyclist safety in mind.

People who walk and ride Park Terrace/Sigourney Street can immediately identify the issues with this design. Here’s a big one: If you’re riding southbound (away from Farmington Avenue), then your visibility as you approach Hawthorn Street is okay. There’s still conflict at the unnecessary, dangerous, and moronic slip lane, but there’s a chance in hell of seeing what’s coming.

However, if you are riding (or walking) northbound on that side of the street, you’re vulnerable to geting nailed, and not in a fun way. For one, the hill presents visibility issues. . . and it’s interesting that the DOT does not see this since they were all about sight lines when it came to closing Flower Street. On top of that, there’s the fact that when you have a slip lane, if motorists slow at all, they are looking left. They are not looking right before turning, because unless there is vehicle congestion, what do they care about what’s happening on that side of the road? And then there’s the other thing: a massive, overgrown bush in the Hawthorn island that obstructs visibility. My guess is that the vegetation haters at the DOT will gladly remove the bush if pressured, but not close the stupid slip lane, because heaven forbid drivers have to wait as long as pedestrians and cyclists before moving on with their day. How do we know this slip lane is a problem, besides my routine conflicts with drivers as a pedestrian? Let’s count the number of times I’ve had to report the stop sign being knocked over because a driver ran off the roadway and toppled it. Multiple times within one year.

See, I worry about bad design that costs a lot of money, because it’s giving the anti-cyclist people fodder. I can hear them saying “We just spent $85 billion dollars (or whatever the actual price is) of my hard-earned tax dollars on this bullshit and I never see anyone using it.” There’s a lot of layers to that, from how the more someone calls something “hard-earned” the more likely it is that they played Tetris all day at work, to how people who don’t use a mode don’t see others using it (See: “Nobody Rides the Bus: A Story of Resentment As Told By Someone Who Has Never Sat on A Bus) . . . yet, there is sometimes truth to it, and I would refer people to the green painted scraps on Broad Street between Farmington and Capitol. It’s not barrier-protected, which means people drive in it. Constantly. It’s not connected to anything else, in terms of bicycle infrastructure. Why use it? There’s also sand and car debris in it at all times. Why would someone use it? How do we create actual bike infrastructure? Design for cyclists, and cyclists will use it. Design to not upset the motorists, and we’ll know you never had our safety in mind. Back on the sidewalk we go.

I’m looking at the proposed designs for changes at Farmington and Sigourney (they call these “improvements,” but we strive for accurate language, so I’ve revised one of their design labels) and am scratching my head.

Why maintain four car lanes in both directions on Sigourney? Are they being substantially narrowed? Or are we setting up another situation where people on bike and people on foot are fighting each other for scraps?

Let’s look at their pretty picture to see:

Where the fuck did the sidewalk go? So, hold up, they remove the sidewalk except for a tiny piece of it, and want to call this a bicycle facility? Why do anything here? People already ride on the sidewalk. If you’re not going to actually make this better, why waste the money?

Again, why not remove a travel lane in each direction? Taking down trees should be last resort, not the thing you do because you resist inconveniencing motorists a few minutes each morning.

Why not turn one lane in each direction into a bus lane? It is by the Sigourney Street station and gets heavy bus traffic. Entice people to make better transportation choices by deprioritizing the shittiest option: single-occupancy motor vehicle.

If I had any say in the streets I use, I’d remove the 84 entrance ramp on Sigourney. There’s already an eastbound entrance on Broad Street. Just use that one, or the one on Sisson Avenue. In rural areas, people expect to drive for miles between highway ramps. Why do they expect to be delivered directly into their parking lot when it comes to cities?

Looking at the “Overall Project Areas” diagram, anyone notice something peculiar? Where do cyclists go when on the bridge? Where is this information? This is the bridge where snow is rarely cleared from the sidewalk. The bridge where broken poles, car debris, and gravel clutter up that sidewalk. Go walk it and take a look. This is piecemeal trash.

It’s unclear what is going on at the dollar store corner. Are they closing off the driveway entrance by the corner? If so, awesome. That’s the first thing I will like about the project. I’ve been by the curb ramp waiting for the light and had people honk at me to move because they wanted to use a pedestrian curb ramp to gain entrance to the parking lot. Don’t worry, I didn’t move. But I wonder about the design, if it’s dramatic enough of a change, or will people still just drive over the sidewalk. This is a question because it happens constantly on the stretch of Farmington Avenue across from the police substation.

I keep looking at the overall design and have to ask, is this work the $4-6 million dollars? It’s said this project is in part to mitigate the problems caused by closing Flower Street. That happened in 2013. Construction on this project may begin in 2024. The State of Connecticut has no problem inconveniencing pedestrians and cyclists for upwards of ten years, and then tosses us crumbs and wants us to say it tastes like vanilla ice cream. Once more: pedestrians and cyclists get to be inconvenienced for over a decade, but motorists won’t be asked to spend an extra thirty seconds in the traffic they help create.

Let me help with language: this is mishegas.
This is not an improvement.
This is not a bicycle facility.
It’s a scrap.

The design ends at Farmington Avenue.
For the record, I would be 100% on board with that if we closed Sigourney north of Farmington with concrete blocks, letting nobody drive their cars through. Imagine a world in which drivers are inconvenienced as often as cyclists and pedestrians.

Oh, but people in cars have places to go, you say? So do people on bicycles. We aren’t all biking to the dollar store or the funeral home and chillin there all day. We might want to continue on to Albany Avenue. Could you imagine?!

This question has been asked again and again: what must we do to get an actual bicycle facility in Hartford. The DOT response about why they won’t prioritize cyclists on Sigourney Street: “it was concluded that a three (3) lane
configuration with painted bike lanes on Sigourney St North would introduce too much operational delay for users at the intersection.”
“Users.”
Just say automobilists if that’s what you mean.
This would not create an operational delay for people walking, cycling, or scootering. . . but those road users are largely lower class, and therefore, our time and our convenience and our safety means nothing. Prove me wrong. Prove me wrong through better design.

This will come as no surprise, but I don’t care if people deciding to drive are inconvenienced by me. Choose to contribute to climate change? Then enjoy the view while I’m taking my sweet time to get where I need to go.

We have been waiting (mostly) patiently for years to see safety improvements in Frog Hollow and Asylum Hill, but so far, we have received changes, not improvements. The lanes of the roundabout itself are too wide, allowing people to enter the circle without slowing. There is a middle piece designed for oversized vehicles to use so they can make the turn. With that, do the regular lanes need to be so wide?

Most drivers are not stopping for pedestrians at the crosswalks; if you want to know why people are freely crossing wherever in this area, it’s because we’ve learned it’s not any safer to use the paint they’ve thrown down. There’s only so many verbal altercations I have the energy for while trying to use the crosswalk leading directly to an elementary school.

When we were told there would be a separated cycle track, what I expected was that the roadway would be narrowed to vehicles — slowing speeds in a residential area by an elementary school and a park — and that extra
space would be used for bicycles. Instead, it looks like carving away green space to sort of accommodate cyclists.

There are ways to mitigate that: depave a surface parking lot and plant trees. We have excess parking lots in Hartford. Pick one. Any one. Make it a space that heals instead of harms. I’d be more agreeable if this were part of the plan. It’s still a roundabout way to secure a safe place for people to commute by bicycle, but I’d hate this specific part of the proposal less.

I’m not an engineer, but gonna throw an idea out there: if you stop putting the desire to move motorists quickly ahead of everything else, you’ll have (1) fewer serious crashes, and (2) no need for such convoluted designs. Maybe try that? Oh, and finish what you start.

COMPLETE STREETS
Last week I urged people to verbally light up those in power for doing next-to-nothing about pedestrian and cyclist safety. I also sent an email to Complete Streets, and then sent it around to various other City employees, including the City Council. Their response: lackluster. From Council President Maly Rosado I received a canned response, though my message was sent along to Mike Looney, DPW Director. Nothing substantial was placed in writing by either of them. I had initially sent a message to Grace Yi, the Bike/Ped Junior Planner who now heads up Hartford’s Complete Streets Task Force (or Safe Streets or whatever brand it’s going by these days). It took several days to receive a response from her, and that was also a canned message: “we’ll touch base again with you on this. Just want to connect with the team given the interconnected nature of transportation efforts.” It’s been over a week, and I have seen nothing more in writing.

In the meantime, there has been a Complete Streets meeting, which I could not attend because I work. That’s fine, because I can see from others’ messages to Yi, along with texts about the meeting, that I missed nothing. At the meeting traffic statistics were shared, but nothing about crash statistics. The four (or five) pedestrian deaths in Hartford this year were not the top conversation piece of the meeting. What’s even the point if not trying to prevent additional deaths? Someone asked if there was any plan to install sidewalks in the South Meadows where a pedestrian was killed this year; the response — there is currently no plan, but there should be one.

Besides everything I had written about last week, others wanted to know what the City was doing about a truck routinely parked in Capitol Avenue “bicycle lane”*  and I’m guessing their response was a shrug, since that’s what I’d gotten when previously pointing out that buses parked in those same lanes were a problem. There was a complaint about how pedestrian access has not been maintained in construction areas, namely on Wethersfield Avenue, and how police on scene have not helped direct traffic. This received a little attention; if you notice a cop not helping pedestrians, or others, safely use street construction zones, you can file a complaint. You probably have things you’d rather do than police the police, but hey, there is a process.

GASTRO PARK
More like GAStro Parking Lot.
West Hartford: You’re so close to getting it, and so, so far.
Is it close to the Elmwood CTfastrak Station? Yes.
Does that require waiting eternity at New Park Avenue and New Britain Avenue to cross or risking it at the half-assed mid-block crossing by the station? Yes.
Will you get hit by someone turning right out of side street? Probably.
Is there a sidewalk on the side street? No.
Is it worth almost being run over to get the best sourdough cinnamon bun I’ve ever put in my mouth? Maybe.

SUBURBAN BUS SERVICE
I’m just going to let these photos of the Bloomfield Avenue (West Hartford) bus stop speak for themselves


INDIVIDUAL VIGILANCE
Somebody wrote another thing I won’t link to, but here is a link to my response to it. I don’t take kindly to suggestions that victims are responsible for preventing themselves from being crimed upon.

I also don’t understand what a person is supposed to do when confronted with massive obstacles that are dangerous to get around. What amount of hi-vis, flag waving, and eye contact is any match to these?


Do I parkour?
Take a screwdriver to the hood as I pass?
Or smile sweetly and thank the driver for not murdering me?
(Hint: It won’t be that last one)


SILVER LINING
Lest I be accused of being negative all the time, I have to say how impressed I’ve been the last two weeks by how well property owners and managers have managed to keep their sidewalks cleared of snow. A+.


THE TWEETS THAT SAVE 

Like I was sayin.

Go watch the #NSFW video on World Bollard Association.

Ban cars, but make it queer.

Wonders where the “tolls and gas tax hurt the working class” trolls are on this.
Just kidding. No need to wonder.
They’re busy railing against free transit.

*Until conditions improve, you’re getting air quotes. Connect and protect these paint jobs, and then we’ll call them bike lanes. Otherwise, this is a lot like me saying I’ve shaved my legs when I’ve passed a razor over my ankle once and decided that’s enough.


WHAT NEXT

  • Please continue to ask the City of Hartford what its plan is for reducing pedestrian/cyclist deaths and injuries. Their response has been unimpressive. Email: grace.yi@hartford.gov and Michael.Looney@hartford.gov and Maly.Rosado@hartford.gov — and you do not need to be a city resident to ask for accountability.
  • Test out electric bicycles at the Connecticut State Capitol on Wednesday, April 13 from 11 AM to 1 PM. The forecast: 72ºF and sunny.