This is not a drill!
Before Corona, I attended a meeting in which the person infused with the power over our streets announced that the bike lanes we had been asking for could not go on Main Street. Although other decisionmakers in the room showed discomfort with the situation, they did not then and there call into question what was being said, which was the same old, same old: there was not enough room for bike lanes, there would be traffic problems, it would be impossible because of the timing of traffic lights, it would upset drivers.
Even before the pandemic, nobody in touch with reality could claim that Main Street had congestion problems. Not on a daily basis in my generation.
What I and other advocates in the room knew was that once the street was paved and striped, that’s the way it would be for many years after. We caused a ruckus over this, and not long after, we were told that the plans had been reconsidered and that it looked like they would be able to do bike lanes at least from the portion between Park Street and Charter Oak Avenue. That wasn’t good enough, but it was 0.2 mile more than they said was originally possible.
Then, there was silence. Then, a pandemic. More silence. And then, boom!
The new bike lanes go more than twice the distance that they begrudgingly said might be possible a few years ago, and a sharrow — which is not bicycle infrastructure — only appears on the last block of the repaved area near the Wadsworth Atheneum.
Make no mistake — these are not top-of-the-line bike lanes, in that they are not physically separated with barriers of any kind, but those could be added going forward, now that it has been established that bicycles are entitled to their own space on Hartford’s literal Main Street.
The results have been pretty immediate.
Once stencils were added, people began cycling in the correct space, which makes for more predictable behavior. Far fewer people are riding on the sidewalks.
At the same time, most drivers are taking it more slowly on Main Street, as they should be. It’s a city, not a freeway.
There are other versions circulating about how these bike lanes came to be, but I can guarantee one thing: had nobody protested what we were told several years ago, it’s highly unlikely that the City of Hartford would have taken this initiative. Question authority early, often, and loudly when necessary. The meek get nothing.
Tom McCudden
Kudos! Between the lanes, and the new bench at Main and Linden, tiny little steps are taking place.
Chris
Why does Hartford hate parking protected bike lanes and insist on putting them in the door zone?? As if one deathwish wasn’t enough for us cyclists…
Glad to hear drivers are slowing down – lane striping does change behavior slightly, but at the same time, an unprotected bike lane is just an extra wide shoulder for drivers to feel more comfortable going faster and even the occasional parked car is gonna provide way more of a calming effect….
As far as I’m concerned, the main thing between changing the parking and bike lanes would just to be ensure the intersections and driveways are clear of parking to ensure good sightlines- but that’s just basic traffic engineering that should be applied on any road. At “worst” maybe you’d remove one extra parking space at the end to improve thru traffic-cyclist visibility.
Maybe I’m missing something that somehow car-driving traffic engineers know of cycling (safety) which my little brain can’t comprehend from my own regular near-death experiences of cycling…
Kerri Ana Provost
I think it’s interesting how many people are refusing to recognize the win that happened here. This is a foot in the door. No, this is a door where the City of Hartford previously told us, shamelessly and in public, that there was no door.
There is parking-protected lanes in other areas, and I have lots of thoughts on this. First, we have to be honest about Main Street. People are mostly NOT parking on it. Therefore, no such protection. At the same time, it is ironic that the one place where there is parking — by the Wadsworth Atheneum — is where the City of Hartford opted for sharrows instead of a parking protected lane.
To be honest, I’m not a huge fan of parking-protected lanes, and heres why:
1. Paint does not keep vehicles out of a space. This means people continue to park in or encroaching on the bike lane. You can observe this on Wethersfield Ave and Franklin Avenue where there is some parking-protected bike lane.
2. You have people who are often shitty drivers and equally shitty parkers maneuvering vehicles awfully close to where cyclists are. While reasonable people would do this carefully and at low speed, I have an exhaustive collection of video showing drivers in the city behaving recklessly.
3. The protection offered by parked vehicles vanishes when those vehicles do, whether because of things like snow parking bans or simply because people are gone for work or not parking by a closed business
That said, there is absolutely room around the new lanes on Main Street for the addition of bollards, heavy flower pots, and other large, heavy objects that can behave as barriers without relying on drivers’ actions to work.
Casey Moran
These new lanes are awesome! Huge improvement, slowed down traffic, turning lanes have improved vehicle flow and significantly decreased weaving. Major quality of live upgrade living by Main and I am now regularly using the bike lane vs. the sidewalk
Could they be “more perfect?” sure, but this is a great incremental step forward to get people biking. The bigger the ridership the better the chance for the full reimagining main street plan with a two way track separated and elevate. These are higher quality painted lanes and a dramatic step forward from where we were before