A proposal to install bike lanes for Parker Avenue in Maplewood is undergoing some adjustments based on community feedback, according to Township Committee member Vic DeLuca.
The bike lanes appear to have majority support in the community, but the support is mixed on Parker Avenue itself, with a number of Parker Avenue residents raising concerns about safely backing out of their driveways and congestion around dropoff and pickup at Columbia High School, among other objections.
“Just to give everyone an update on the bike lanes proposed for Parker: On May 14, the Engineering Public Works and Planning Committee saw some revisions to the plan,” said DeLuca. “We are looking at those revisions. We had some questions. We will be looking again at that plan on June 11, Wednesday at 8:00 AM — again that is the Engineering, Public Works and Planning Committee.”
The monthly Engineering, Public Works and Planning Committee meeting is open to the public but is not video recorded for viewing.
After reviewing the changes at the June 11 meeting, DeLuca said that the township would schedule a public Zoom meeting during the week of June 23 “where we will present whatever plan that we have at that point — it could be amended some more at our next engineering meeting — but the idea is to present it to the community the week of June 23.”
“We’ll hear comments. If there are any changes that are necessary, at our July 9 Engineering, Public Works and Planning Committee, we will consider those,” said DeLuca. “And then on July 15 [at the Township Committee meeting], we have teed up the vote to proceed or not to proceed at our regular township committee meeting.”
“So that’s the schedule. If we’re not able to make a decision on the 15th, we can decide if we need more information or not. But I think by the 15th we’ll probably have all the information we need and we will have input on the final plan from the community,” said DeLuca.
The bike lane proposal has been the topic of public meeting discussions since last fall, as well as three town hall meetings this year. At the April 15 Township Committee meeting, DeLuca reported that, across the three town halls, 27 people or 55% of comments were in support of the bike lanes, 17 residents spoke against the lanes, and five didn’t express a preference. 65% of commenters who identified themselves as living on Parker were against the lanes. 84% of those not living on Parker supported the lanes.
At the May 6 TC meeting, two Parker Avenue residents spoke against the lanes. They are among ten Parker Avenue residents who recently signed a letter to the Township Committee, inviting elected officials to “to come and back out of our driveways at any one of the four rush hours we contend with each day.”
The ten signers — Jennifer Corcoran, Mindi Farran, Joy Friedman, Eve Gill, Johanna Karpf, Edward Keenan, Martha Kempner, Dan Kenefick, Carmen Morales, and Quia Zellars — wrote, “We believe that the experience of pulling out into traffic—that is equally likely to be completely backed up from the high school as it is to be flowing at a steady pace with no breaks—will be enough to make them reconsider adding bike lanes.”
The residents said that their opposition to the bike lanes has been unfairly dismissed by some as “merely focusing on the inconvenience a bike lane might bring,” but that they were concerned about safety.
“Bikers are harder to see and harder to predict,” wrote the ten residents. “They could fly by doing 20 miles per hour while all other traffic has slowed to a crawl, or they could crawl by at five miles per hour when traffic is moving at a steady clip. With their own lane, bikers will not have to stop or slow with traffic.”
Read the full letter below.
Meanwhile, at the April 15 meeting, a majority of public speakers — numbering in the dozens — appeared to support the Parker Avenue bike lanes — although the minority was vocal and significant. A mother of two young children who said she lived a couple of houses off of Parker told the TC, “I think it is the perfect street for this. … This is the street that needs traffic calming measures… If we narrow it, it makes it safer. I’m thrilled that it’s going to potentially be bike lanes.”
Kelly Quirk, a Parker Avenue resident, said that she and her husband Martin Ceperley and their three children enthusiastically supported the bike lanes. (Ceperley is the founder of the Seth Boyden Bike Bus and also spoke in favor of the Parker Avenue lanes at the meeting.) “It takes me a while to get out of my driveway and that’s fine,” said Quirk about leaving her home in the morning. “I know I have to build in the time because there’s a lot of folks moving around.” As a pedestrian who was once hit by a vehicle, Quirk said she had followed the research and that a proven means to make streets safer was to narrow the road: “If you can do that with bike lanes, what a wonderful gift to the community.”
Read the full letter from the Parker Avenue residents here:
There’s Still Time to Back Out of the Bike Lane Project
We live on Parker Avenue. We would like to invite the Town Committee to come and back out of our driveways at any one of the four rush hours we contend with each day. We believe that the experience of pulling out into traffic—that is equally likely to be completely backed up from the high school as it is to be flowing at a steady pace with no breaks—will be enough to make them reconsider adding bike lanes.
While our concerns have been dismissed by some as merely focusing on the inconvenience a bike lane might bring, that is not the case. We are most worried about the safety of cyclists, particularly when we are backing out of our driveways, many of which are narrow and have blind spots.
We are used to accommodating pedestrians, joggers, and kids on scooters as we cross our sidewalks. And we have become skilled at timing our entry into traffic. But bikers are different.
Cars move at a fairly uniform speed that is easy to gauge, and they are beholden to each other. If traffic is backed up, all cars will stop. Cars are forced to stop behind other cars making left turns, leaving breaks in the traffic that we can safely pull into.
Bikers are harder to see and harder to predict. They could fly by doing 20 miles per hour while all other traffic has slowed to a crawl, or they could crawl by at five miles per hour when traffic is moving at a steady clip. With their own lane, bikers will not have to stop or slow with traffic.
The increased bike traffic at inconsistent speeds will make backing out of our driveways more dangerous. Again, our concern is for the safety of the cyclists who will be navigating a heavily trafficked street that at night is poorly lit in some areas.
Adding two lanes of unpredictable traffic to a busy, narrow road that has multiple driveways per block and heavy pedestrian traffic is an invitation for accidents. It will not be safe, and we think the best way for Town Committee members to understand this is to experience it for themselves.
So please consider this an open invitation to back out of our driveways on any weekday before the high school starts and after it lets out, when parents are taking kids to or from Clinton School, or during classic after-work rush hour which can run anywhere from 4:45 to 6:30 pm.
Just bring your own car.
— Jennifer Corcoran, Mindi Farran, Joy Friedman, Eve Gill, Johanna Karpf Edward Keenan, Martha Kempner, Dan Kenefick, Carmen Morales, and Quia Zellars
