Year in review; and some new ideas, too!

The following is a quick review of pedestrian & bike capital improvements in Laurel. The City:

• added bike lanes on Cypress Street, including the City’s first bike box.
• added sidewalk on 7^th Street in Old Town.
• added Laurel Lakes Drive near the Safeway.
• added a 8’ wide hiker-biker trail on Van Dusen, south of MD 198.
• added bike sharrows on Laurel Lakes Drive
• widened the sidewalk on a large portion of Cherry Lane to 8’ wide.
• Brooklyn Bridge Road was resurfaced by the County with wider shoulders near the gully. The wider shoulders make it easier on bikers and joggers.
• MD SHa, at the City’s behest, installed sidewalk on Route 1 south of Cypress, completing the sidewalk network for the entire length of Route 1 in the City.
• The bike lanes on 4^th Street were completed
• Bike parking was added to City Hall and to the new 5^th Street Community Center.
• Decorative period-style sign posts and sign backers were installed on parts of Main Street.
• The crosswalks were widened on Cherry Lane at 4^th Street.

Very good year for those not dependent on their cars.  Now, let’s keep up the momentum by:

• Installing bike lanes on the Mulberry and Laurel Place to complete the north-south bike route through the entire city.  Conceptual plans have already been drawn up and can be incorporated into the CIP’s resurfacing project for both roads.
• Updating policy and infrastructure goals/designs of the City’s Bike Masterplan.  This should be a winter-time project. I volunteer to lead the public hearings, draft  any policy changes and create the visuals, if need be.  But given that the masterplan is now attached to the City’s Uniformed Land Development Code, it is imperative to keep this plan updated and fresh.
• Prohibit parking on Laurel Place. 
• Consider policy changes that allow bicyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs and signals as stop signs.
• Installing cycle-tracks on Van Dusen and buffered bike lanes on Cherry Lane.
• Completing the 8' trail south of the dog park.
• Planting more shade trees along existing trails.
• Finding a way to get more bus shelters in place – too many “sticks in the ground” are posing as bus stops, without shelters or even sidewalk leading to the stop.  This needs to change if we are going to encourage alternative transportation modes.

Have a great 2012, Laurel!

Bike Box

This is a photo of Laurel's first intersection bike box.  It was installed with the Cypress Street bike lanes.

Left-turn Bike Box on Eastbound Cypress at Mulberry

The left-turn bike box provides a safe area for cyclists to wait out approaching traffic from westbound Cypress, without fear of being rear-ended by motorists behind them.  The sketch below shows this a bit more clearly.

Sketch showing the two ways that a cyclist can turn left onto Mulberry from Cypress

From the sketch above, an eastbound cyclist traveling in the full lane of Cypress Street can make a quick and easy left turn onto Mulberry* (solid green line) assuming there is no westbound traffic on Cypress.  If there is westbound traffic, the cyclist must wait (like any vehicle) in the intersection until westbound traffic has cleared (dotted green line).  The box delineates a safe area where cyclists are protected from westbound traffic heading toward them, as well as from eastbound traffic coming up behind them.

*Bike lanes will be installed on Mulberry as part of that street's Capital Improvement Project, currently slated to begin next spring.