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!

Decorative sign posts on Main Street

At the intersection of 5th & Main Streets, DPW is replacing wooden 4x4 sign posts with black aluminum historic sign poles to match the existing historic luminaires. Three wooden posts will be replaced, and the new crosswalk sign pole will be moved off of the sidewalk and onto the new bump-out to increase its visibility. In addition, the sign frames have been added to match the historic-style sign poles.



Year-end Review

Here's a a quick recap of new Pedestrian/Bicycle infrastructure installed by the City of Laurel this year:

Traffic Calming

• New traffic calming island at Tenth Street & Montrose Avenue
• New bump-out at Main Street & Fifth Street.

Bikeways

• Completed Phase 1 of the Laurel Bikeway MasterPlan, comprising three miles of striped/signed bike routes
• Installed the City’s first on-street bike lanes and sharrows.
• Procured 16 custom bike parking hitches to be installed at various public locations around the City.
• Constructed 4th Street boulevard (CIP)

New sidewalk/paths

• New pedestrian/bike path at Fourth Street and Cherry Lane for direct access into Gude Lake Park.  Path was made with 90% recycled material.
• Sidewalk repair along parts of Tenth Street; Phair Place; Clubhouse Boulevard; and Fourth Street as part of City’s CIP.
• New sidewalk on west side of Van Dusen from Laurel Oaks Lane to Cherry Lane
• New sidewalk on west side of 10th Street from Phair Place to West Street (CIP).
• New Sidewalk along 9th Street near Park Ave.
• Widened sidewalk on Cherry Lane at 4th Street to accomodate bikers and pedestrians.

Pedestrian crossings and related improvements

• Added pedestrian countdowns signals (CPS) and audible pedestrian signals (APS) at Van Dusen Road & Cherry Lane; Van Dusen Road & Killbarron; and Main Street & Lafayette Avenue.
• Installed new cross-walks at Laurel Lakes Avenue and Cypress Street; Van Dusen Road & Cherry Lane; Van Dusen Road & Olive Branch; Tenth Street & Montrose Avenue; Clubhouse Boulevard & Greenview Drive (CIP); Ward Street & Montrose Avenue; and Main & 5th.
• Added Street lighting on 900 block of 5th Street and on Northlake Court.
• Planted 48 street trees.

All in all, a good year for walkers and bikers in the City of Laurel.

Sidewalk widening on Cherry Lane

The City of Laurel is expanding the width of the sidewalk along Cherry Lane at 4th Street.  This is to accomodate both pedestrian and bikers access to the trails around Gude Lake from the newly-constructed access path down from the intersection of 4th and Cherry.  Further, it will allow cyclists on 4th Street access to the Gude Lake trails via the widened crosswalk/median-openings and expanded sidewalk. The picture below highlights some of the new and pending changes.

Yellow captions indicate new or pending changes to 4th and Cherry.

Aerial view of Laurel: Google updates its maps

A month ago, Google's satellites passed over Laurel and they updated all aerial imagery of the City.  There, you can see changes made to the City over the last few years.  Below, are some of very projects that WalkLaurel has mentioned over the last year or so.

Roundabout at Montrose/Harrison

Traffic Calming Island at Montrose/10th

Intersection of Montrose/4th looking spiffy.  Note the Sharrows

New Path connecting Gude Lake with Cherry/4th

 New Pedestrian Signal and Sidewalk at Van Dusen/Killbarron

New Sidewalk and pedestrian ramps at Van Dusen and Cherry

The City's first Bike Lanes, on 4th Street

Decorative crosswalks at 4th and Montgomery

Bulbout and decorative crosswalk at Main and 5th

 Decorative crosswalks at Montgomery and Sandy Spring

Finally, the future ICC interchange with I-95. And the empty land that will someday be Konterra Town Center 

Intersection improvements completed at Cypress & Laurel Lakes Ave

The City just completed some minor safety improvements at the intersection of Cypress Street and Laurel Lakes Ave.  These improvements include new crosswalks on the north, south, and west legs of the intersection; a relocated pedestrian ramp on the southeast corner; and new sidewalk leading to the Safeway grocery store.

Street Paving

This week, the City is re-paving Phair Place, 10th Street (from MD198 to West St), and the intersection of Greenview Drive and Clubhouse Blvd. The milling and resurfacing is expected to be complete this week, weather permitting. Any crosswalks and lane markings will be re-striped by DPW after the streets are resurfaced.

Crosswalk Facelift on Main Street

The City of Laurel is field-testing a crosswalk enhancement procedure to make a busy unsignalized crosswalk on Main Street at 5th Street more visible to drivers. The procedure will replicate the decorative crosswalks recently applied to  Montgomery Street. 

Here are some photos mid-application.

And here is a before-and-after comparison of the visibilty of the crosswalk from a driver's perspective.

Pedestrian crossing signal for Amish Market (MD 198)

Recent enhancements to the intersection of  MD 198 and Laurel Plaza Ave (where the recently-opened Amish Market is in Laurel) include a dedicated left-turn phase for drivers coming in from Anne Arundel County along MD 198.

...but a closer inspection of the intersection reveals lines and circles spray-painted on the ground that indicate pole locations and conduit runs.  Based on the locations of these circles and lines, this humble engineer can deduce only one thing - that MD 198 is getting a pedestrian crossing phase across from the Amish Market, complete with a push-button to trigger the phase (and ideally a countdown timer). 

Those of you that go to the Amish Market know that available parking is much less than at its previous location in Burtonsville.  Consequently, many drivers park across the street - that is, they park across the 6-lane divided highway - and make the rest of the trip on foot.  So, one can see the necessity of having a dedicated pedestrian phase for crossing MD 198.  We don't have an installation date yet, but the fact that the lines have been spray-painted means that the State is moving forward to correct this pedestrian safety problem and that installation is immenent.

Update:  Pedestrian Countdown Signal is operational as of 7/19/2010.  Crossing time provided is 36 seconds.

Decorative Crosswalks on Montgomery Street

For the next few weeks, the City will be installing 9-ft wide decorative crosswalks at every intersection along Montgomery Street from 4th Street to 10th Street.  This process requires closing one side of the Montgomery at the intersection where the installation is taking place. Your patience is appreciated for this final step in the lengthy process of repairing/resurfacing Montgomery Street's roadway and sidewalks.

The newly-improved Intersection of 4th/Montgomery

Current or Pending Pedestrian Safety Improvements (updated weekly)

4^th Street

• ADA compliant sidewalk ramps
• Repair broken and uneven sidewalk
  
  
  
  High Visibility Decorative Crosswalks at multiple Locations
• Pedestrian Crosswalk Locator Signs

Update: Completed July, 2009

8^th Street

• ADA compliant sidewalk ramps
• Repair broken and uneven sidewalk
• High-visibility crosswalks at McCullagh Field

Update: Complete

9^th Street

• ADA compliant sidewalk ramps
• Repair broken and uneven sidewalk

Update: Completed July, 2009

10^th Street

• ADA compliant sidewalk ramps
• Repair broken and uneven sidewalk

Update: Completed July, 2009

Alan Drive

• Repair broken and uneven sidewalk
• ADA compliant sidewalk ramps

Update: Completed July, 2009

Carrissa Lane

• ADA compliant sidewalk ramps
• Repair broken and uneven sidewalk

Update: Completed July, 2009

Dorset Road

• ADA compliant sidewalk ramps at crosswalks in front of Scotchtown Hills Elementary School

Update: Completed

Fairlawn Ave

• ADA compliant sidewalk ramps
• Repair broken and uneven sidewalk

Update: Completed July, 2009

Greenview Drive

• High Visibility Crosswalks at Clubhouse Lan
• Pedestrian Crosswalk Locator Sign
• Striping for parking lane to address traffic calming

See Figure 1 for illustration.

Update: Complete

Kalmia Drive

• ADA compliant sidewalk ramps
• High Visibility Crosswalks at Erica Lane
  
  
  
• Repair broken and uneven sidewalk

Update: Completed July, 2009

KillBarron Road

• Complete Sidewalk on north side to Van Dusen Roadpedestrian side path. See Figure 2.
  
  
  

Update: Completed July, 2009

Lafayette Street

• ADA compliant sidewalk ramps
• Repair broken and uneven sidewalk

Update: Completed July, 2009

Laurel Oaks Lane

• 
  
  
  
  ADA compliant sidewalk ramps
• 
  
  
  
  Repair broken and uneven sidewalk
  
  
  
  
  Update: Completed July, 2009

Laurelton Drive

• ADA compliant sidewalk ramps
• Repair broken and uneven sidewalk

Update: Completed July, 2009

Main Street

• Sidewalk Bulb-outs at 5^th Street. See Figure 4.

Update: Completed - Spring 2010

Montgomery Street

• Traffic Calming near 10th Street. See Figure 10.
• ADA compliant sidewalk ramps
• Repair broken and uneven sidewalk
• Traffic Calming at 11th Street. See Figure 11.

Update: Completed

 

Montrose Ave

• High Visibility Crosswalks at Centennial Park
• Pedestrian Crosswalk Locator Signs at Centennial Park. See Figure 8.
• Concrete Islands and Pedestrian Crosswalk Locator Signs at Traffic Circle. See Figure 7.
  
  
  

Update: Completed

St. Mary’s Ave

• ADA compliant sidewalk ramps
• Repair broken and uneven sidewalk
• High Visibility Decorative Crosswalks at multiple Locations

Update: Complete.

Van Dusen Road

• Countdown Pedestrian Signal (CPS) and Audible Pedestrian Signal (APS) at intersection with Killbarron Road. See Figure 3. Completed September 2009
• Countdown Pedestrian Signal (CPS) and Audible Pedestrian Signal (APS) at intersection with Cherry Lane. See Figure 9.  Update: Completed July,2009
• High-Visibility Crosswalk at Killbarron Drive. Update: Completed August 2009

Ward Street

• ADA compliant sidewalk ramps
• Repair broken and uneven sidewalk

Update: Complete

FIGURES

Figure 1: Proposed striping/signage improvements to the intersection of Clubhouse and Greenview

Figure 2: Missing Sidewalk on Killbarron (before) and New Sidewalk leading up to the asphalt path on Van Dusen (after).

Figure 3: Intersection of Van Dusen and Olive Branch/Killbarron

Figure 4: Illustration of bulb-outs at Main and 5^th.

Figure 5: High-visibility thermo-plastic crosswalks.

Figure 6: Illustration of new Decorative Crosswalk

Figure 7: Before-and-after conditions showing concrete islands for traffic circle and new circle striping. Not to scale.

Figure 8: Relocated pedestrian ramp and new crosswalk and signage.

Figure 9: Van Dusen and Cherry. Installation of new Pedestrian Countdown Signal (PCS) and new Audible Pedestrian Signal (APS)

Figure 10: Rendering of the Intersection of Montgomery Street and Sandy Spring, with realigned decorative crosswalks and bulb-outs to reduce pedestrian crossing distance and calm vehicle traffic.

Figure 11: Rendering of the Intersection of Montgomery Street and 11th, with traffic calming center island and high-visibility crosswalk.