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Broad road, narrow thinking?

Critics say plans to expand Bruce B. Downs Boulevard put too much emphasis on cars, and lack consideration for bicycle commuters and mass transit.

By MICHAEL VAN SICKLER
Published November 12, 2005

HUNTER'S GREEN - As designers draft plans for a $172-million expansion of Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, there is one clear winner: the passenger car.

The losers? Bicycles and mass transit. By extension, some say, the environment and public health are losing out as well.

When New Tampa's main drag jumps from four lanes to eight in a job that begins in 2007, there will be, at most, a 3-foot-wide shoulder for those who dare to cycle.

The design also calls for only 20 feet of transit space, confining high-speed bus or rail to a one-way service that would render it virtually useless.

Road designers are violating county and state road design policy by omitting the bike lanes. They blame a lack of money. Yet they have chosen to make the car lanes 12 feet wide instead of the 11 feet that traffic-calming advocates recommend. The result, critics say, will be hostile to anyone not in a car.

"It is galling to hear that they're still building roads like this in Florida," said Andy Clarke, executive director of the League of American Bicyclists, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C. Who would commute by bicycle on Bruce B. Downs?

Murray Maitland would, and does. The 47-year-old physical therapist believes strongly in daily exercise. He chose his Hunter's Green home on the premise that he could bike the 8 miles to his job at the University of South Florida.

"I see about 10 people out on bikes," he said. Sharing the road with 60,000 cars and trucks a day, he has had his share of near-misses.

One van driver, pulling onto Bruce B. Downs, never saw Maitland coming. The driver checked car traffic from the left. Maitland approached from the right. He still doesn't know how the van missed him.

Maitland and other cyclists say the absence of bike lanes doesn't just pose a threat to them; it's also a blown opportunity to provide transportation options in an era of rising gas prices, dependency on foreign oil, obesity and motorized gridlock.

Cyclists currently make do with a bike path set apart from the road that they share with strollers, joggers, dog walkers and inline skaters. The path would remain when the road is widened.

But that's not a safe alternative, Maitland said.

"In the bike path, I can travel at 25 mph," he said. "It's not safe for me or other people in the path who are moving at slower speeds."

Bike paths can be downright dangerous for cyclists at intersections because motorists tend to monitor traffic on the road, not movement on a path separated from the road, said Christopher Hagelin, a research associate at USF's Center for Urban Transportation Research.

Bruce B. Downs has only one bike path, so cyclists who use it must pedal against traffic if they travel south. As the path ends at intersections, cyclists continue to ride through - on the wrong side of the street. About 75 percent of cycling crashes happen at intersections, Hagelin said.

"Bike paths are good, but the more curb cuts, driveways and intersections you have, the more chance you have that a car will hit a cyclist," said Hagelin, who heads the county's Bicycle/Pedestrian Advisory Committee.

Cyclists prefer bike lanes, striped passageways that are at least 4 feet wide on the right side of roads. They consider lanes safer because they put cyclists on the road where motorists can see them, especially at intersections, where cyclists have the same right to the road that cars do.

Lanes trump paths because they also set fast-moving bikes apart from slower-moving pedestrians, Hagelin said.

But Florida Transportation Department officials concluded nearly five years ago during the preliminary engineering and development of the Bruce B. Downs project that it would be too costly to preserve 8 feet for the lanes.

"We made the decision based on costs," said Ming Gao, an engineer who oversaw the project's development phase.

Twelve-foot-wide lanes for cars also killed the bike lanes.

"You don't want 11-foot lanes," Gao said. "They have less capacity, and you get bumper-to-bumper traffic because cars and tracks must go slower."

But Hagelin said the department's allegiance to 12-foot lanes encourages speeding, a problem on Bruce B. Downs and its 45 mph speed limit.

Gao said the department was instructed to set aside space for a future mode of mass transit, be it a rapid bus lane or railway.

Yet it ended up reserving only 20 feet of transit space.

"Twenty feet of right of way is not enough," Ray Miller, the executive director of the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority, said during a June interview. "That's what we had left, the 20 feet," Gao said. "We had meetings out in New Tampa, and 99 percent of the citizens told us they wanted a highway. There was zero support for transit."

Gao said the department didn't conduct a scientific poll of New Tampa residents. It held one public meeting at Wharton High School and several workshops at various locations.

The last opportunity cyclists have is in the project's design phase, which county engineers expect to wrap up by spring.

County officials are negotiating with the Bicycle/Pedestrian Advisory Committee about a 3-foot shoulder, not marked, that bikes could use. For that, however, they must approve whittling down the width of six of the eight lanes from 12 feet to 11 feet.

Project engineer Scott Passmore said that even if that bike space is reserved, cyclists would still have to ride a bike path for about a half-mile under the Interstate 75 overpass.

Fleming said the compromise would be suitable only if the shoulder is marked for cyclists through intersections, so motorists turning right don't cut them off.

"It's better than nothing," Fleming said.

Michael Van Sickler can be reached at 813 226-3402 or mvansickler@sptimes.com A version of this story appeared in some regional editions of the Times.

[Last modified November 12, 2005, 00:54:17]