Comments for “Portsmouth Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan”
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Young people are a wild and unclaimed group as when it comes to transportation. I see teens walking, biking, e-biking, motor-scooting, power skateboarding, riding mopeds, and riding electric unicycles down streets at high speeds around the Middle School (often ignoring stop signs because their modes are so much like bicycling). This group and personal electrified modes of transportation need to needs to be explicitly acknowledged in planning since electrified personal transportation is growing exponentially and it will overlap the transportation networks of vehicles and bicycles.
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ReplyIt would be great if Portsmouth could help petition the state to make the Idaho stop legal. We shouldn't be making safe behavior illegal, and allowing bicyclists and other micro-mobility devices to treat stop signs as yields has been shown to increase safety.
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Richards Ave is one of the most popular neighborhoods in Portsmouth for biking and walking. The streets, and Richards Ave in particular, work as routes to the Middle School, the library, the ball fields, the court, downtown, the pickleball, tennis, and basketball courts, Little Harbor School, City Hall, and the dog park.
Right now, a Saturday morning, there are hundreds of young soccer players on the fields adjacent to Rockland Street. Every school day in good weather parents escort their bike-riding children to Little Harbor School, mostly using the sidewalks, while older children walk, bike and use all types of electrified transportation to get to the Middle School. This happens amid the sometimes intense traffic of parents driving their kids of school and motorists intent on getting to work.
Despite this, biking especially is barely acknowledged on the streets. There are faded sharrows on Lincoln Ave dating from when a previous City Council killed the protected bike lane on Middle Street. There are one or two signs on Elwyn Avenue indicating that it is a bike route between Little Harbor School and Leary Field and the Middle School. There might be a bike rack somewhere. There are no traffic calming measures like speed humps on the streets or speed tables at intersections where many drivers fail to stop as they cut through. There are crosswalks. That’s it.
If a safe bicycle (and pedestrian) network is the most important thing for expanding biking and walking, this is a missed opportunity. The city should paint bike indicators on the streets and add signs everywhere in the neighborhood — from the Middle School to Leary Field to City Hall to Little Harbor School. Paint and signs are cheap. They may not be effective as protected lanes for promoting biking, but consistently applied they announce the City’s support for biking and walking and raise the its profile. Citizen opposition would unlikely. And, again, paint and signs are cheap.
It might be said that carpet bombing the Richards Ave neighborhood with bike signs and paint would be a case of the rich getting richer. However, if other areas feel they are being shorted and demand similar treatment that would be a good thing. The bike network could be expanded neighborhood by neighborhood instead of piecemeal as the budget allows, as has happened up until now.
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Cyclists are permitted to use the sidewalk according to posted signs from Atlantic Heights to about here. The problem is that at some point inbound cyclists on the sidewalk will have to leave the sidewalk and merge with inbound car traffic on the other side of the road. For much of Market Street there is a meridian dividing road and traffic moves quickly in both directions making it very complicated for cyclists getting into town.
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When a car comes down Union to this intersection it's extremely difficult to see cars coming from the left due to trees, shrubs, a fence and the curve of the road. Cars come fast down South St. When pedestrians come from the right and hope the driver, the driver is leaning forward to see what is coming from the left, so a pedestrian crossing in front of the car is a surprise. It might be better to make Union one way north or to have a pedestrian blinker like at Lincoln and Miller.
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damage t rail trail is ongoing. between when I started my ride and ended my ride 45 mons later there were 3 new tranches dug into the trail near the entrance at Islingtn St. And there are now so many donuts under 33 (where they do not get erased by rain) that there is a danger of a cyclist crashing from them. how about sign that tells people that the trail is rough ahead. And also that tells them where to report ongoing damage to the trail, especially if they see the people doing the damage. And just now there are three teenaged boys riding ebikes past my house on Islington doing wheelies in the street. What can be done about
the problems of ebikes and teenaged boys?Liked 0 times
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We need traffic slowing measures here. To come from town and take a left onto Dennett is downright scary with my 7 and 9 year old on bikes. It's 25mph here but not one car goes that slow. We need more visible flashing light here. The one here is very old and probably ignored.
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October 10 2024
comment from PM #1
Like Liked 0 timesOctober 11 2024
This little path is a good way to safely connect everyone from the Sherburne neighborhood to all other areas of Portsmouth, but it needs publicity, and some infrastructure improvements. to make cycling safer.
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