Comments for “Alachua Countywide Bicycle & Pedestrian Master Plan/ SS4A Action Plan”
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Stop signs exist for traffic on the trail at this intersection (and lots of other places along our trail system). This is so confusing! Where the trail crosses a road, a crosswalk always exists. So traffic on the trail has the right of way and people driving on the road should anticipate yielding. Placing a stop sign here changes that default rule with a few negative consequences. One, drivers cannot see the stop sign, and so are likely to be unaware that they have the right of way instead of the traffic in the crosswalk. Two, people riding bicycles on the trail might stop which slows down traffic (bikes run on inertia!). Finally, Florida Statutes 316.2065(9) says "A person propelling a vehicle by human power upon and along a sidewalk, or across a roadway upon and along a crosswalk, has all the rights and duties applicable to a pedestrian under the same circumstances." A person walking at a crosswalk has the right of way at a crosswalk, without first stopping, even if a stop sign exists. So who supposed to stop at this stop sign? Not a person walking. Not a person using a bike. Maybe just a person on an electric scooter or something? Why are we creating these confusing situations?! Take out the stop signs so we will all know to just follow the rules instead of constantly guessing as to appropriate behavior. Safety is at stake!
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The side of this intersection (the intersection of NW 20th Terrace and W University Avenue) has a sign that says "use crosswalk" and an arrow pointing in the direction of the intersection of W University Avenue and North South Drive. This is really confusing. I don't understand what this sign means. Is it attempting to close the unmarked crosswalk to people walking north and south along 20th Terrace at this location? Is it instructing people to only walk in the crosswalk and not mid block? Is it asking people to use the signalized crosswalk at North South Drive instead of the unmarked crosswalk at 20th Terrace? None of these really make sense and I suspect that the agency that placed the sign at this location (city? county? FDOT?) did not consider the unmarked crosswalk at the intersection. Stuff like this creates confusion around traffic rules that are already not simple. We should go in the direction of easy, not hard.
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I know that someone else has posted about the fact that the motor vehicle traffic doesn't stop for the flashing yellow lights, but I need to type it out myself. They don't stop. Unacceptably dangerous. I do not think children can use this path by themselves because it requires a car brain to navigate the crossing with NW 8th Av. What really gets my goat, aside from the fear of being killed, is that the police are right there. What does it say when the police cannot be bothered? I propose retooling the "broken window" theory of neighborhood safety as the "ignored warning light." A police unit doesn't actually have civic interest as a functional priority if it cannot pay attention to the light right outside its parking lot. You could have someone answering phones from there and issuing tickets in the downtime. In fact, you could have a camera...
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Underpass feels like a dungeon! Can we clean this thing up?
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Unmarked crosswalks and on-street parking within the crosswalks. Difficult place to walk! Drivers do not yield when they cannot see person walking is inside a crosswalk!
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Unmarked crosswalks and no ADA access across 13th Street.
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University and 13th needs a BARNES DANCE!
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I am trying to mark the area where the speed sign is by B'nai Israel. I ride on the sidewalk here, after learning the scary way that this highway design is utterly inappropriate for cyclist use and that only people who haven't lived long in Gainesville are in that bike lane. I watch parents ride their bikes to and from B'nai Israel and wonder about their sanity, even though I do the same thing. I have no choice but to use this road owing to the fact that it's the only way to get to the dayschool, which is why I still am on it at all. I refuse to go to west of the dayschool, to the Millhopper shopping plaza on a bike, out of superstition that if I stay off the area I don't absolutely have to visit, I will not get hit. (I won't be "asking for it.") I estimate that Millhopper has lost a huge chunk of my money as a result of my superstitious rule. On a daily basis, I see the register on that speed sign of exactly how fast the traffic is moving. I have to wonder what the point of the sign is. To make people outside of cars feel scared? It has zero effect on drivers, for sure. It is an everyday occurrence for vehicles to travel at 50 or more miles on this road, even though people are trying to get across it on foot and on a bicycle. I never use the yellow lights near the crosswalk further west of the dayschool out of superstition, because I've had too many close calls there. Terrifying. The legal limit is 45 mph. A car can easily do 65 through that crosswalk. Once I asked a mother, once she and I caught up with each other at B'nai Israel, why she hadn't stopped for me when I was at that crosswalk with my kid on my bike. She didn't really have an answer. I don't think all drivers even see that crosswalk or understand what it means. Please note how serious this design failure is. There is no way I would willingly bicycle on a highway, much less with my children. And yet. Guess what I do almost every day? We haven't been hit because we've been lucky, not because it's safe. Change this road and save some lives. BTW, I want to acknowledge the cadaver in front of B'nai that my child and I saw from the bicycle on the way to pick up my youngest. I am very sorry for the family of that motorcyclist. It's the road. It's a nightmare.
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No bike lane on this street! When traffic is really backed up, I sometimes ride down the middle of the street, on the double yellow line, because I don't think there is enough room to be safe on the right-hand side of the motor vehicle traffic. People on the right-hand side of this road enter and exit the southbound cars for access to the water center and Westwood. Also, when I am southbound on my bike, I eventually want to make a left-hand turn onto NW 8th, and no matter how I do it, I'll have to get in front of the lanes. It seems safer to do that from the middle of the street, crossing one lane, than from the right hand edge, crossing two lanes. The lack of attention giving to cycling infrastructure in an area with a school, a park, and a water center, is indicative of the general priority given to cars and nothing more. I am not too wound up about the lack of a continuous sidewalk in front of Westwood. Taking away motor vehicle parking (from the area currently behind the creepy black fence, for example) and putting a sidewalk in would be fine, but cutting down the trees for a sidewalk would be unnecessarily destructive. I know there are other opinions on this matter of shade versus sidewalk. I think this street should probably have only one direction of motor traffic, leaving more room for a shaded sidewalk and protected bike lane.
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The roundabout here has vehicular traffic often going way too fast. Sometimes people try and pass me, which is strange because passing on a roundabout seems like a very very bad idea. Sometimes the drivers are roaring out of the neighborhood and simply expect to beat me to the roundabout, no matter how obvious it is that I am heading south, downhill, and moving apace. Speed humps out of the neighborhood would probably help.
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Unmarked crosswalk between Pleasant Street and nearby amenities.
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Unmarked crosswalk between Pleasant Street and nearby amenities.
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Unmarked crosswalk between Pleasant Street and nearby amenities.
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This bus stop really needs a midblock crosswalk. I don't ever use this bus stop. But I drive here often. People run to get across the street between drivers! Can't we respect them a little more?
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Vehicles that were parked nose toward the woods back into the lane here. I am always weirded out when I make the right-hand turn from NW 8th onto this street and see that a driver is backing up into my lane space. Yikes.
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No sidewalk! How are we supposed get to Ring Park?!
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These side streets that have drivers attempting to merge on NW 34th into traffic that moves at highway speeds keep some of the drivers (1) looking only one way at the flow of motor vehicles and not expecting two-way cycle traffic on the sidewalk and (2) stopping not at the stop signs, which are well back from the sidewalk, but at the edge of NW 34th. The drivers roar up to the edge of 34th without ever looking both directions, and the reason I have not been hit by one of them is lucky timing. This area of NW 34th is inexcusably dangerous. The speed needs to be lowered through engineering means (and not just using congestion) so that no highway speeds are possible. Note that no few children cycle on this sidewalk. They are quite small and would require drivers to look extra hard for them. I can only speculate that luck is the reason that more deaths haven't ocurred here.
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Unmarked crosswalk!
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No sidewalk!
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There's no safe place to be on Buckman, waiting to get across University Ave. The bus takes up the whole lane, for instance. Stopping the right-on-red turns has helped a lot, but overall this intersection is terribly dangerous. One good thing about the long light here is that it gives cyclists time to realize that the bike lane across the intersection is obstructed with (1) Amazon vans, (2) UPS vans, (3) food delivery trucks, and/or (4) private automobiles, often without a driver. I can completely see how observers could blame some problems at this intersection on unruly cyclists and pedestrians. The truth is that this intersection was built with cars in mind, and then cyclists and pedestrians attempt to live amidst it. Get out of the car, and you'll see why the non-drivers do what they do here, against the law. They really are just trying to get across the street. I will say that when I cycle across using the pedestrian light, it seems that some pedestrians expect an all-way hold. That might be a good idea, but it will confuse the cyclists like me who are not expecting people to get in the way of the bike lane. Overall, this intersection needs attention, and not in favor of drivers. The traffic here is already so intense that sometimes the left-hand turn lane on Buckman simply backs up and chokes off University Ave.
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I haven't decided just how dangerous the right-hand turn is from NW 5th Ave to NW 22nd, but I can tell you that I feel apprehensive doing it. The sharp right angle makes it difficult to get on/stay on the sidewalk with the cargo bike, and I tend to fight it out on the road for a block or two before realizing that I have no room and would be better off getting on the sidewalk with a curb cut. Overall, the drivers seem really impatient with take-the-lane bike traffic, and yet the sidewalks have no few others also trying to use them. It's a mystery to me why this road isn't a bike boulevard. On the other hand, there's no way I'm going to wait in an endless line of motor vehicles headed north toward NW 8th Av, so during rush hours I end up getting on the sidewalk and then trying to get back off so I can get in the left-hand turn lane onto NW8th Av. I think this street needs giant signs hanging over the street reminding drivers to let cyclists have some room. (Or that being in the car is its own punishment that cannot be fixed by running over cyclists.) If this street were any wider, there would probably be a bike lane, and someone would probably have been killed. As it is, I think the speed hump at the point where I marked the street and the frequent congestion keep the traffic slow enough that people just get mad at each other--rather than outright killing people. I would be interested to know what an expert would recommend here. There's just no way that I will wait behind the cars, and yet, there isn't a lot of room to get around them. It's almost like it should be a bike-and-pedestrian only road.
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Cycling on the sidewalk on NW 16th is terrifying. The path is filled with debris on the ground and overhanging branches from above, not to mention seemingly permanent railing problems from a recent storm. The traffic moves way too fast along the east-west corridor. The drivers of cars in the north-south orientation are looking to merge into that fast-moving traffic and are not really paying attention for cyclists. If the speeds were slower, everyone would have more time to see one another and react. Overall, a disaster of a road: built like a highway, but serving cyclists and pedestrians.
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The crosswalk here is a nightmare. Traffic doesn't stop with any reliability, even if the yellow lights are blinking. Most of the time it's too awkward for me to maneuver the cargo bike to the button, so most of the time I am judging speeds and trying to make a good decision about when to cross. This street has traffic that moves at highway speeds. Strip out the highway design, and it might be easier to get traffic to stop at the crosswalk. I saw the downed crosswalk light from the hit and run. Terrifying.
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Believe it or not, there is a crosswalk here. Sure, it's faded and drivers tend to ignore it, even when a cyclist is in the middle of the street, but it's there. A crossing guard works here during school zone hours, which are short and not generally when I am there. I don't think some drivers even understand that when someone is in the middle of the street, in a crosswalk, albeit with faded paint, they have to stop. What a nightmare design. The reason more people aren't killed here is the mid-road turn lane that widens the street and gives a bit of refuge to people caught in the middle. But someday someone will be killed here. Hope it's not me or mine.
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This intersection is a nightmare. Heading south on NW 34th, the bike lane disappears. Going north on NW 34th, the traffic operates at highway speeds. I have a bus drop off situation at Westwood that happens before the school zone starts, so I really catch the speedy traffic. On NW 16th, the speed limit west of this intersection is 45 mph. (INSANE.) The intersection usually sees me trying to use the sidewalk on my bike when headed north on NW 34th to turn left onto the sidewalk of NW 16th Av, so I'm on the "wrong" side of the street in terms of the car traffic. Heading south on NW34th, I use the mid-block crosswalk on NW 34th because trying to cross at the intersection exposes me to some fantastically impatient drivers making right turns on red and running yellows and reds. It's terrifying. I wouldn't use this intersection at all, except there's no other way to get where I need to go.