The Street Transportation Department’s decision to cancel a plan to connect a bicycle lane on westbound Roosevelt Street in downtown Phoenix sparked demands from bicycle supporters for the plan to be reconsidered.
The plan would have removed a center turn lane to make space for a bike lane to connect the lanes leading up to First/Central and after Seventh avenues.
“We understand that there is absolutely a need for connectivity in that particular corridor between Seventh Avenue and First Avenue,” said Ashley Patton, a Phoenix street transportation spokesperson.
A bike lane is available to riders riding west on Roosevelt Street from Seventh Street to the Central/First Avenue split, then the bike lane disappears for half of a mile.
Sean Sweat, the president of the Urban Phoenix Project, said he felt “frustration, to put it lightly,” when the city scrapped the bicycle lane plans last month.
“Phoenix is way behind,” Sweat said. “We are one of the most dangerous cities in the country to walk or bike in, and city hall has done conspicuously nothing about these issues.”
Compared to four cities with 2016 population sizes greater than Phoenix’s, the city had the second highest rate of bicyclist mortality at 4.95 deaths per million people, according to a report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. New York City, which has more than five times the population of Phoenix, had a mortality rate of 2.23.
Safety was one of the main concerns for the city’s transportation department and the main concern for not moving forward with the original connectivity plan, Patton said. Because there would be only one lane in each direction, removing the center lane poses a safety concern for bicycles, pedestrians and driver behavior.
“There could be a result in the increase in rear end accidents or side swiping,” Patton said. “And we have seen several examples throughout the city in which that type of driver behavior has been seen.”
Patton said it’s easier to reduce lanes to add a turn lane or center turn lane to accommodate the addition of bicycle lanes.
“This allows traffic that is making a left hand turn to do so safely without causing traffic delays and queuing and back up behind them that then can cause negative driver behavior,” Patton said.
Sweat said he does not agree with the city’s safety concerns.
“If they thought removing the center turn lane was actually unsafe, they never would have drawn up designs that removed the center turn lane,” Sweat said.
The City of Phoenix Transportation Department scheduled a public meeting to re-discuss the plan and to present bike lane options for other streets like Portland, McKinley and Fillmore, Patton said.
“Some of these options will require the changes to or the removal of traffic lanes, or on-street parking,” Patton said. “So we encourage both the bicycle community and commuters in the area and anybody that is an active member of the downtown community to attend this public meeting.”
Dave Tapley, vice president of Phoenix Spokes People — a group of bicyclists whose mission is to make Phoenix a “friendlier and welcoming place” for bike riders — said there is no accountability to the bike infrastructure plans the city makes.
“A lot of this stuff there will be a big public forum, there might be an open house, there will probably be a press release and there will be plans and things, but then they just disappear,” Tapley said. “There’s no real accountability.”
He said the city says they are committed to making bicycle infrastructure plans but do not go through with them.
“The file name contains the word draft,” Tapley said. “So is that meant to be final? What does it mean?”
Tapley said most bicyclists are not comfortable riding a bike in the same lane as a car.
“If you’re in a city that has higher ridership of bikes you’re going to have less accidents per mile ridden,” he said.
Roosevelt Street is a significant street because it connects neighborhoods directly to downtown Phoenix, Sweat said.
“If there’s any street that bicycle supporters need to show up for, it’s this one,” Sweat said.
Contact the reporter at hwegner@asu.edu.
