The state park funding (aka Recreation Passport) legislation, Senate Bills 388 & 389 , were adopted by the full Senate this morning with a vote of 24-11 and? 23-12?respectively. Now both bills go to the full House for a vote in the near future.
This vote was a major step forward towards sustainable state park funding.
There’s no knowing how the House will vote, though we did seem to have good support for similar legislation in the House’s Great Lakes and Environment committee.
The Spinal Column is reporting on new trail signs for the Milford Trail through the village of Milford. According to the article, these signs include a will “post a speed limit of 10 miles per hour.”
Whenever a usable and designated path has been provided near a roadway, cyclists, hikers, joggers, runners and in-line skaters shall use that path and shall not use the roadway. However, the speed limit on the hike-bike trails is 10 miles per hour, so cyclists riding at faster speeds shall use the roadway.
It’s doubtful many people will observe 10 MPH limit since it’s unreasonably low and many bicycles don’t have speedometers.
So what is the better answer?
It’s probably to not set a speed limit at all. The trail signs would require bicyclists to yield to pedestrians, stay to the right, and avoid recklessness. That should cover everything.
Besides, the trail should meet the AASHTO standards which calls for a minimum design speed of 20 MPH.
Shared use paths should be designed for a selected speed that is at least as high as the preferred speed of the faster bicyclists. In general, a minimum design speed of 20 MPH should be used. Although bicyclists can travel faster that this, to do so would be inappropriate in a mixed-use setting. Design and traffic controls can be used to deter excessive speed and faster cyclists can be encouraged to use the roadway system. Lower design speeds should not be selected to artificially lower user speeds. When a downgrade exceeds 4%, or where strong prevailing tailwinds exist, a design speed of 30 MPH or more is advisable.
If the trail is designed for safe travel at 20 MPH then it doesn’t make sense posting a speed limit at half that.
It is expected that Senate bills 388 and 389 for the Recreation Passport will be voted on by the Michigan Senate and House this Thursday, November 12th, 2009.
There is a summary analysis on-line as well. This analysis provides all the details of what these bills would do if passed and signed into law. There’s also additional information (as well as media coverage links) on the Citizen’s Committee for Michigan State Parks web site.
We urge you to please contact your state senator and state representative and ask that they support these bills to help fund our state parks.
This funding is absolutely critical as the state parks have been kept afloat for years by relying on previous fund balances. Those fund balances are now drained. We should also note that since 2004, no state taxpayer money has gone towards our state parks.
This funding would also be a huge boost to Michigan trails, not only in state parks, but in state forests as well. Those trails are significantly unfunded.
New York City’s DOT recently put together this great video which shows the variety of bicycling facilities they are building.
Since most people in Metro Detroit are unfamiliar with most, if not all of these bicycling facilities, this really provides a great introduction.
Are you living in a “world-class cycling city?” If you aren’t then why not forward this video to your mayor, city council, planning commission, or road commission?
One also item worth noting: NYC DOT has at least four non-motorized project managers. Jealous.
Bikes, Beans, and Brews blog has an excellent post on proposed ordinance change in Berkley which would encourage more bike racks.
My dandy little town of Berkley, Michigan just had an article in the local little paper, Woodward Talk, entitled “Berkley aims to promote greater bike usage at city businesses“. This sounds like it will be all about new bike lanes and bike racks, right? Sounds encouraging, right?
Well, almost. The article is actually about how the council voted DOWN an amendment to the bicycling parking requirements for Berkley businesses and requested that the planning commission rewrite the ordinance.
The Woodwalk Talk article in included this telling passage.
However, as Councilman Dan Benton pointed out at the Oct. 19 meeting, the ordinance as written would have required business owners to install a new bicycle rack anytime their existing parking lot is developed or resurfaced.
‘”We should not be making businesses put in more bike racks if they don’t want to,” he said. “If they want to resurface their parking lot, then we’re not giving them a choice here. But businesses won’t want to do this unless it makes sense to them, like if they’re hoping to create a business that caters to bicycle users.”
So Berkley is comfortable requiring businesses to provide off-street parking (at an approximate cost of $8,000 per parking space) but won’t require businesses to provide $250 bike racks. And as Bikes, Beans, and Brews noted, the cost of a bike rack is relatively minor even when compared to the cost of redeveloping or resurfacing a parking lot.
Another point that Councilman Benton missed is that bike racks are not just for business customers. Businesses have employees. Having bike racks makes it easier for employees to ride to work.