With new bike lanes being added in the city of Detroit this year (and many more planned for next year), the question has come up: What are the state laws and local ordinances pertaining to them?

The answer in Detroit is there are none. It’s an issue that needs to be addressed.

Unfortunately that’s probably true in many cities, villages, and townships (CVTs) across Michigan that are “maintaining” their own traffic law language. We quoted “maintaining” because most CVTs aren’t. While state laws and national model traffic laws for bicycles have been updated, in many, if not most cases local ordinances have not.

Ideally, all CVTs, including Detroit would eliminate their local traffic laws and simply reference the Motor Vehicle Code (state law) and the Uniform Traffic Code (which is a maintained by the Michigan State Police.) By doing this, everyone would be working off the same set of traffic laws and it would be easier this one copy up to date.

But getting back to bike lanes, what does the Uniform Traffic Code say about them?

PART 4. TRAFFIC-CONTROL DEVICES

R 28.1320 Rule 320. Bicycle paths or bicycle lanes; establishment; traffic-control devices.

(1) When the traffic engineer, after a traffic survey and engineering study, determines there is a need, he or she may establish a part of a street or highway under his or her jurisdiction as a bicycle path or lane.

(2) The bicycle path or lane shall be identified by official traffic-control devices that conform to the Michigan manual of uniform traffic-control devices.

R 28.1322 Rule 322. Bicycle lanes; vehicles prohibited; parking permitted under certain conditions; violation as misdemeanor.

(1) A person shall not operate a vehicle on or across a bicycle lane, except to enter or leave adjacent property.

(2) A person shall not park a vehicle on a bicycle lane, except where parking is permitted by official signs.

(3) A person who violates this rule is guilty of a misdemeanor.

One item we don’t like in the above language is the requirement that a traffic engineer determine “a need” for bicycle lane. We would like to see the survey, study and need requirement stricken. It’s an unnecessary cost burden and “need” can be quite vague.

It’s one thing to do a traffic study and determine the need for vehicle travel lanes in order to accommodate traffic flow. One can measure traffic and plug those numbers into a computer model.

It’s quite another to do a traffic study which  determines how unsafe a road is for bicyclists — both perceived and real — without a dedicated bike lane.

Call is a conspiracy or just a basic  contractor mistake, the wrong way bike lane pavement marking in Corktown appears to be remedied.

We went past the errant arrow yesterday and between the slush we saw that the paint had been grinded off.

This MDOT project added nearly 2.5 miles of bike lanes on both sides of Michigan Avenue from Rosa Parks to Livernois. It’s a hugely valuable addition to a super wide road that will really complement the Corktown/Mexicantown Greenlink project which should begin construction in the spring. This  backwards biker was the only one we were aware of over the 5 miles.

And thanks to MDOT for getting it fixed in a timely manner.

While doing some preliminary work with Google Fusion Tables, we created this very basic heat map showing the locations of bicycle-motor vehicle crashes throughout the Metro Detroit region (Oakland, Wayne, Macomb, and St. Clair counties.)

The map does not weight the crashes based on the severity of the injury. Green dots indicate one crash, while orange and red indicate multiple crashes in the same vicinity.

What’s interesting is the distribution. Detroit has noticeably fewer hot spots compared with the surrounding communities.

And some roads have enough crashes that they pop out on the map. That’s true of Gratiot through Macomb County, and to a lessor extent, Woodward through Oakland County.

Thanks to The Night Train, we saw an excellent photo on Shorpy of the Metzger Bicycle Shop in 1912.

Lot’s of fixies and phonographs — and sundries!

We’d written about Metzger before and how he began selling and manufacturing automobiles as well as  creating auto shows, including Detroit’s.

We thought when he’d sold his interest in the Huber and Metzger Bicycle Shop in 1895 that he got out of the two-wheeled world. That was not the case.

Metzger opened his own bicycle shop which remained in operation, albeit in different locations, at least through the early 1920s. That shop also sold more than just bicycles this 1912 advertisement shows.

Where is 351 Woodward at the corner of  High Street?

High Street was replaced with I-75. 351 Woodward (now 2337 Woodward) is roughly the parking lot just north of Hockeytown.

By 1920, the bicycle shop had moved further north to 2947 Woodward near Charlotte — where the U.S. Social Forum cyclists camped this year.

The Detroit News is reporting about an initial clean up of Fordson Island in the Rouge River.

As noted in the article, the island is part of greenway connection between Hines Drive/Rouge Gateway and the Southwest Detroit Greenlink/Corktown.

A conceptual master plan from 2002 shows the Rouge Gateway continuing to follow the Rouge downstream. Currently the Gateway trail ends at Michigan Avenue, but with this plan it would extend southeast to the Fort Street bridge over the river. Fordson Island is directly upstream from that bridge.

And  as we mentioned a couple years ago, the Marathon Oil Company, the island’s primary land owner, wants to donate it for public greenspace. And that pledge to donate the land meant a proposed change to the master plans. That change is to shift the trail from the east river bank to the west and have the trail go across the island.

This connection could really spur economic development — even if it only connects those hungry cyclists on Hines Drive with the awesome Southwest Detroit taquerias.