Curb running trains and tracks aren't safe for bicyclists on Woodward

The city of Detroit is collecting comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the proposed light rail project on Woodward. Those comments are due today, March 14th.

The DEIS is large, technical, and not always fun to read. It does provide three alternatives. One difference between the three is where the tracks would be located on Woodward south of Grand Boulevard: in the center or at the curbs.

We agree with the DEIS assessment that the curb-running alignment would have a negative impact on bicycling. For that and other reasons, we support Alternative A1 with median running light rail for the entire route.

This amazing video from Transport Michigan also supports median running. This video has gone viral as we’ve received it from a number of different sources.

Some other thoughts we had:

• Adding a two-way cycle track on the east side of Woodward that connected Ferndale’s existing Hilton bike lanes to the proposed park and ride just north of the State Fairgrounds.
• Adding bike lanes or cycle tracks on Woodward from McNichols to Eight Mile. Woodward is unnecessarily wide and could be road dieted.
• Adding sharrows where bike lanes cannot be added.
• Improve the parallel streets for bicycling (Second, Third, Brush, John R) by adding bike lanes/sharrows and by making them two-way for their entire length.
• Allowing bikes to roll on to the trains.
• Having bike parking (preferably covered) at the transit stations.
• Consider future implementation of a public bike sharing system located at the transit stops.

The Detroit Free Press wrote about the Discovery Channel’s unsuccessful pitch to document the city’s stray dog situation.

It’s bad enough that Detroit’s poor economy has contributed to an epidemic of stray dogs. The city has no interest in turning some street mutts into reality TV stars, too, as the Discovery Channel wants to do.

Mayor Dave Bing’s film office has denied the cable network permission to film stray Detroit dogs, chronicling their miserable lives for a TV series called “A Dog’s Life.”

Mlive.com seemingly nailed this topic.

But beyond the show debate, are stray dogs a problem for Detroit cyclists?

Is it any worst than in the suburbs and rural areas?

It isn’t in our experience, but we’d be curious to hear what others think. We’ve found strays seem to mind their own business even when in apparent packs. Our best chases have come from peoples’ pets.

For those who are chased, this web site provides some suggested responses to the inevitable dog chase. Our favorites are shouting at the dog and simply out riding it.

An Oxnard Car Accident Attorney produced a report showing bicycle crashes from 2004 through 2009  in Michigan and the degree of injury for each cyclist. We ran the report for cyclists with and without helmets.

For the majority of crashes it is not known whether the cyclist was wearing a helmet. We dropped those numbers. And in some cases, the police report said the cyclist was wearing a safety belt. We ignored those as well. According to the local bicycle accident lawyer, only 40% of the police crash reports properly reported whether the cyclist was wearing a helmet or not. That shouldn’t be acceptable. Do we need an improved police reporting form or more training? We’re not sure. 

But among those crashes that were properly reported, about 17% said the bicyclist was wearing a helmet in the crash. Find out more here on this site about what to do with your accident case.

Michigan Bicycle Crashes, 2004 – 2009

Now, let’s look at the information via localaccidentreports of just the adult cyclists 18 and older. Helmets were worn in about 23% of the crashes.

Michigan Bicycle Crashes, 2004 – 2009, Adults only

One conclusion to make is that there are a few things that a safety-conscious motorcyclist should do to prevent accidents, even though there isn’t much difference in injury severity between those wearing a helmet and those that are not. There’s a slightly higher fatality rather for non-helment wearers but helmeted cyclists do suffer from higher injury rates.

However, there’s not enough information to say these differences are due to helmet use.  Experience, risk taking, riding styles, rural vs. urban roads and more all play a role in the types of crashes that occur. A study would need to remove those factors to really determine the affect helmets have on injury severity.

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.

On Wednesday at 54-year old male cyclist was hit and killed by a motorist when she drove off the road in Michigan’s “safest city”, Sterling Heights.

Fox 2 News reports:

Police say Julia Werth was traveling eastbound on 18 Mile between Mound and Ryan when she dropped something in her car. When she went to pick it up, she allegedly veered off the road and struck a 54-year-old man, who happened to be riding his bike on the gravel shoulder just a few feet ahead.

FOX 2 has learned Werth, the woman accused in this fatal accident, is 20 years old. We found out she has twelve points on her driving record for two alcohol violations, two speeding tickets and a car accident.

It is not clear if Werth will face any criminal charges.

The Macomb Daily is reporting that charges have not been filed as of today.

No, 18 Mile is not a Complete Street though facilities such as bike lanes don’t prevent bad drivers from killing others. In this case, the victim was apparently riding on the gravel shoulder. Complete Streets can make bicyclists more visible to drivers, but whether that would have helped in this case is merely speculation

One frustrating sideline to this story? Sterling Heights Police Lt. Dale Dwojakowski told the  the Detroit Free Press:

“A bicycle can ride on the roadway and they do have all the rights a car would have,” he said. “Unfortunately, he wasn’t on the roadway, he was on a gravel shoulder. And even more unfortunate, there was a brand new sidewalk just installed about 15 feet from where he was riding.”

Perhaps it wasn’t the Lieutenant’s intent but it sounds like he would like to see cyclists on sidewalks. Fox 2 News echoed his comment as well.

At least they didn’t say it was “even more unfortunate” that he couldn’t afford a car.

The bottom line focus needs to be on the driver, who had a very poor driving record at a young age and apparently hadn’t learned from prior mistakes.

There is a Prosecute Julia Werth page on Facebook that has now grown to 203 people. UPDATE 12/6/2010: Facebook removed the original page. The replacement page is Justice for Jim Sawicki.

And if you have any tips regarding this crash, please call the Sterling Heights police at (586) 446-2892.

This is not the first bicyclist to be killed in Sterling Heights this year. This summer two motorists hit and killed a cyclist. The first motorist fled the crash scene.

In 2009 a cyclist was killed in Sterling Heights , as were two more in 2006.

From 2004 through 2009, there Sterling Heights averaged 0.40 bicyclist fatalities per 100,000 residents. These 2010 deaths will raise that rate significantly, making it much more than double the entire state of Michigan’s rate of 0.23 bicyclist fatalities per 100,000 residents. (The city of Detroit rate is 0.27.)

Clearly Sterling Heights isn’t Michigan’s safest city for bicycling — and that is most unfortunate.