York Street suggestions

[Christian MilNeil]

Hi Emily, Bruce, and Owen,

I wasn't able to make the meeting the other night, but I would like to offer a suggestion for the city's York Street project. 

First I'd like to commend the city and the Wright Pierce team for such a great design. I bike on York Street several times a month, usually with a kid on the back of my bike, on the way to the bridge, and this would be a massive improvement. 

My one piece of constructive criticism would be to ask that you protect eastbound bike and pedestrian traffic a bit better at the intersection of York and Park Streets, where there's a pattern of right-hook crashes as drivers take the corner at too-high speeds.

Part of the problem here is that right-turning traffic is right next to the sidewalk, such that bikes and pedestrians who are also crossing Park Street are right in the blind spot of drivers as they cut to the right. 

I'd like to offer a suggestion to mitigate this problem. First, observe that there's not really much queuing that happens in the bridge-bound (westbound) lanes of York Street today, and there will be even less in the future when State and High convert back to two-way streets. So by slightly reducing the length of the second westbound lane, and narrowing the roadway just west of Park, the city could install a traffic-calming chicane for eastbound traffic as it approaches the Park Street intersection, and create a buffer that will make bike and pedestrian traffic more visible to drivers turning right. 

Here's a sketch with a SU-30 box truck turning template overlaid on the intersection:

This additional buffer would force turning vehicles to cross the bike lane and the crosswalk at more of a right angle, which would make bikes and pedestrians in that crossing more visible – they'd be seen in drivers' front windshields instead of in their passenger-side window. It would also reduce the speed of vehicles at the conflict point, thus reducing the risk of injury when crashes do occur. 

In addition to the safety benefits, this new buffer zone would give the city a lot of additional space for potential green infrastructure, and reduce the paving and annual maintenance costs of the street in the long term. 

A second suggestion I'd like to offer is making this crossing a raised intersection, as an additional visibility and traffic-calming measure. 

Please also refer to this guidance from MassDOT's protected bike lane design guide: 

"Bicycle and pedestrian crossings set back from the intersection create space for
turning motorists to yield to bicyclists and pedestrians. Research has found crash reduction benefits at locations where bicycle crossings are set back from the motorist travel way by a distance of 6 ft. to 16.5 ft"

Thanks for your work on this! 

Christian MilNeil
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