I ride my bike over 20 miles a day and have ridden on Folsom innumerable times over the years. I have made it a point to ride up and down the length of Folsom almost every day as the right-sizing project has been implemented. I am sure I now know more about the impacts on Folsom then the city council members that approved the project.
Last Wednesday, I encountered two guys from CommunityCycle.org on the side of Folsom. They were all smiles when I pulled my bike over to chat with them. They were handing out little pieces of paper advocating a letter-writing campaign in support of the new bike lanes. I think they were caught by surprise with the negative feedback I provided to them. They stated they had seen many smiles on the bikers as they rode by today. I wondered if they were counting the smiles on the faces of car drivers as they crept by that very spot in bumper-to-bumper traffic at 1 p.m. in the afternoon.
Here’s the feedback I gave them. I feel less safe on Folsom after the changes. Those wider lanes provide a false sense of security. The danger on Folsom and most roads is primarily at the intersections. And the intersections have been made worse with the changes. As a bicyclist you are faced with what I call “mixing lanes” where you have to cross over with cars wanting to make right turns. Drivers faced with heavy traffic and limited space to get into those right-turn areas can make very bad decisions in that area.
In general, the whole idea of a single through lane at the intersections is seriously flawed. Traffic that had been in two lanes is crammed into one which quickly backs up the single lane, blocking other cars from even entering the designated areas for left and right turns. There are places where two or three cars at a signal can completely block the right-turn option. Even in moderate traffic this can produce a quickly cascading effect. As I talked to the two guys from CommunityCycle.org, I observed one cycle of a light where only one car was able to get through the intersection.
Finally, I would like to address the comments made by Councilman Cowles to the effect that complaints would subside after drivers got used to the changes. What he is saying is that he knows the changes are good and once we see them and can better understand them, we too will understand how smart he was. I can offer an alternative explanation. After a while, when people see that their complaints are ignored, they give up.
Gary Meyer lives in Lafayette.
