Which street did this happen on?
On State Street in the section @Philip mentioned. I am not familiar with that stretch.
That is exactly what was said by the citizen in the public comments last night. She blamed the cycle track because the road isnāt marked for cars.
She leaned hard into blaming the city for making the street a priority for bikes and dangerous for cars.
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To me it sounds like the cycle track wasnāt the problem, the lack of clear markings for vehicles was. She specifically said drivers donāt know where theyāre supposed to be (which, wild) due to lack of clear markings. Into the front of an oncoming car is clearly not where youāre supposed to be, but I digress. Mark the street clearly for drivers.
I donāt know this particular stretch, Iāll have to give it a detour to see for myself. Is there not enough space for a cycle track or just poor street markings?
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The road never had clear markings, even prior to the cycle track. I think drivers may have been used to flying down State St in this section since it had been a fairly wide road with few conflict points between Peterson and Bunche.
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yeah, i ride this little section to get from peterson to the greenway regularly. iām super happy about the new bike lane because the drivers on this road are absolutely crazy. the street before was so wide and with no markings
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Iām not surprised by the opposition. I know of one place where a four-lane street was converted to two lanes in order to free up space for bike lanes. Not popular in suburban north Raleigh where the ratio of cars to bikes is 250:1. On a two-lane street, narrowing the lanes for cars/trucks in order to put bike lanes on the edges can create problems when two trucks pass. Thereās a reason why the road was designed to a certain width all along, especially when the road twists and turns in order to hold down speeds. Etc. There may be valid counterarguments to all these objections, but the objections are out there.
I say this although one of my sons used to ride his bike 13 miles each way to Enloe HS. The dangerous part was the first 3 miles to reach the Greenway. Unfortunately, the proposed Big Jump wouldnāt offer him any benefit.
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Whatās amusing to me is that drivers all over the place in Raleigh somehow seem to manage roads without markings .
I think that the real issue is that road is narrower than they are used to having it. Thatās the traffic calming aspect to it. Make the road narrower to slow traffic.
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Nahh, I get it. Any time Iām driving and the lane lines are not painted, I immediately swerve all the way to the left and press my foot down on the gas, sometimes I even close my eyes and start screaming while jerking my wheel back and forth! It is very confusing and scary when the lanes are not clearly marked!!!
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Itās amazing how the bike lanes are the cause for driverās problems. But when the bike lanes are clearly marked, showing where drivers should NOT be, the cars drive/park on them anyway.
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Was driving on Edwards Mill yesterday morning and saw three cyclists. One was using the recently installed bike lanes and the other two were riding on the sidewalk.
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I drive this stretch all the time (great way to get to Food Lion or the ABC store and avoid Rock Quarry traffic)ā¦people have always sped down this stretch of S State St as others mentioned, because it was very wide and lightly traffickedā¦This is not a bike lane problem or a ālack of markingsā problem - this is a people problem. No idea how to solve it, but I donāt think we need to freak out about a single collision happening because people are dumb/irresponsible/inattentive. The street is still plenty wide for the amount of traffic it receives (no idea why thereād be trucks on this stretch, it leads into a residential neighborhood) so any of the concerns mentioned above seem genuinely irrelevant. For what itās worth, love the cycle-track, hope to see it expanded and more of this pop-up around the city.
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Sounds like a job for gentle speed humps like the ones installed on St Maryās along side of Broughton.
As much as I donāt want to do so, I need to go down there and drive this ācar hostileā stretch.
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thats car drivers just driving too fast
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What part of Edwards Mill?
I havenāt really posted about this too much yet. I love the new side path on Blue Ridge and pretty much use a section of it daily, but I donāt understand why they didnāt put a ramp at the intersection of Blue Ridge and Morningside (North). I have the option of either jumping on the road there or riding on the sidewalk. Iāve been meaning to take pictures.
On a separate note, the trees need to be trimmed again on both West St. and Harrington. Hillsborough also needs a few trims in the bike lane.
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a LOT of sidewalks are obstructed by overgrown bushes and tree branches that hang way too low.
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The flat part of Edwards Mill south of Glen Eden.
Yes, sidewalks are often obstructed by overgrown bushes. And the same overgrowth badly reduces sight lines at some intersections. The City is oblivious. Iāve gone out with clippers and taken matters into my own hands.
As promised, I drove the stretch of Dandridge Dr, and State St. from the roundabout northward to experience that stretch as a driver and to pay attention to the cityās bike infrastructure, roads, etc., and what I found was a āNoahās Arkā of solutions.
Across that stretch, there were 2 different speed limits (35 and 25), two different types of speed humps, 2 different road widths, and 2 (well actually 3 if you count the bike lanes on Cross Link Rd) different types of bike infrastructure: Sharrows and protected Cycle Track.
FWIW, on Cross Link, there are yellow line lane separators while there arenāt any on the Dandridge/State stretch.
At the entrance to the cycle track, thereās a do not enter sign except bicycles signage that may be confusing to some drivers since it may indicate to them that northbound driving is not allowed. That should be fixed. Maybe there should be a bespoke sign that is sized appropriately and is more clear? Iām not certain if drivers actually find this confusing or not, but I was driving really slowly through the area and trying to pay attention to everything that I saw and take mental notes.
It would seem to me that the city could be a bit more consistent through this corridor for clarity sake, and itās not unreasonable to add yellow lines throughout the corridor like exist on Cross Link. I also think that the city should just make the entire area 25MPH instead of trying to manage a 35MPH speed limit between speed humps. I am presuming that there are two different speed limits because my GoogleMaps directions changed between 35 and 25.
Interestingly enough, the stretch thatās 25MPH (next to the cycle track) doesnāt have speed humps. To me, theyād make more sense in a 25 MPH zone than in a 35 MPH zone.
In summary, the entire area looks like a bunch of decisions made over time without full consideration of the entire areaās context or previous decisions. Thatās more than unfortunate.
@JLambertMelton this little journey of mine was spurred by a woman who spoke at the public comments session that you missed last Tuesday regarding the safety of the roads vis-a-vis the cycle track that she seems to blame for a head-on collision. While I donāt agree with her, I do see room for improving and unifying the traffic calming strategy in the entire area, and yellow striping the roads is a perfectly reasonable request and solution. In fact, I see the yellow striping as a traffic calming exercise of its own. The more you can visually narrow a street, the better.
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Thanks for the thorough report!
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Itās my pleasure. 
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