10/20/2023
Dear Northampton City Council,
The local news media has reported that the city council is currently considering a resolution in support of the city’s current plan for the redesign of Main Street. City council president, Jim Nash, was quoted as saying, “The goal of this resolution is for the council to put its stamp of approval on the planning and design process…It’s time to move forward on this project.” Before you add your stamp of approval, I offer for your collective consideration the following. A copy of this letter is also being provided to the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission as metropolitan planning organization (MPO) for the proposed project to become part of its record. Additionally, we will soon be presenting for the consideration of the city and the MPO detailed design drawings.
EVERYONE WANTS A VIBRANT DOWNTOWN
Everyone wants a vibrant downtown. Everyone wants a pedestrian friendly downtown with café seating on wider sidewalks, high-visibility crosswalks, art crosswalks, more trees, and greater accessibility for all—including those with mobility issues. The availability of federal funding provides an excellent opportunity for the city to help realize these goals while also addressing needed upgrades to infrastructure.
As you are all aware, a growing number of citizens have raised critical questions concerning safety, traffic congestion, and accessibility of the proposed redesign. Our goal is to capitalize on the available funding and on the efforts made by city officials and the hired consultants to make downtown more vibrant and safer. We do not want to stand in the way of progress. We do not want to thwart the efforts of the city and Toole Design; we want to make the most of their efforts.
RECONSIDERING THE DESIGN
Toole Design (Toole) already presented a design, then called “Alternative 1B”, that would have met the goals stated above while preserving two lanes of travel in both directions. Alternative 1B would not have provided a curb-side protected bike lane and it was argued that it would not have qualified for the federal funding. Our research has indicated that with some modification a version of Alternative 1B could still receive funding.
Protected bicycle lanes are only one type of bicycle accommodation being accepted by the MPO and DOT. If Alternative 1B were modified to include two enhanced bicycle corridors from the rail trail to Main Street and provide covered bicycle parking, then the DOT could consider it a bicycle accommodation design exception.
MODIFICATIONS TO ALTERNATIVE 1B
A group of concerned citizens has hired, at its own expense, an architect to complete drawings to be submitted to the city and the MPO. The drawing will include modification to Toole Design’s Alternative 1B to:
1. Add bicycle connector lanes to downtown covered bicycle parking; and
2. Eliminating angled parking on the north side of Main Street (which Alternative 1B had retained) in favor of a wider sidewalk in the hope that the entrances of the shops from Bucci’s to the Vault would have
adequate space to be made ADA compliant.
Alternative 1B already contains shared and designated bicycle lanes adjacent to traffic—just like the design in Concord, NH which was the subject of the story in the Daily Hampshire Gazette on 10/13/23 and cited by Toole Design (see https://www.gazettenet.com/A-look-at-the-results-from-Concord-s-downtown-redesign-which
Northampton-s-redesign-is-based-on-52534985).
This modified version of Alternative 1B satisfies the major goals we all share while avoiding the traffic associated with the reduction of travel lanes AND avoiding additional collisions relative to the addition of the protected bicycle lane.
REDUCING TRAVEL LANES WOULD INCREASE TRAFFIC DENSITY
Toole Design agrees that changing from two lanes in each direction to one in each direction with a shared turning lane will increase traffic congestion. The 967-page report by Toole Design (Toole) included an examination of traffic congestion by measuring anticipated levels of Service (LOS) during peak traffic hours. Contrary to popular belief, the study did not find that there would be no impact to traffic congestion by reducing the lanes of travel. In fact, Toole admits that eliminating a travel lane, “increases the density of vehicles along Main Street” (see page 128). Toole also admits that changes to the road will result in “increased travel time” (see page 55 of report), but seemingly concluded that the additional traffic would result in few people driving. Again, from page 55, “While some trips are still necessary to access offices, schools, medical appointments, grocery stores, and shops, other discretionary types of trips can be diverted to other modes, routes or times of day, or not made at all.” They offered no explanation of what a “discretionary trip” through downtown might be if not for commuting, appointments, or shopping, and collected no data on what the percentage of Route 9 traffic constitutes discretionary use. Toole simply assumes, without evidence, that the addition of a protected bike lane—that is .4 of a mile long and not part of a well- connected network—will cause people not to drive.
Toole Design did not seek to calibrate or apply a regional transportation and land use model or an area-wide traffic simulation tool able to gauge traffic impacts beyond Main Street or even at mid-block locations rather than intersections. Transportation planners can predict the impact of diverted traffic by using well-calibrated area-wide transportation and land use models, but this does not appear to have been done. Instead, Toole's use of Synchro/SimTraffic assumed no diverted vehicles which may prove to be a serious flaw in the assumption regarding the overall impact to traffic following the reduction of available lanes.
NO EVIDENCE THAT THE PROPOSED PROTECTED BIKE LANE WILL ENHANCE SAFETY
The current design confuses a protected bike lane with what the science refers to as a “well-connected bicycle network.” Those terms are NOT synonyms. The proposed Main Street protected bike lane would be just .4 of a mile long and does not connect with any other protected bike lanes. In fact, all of the bike lanes on every other road in Northampton are unprotected—just like the example in Concord, NH. The proposed bike lane is just .4 of a mile on Main Street and does not meet the definition of a well-connected network.
The city’s FAQ document refers to an article in Forbes Magazine, “Protected Bike Lanes Increase Safety, Save Money And Protect The Planet, New Report Finds.” (Forbes Nov 30, 2022) as support for its position. The article refers to a study by the FIA Foundation entitled “Protected Bicycle Lanes Protect the Climate” (see https://www.fiafoundation.org/media/xmwls4t2/cc-protected-oct201022.pdf Although the study involved looking at two huge cities with enormous populations and population density (Bogata, Columbia—population over 7,000,000 and Guangzhou, China population over 15,000,000) that are entirely inapplicable to Northampton, the study clearly indicated that to achieve the desired results required a “well-connected network.” The study defined a “well-connected network” this way,
“Well-connected network: For most people to be able to ride a bicycle from one place to another, the two places must be connected by protected lanes that enable a reasonably direct trip from one to the other, without any need for riding a bicycle in mixed traffic.”
The proposed Main Street renovation would not meet that requirement. It is also worth mentioning that the FIA Foundation study also noted that, “Bicycle lanes must be physically separated not only from cars but also from pedestrians to prevent unsafe conflicts.” It does not seem that the proposed lane in Northampton meets the latter part of this requirement. The bike lane will be at sidewalk level and pedestrians will need to traverse it to get to parked cars.
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has an online publication under its Bicycle and Pedestrian Program called “Separated Bike Lane Planning and Design Guide.” In Chapter 3: Why Choose Separated Bike Lanes? It includes the following:
"However, while cyclists may perceive that separated bike lanes provide increased safety, it has been difficult to identify conclusive safety trends due to a lack of data, especially bicycle volume data before separated bike lane installation."
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/bicycle_pedestrian/publications/separated_bikelane_pd g/page03.cfm
This subjective impression of safety that cyclists feel is contradicted by the facts. The same chapter of the same FHWA publication indicates that an analysis of 17 separated bike lane corridors in 8 states and noted:
“an increase in total bicycle crashes” and "Additionally, the analysis found that increases in bicycle crashes after separated bike lanes were built were especially pronounced at intersections."
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/bicycle_pedestrian/publications/separated_bikelane
_pdg/page03.cfm
In further support of the proposed bike lane a city councilor included the following in a newsletter to constituents, “Building safe infrastructure for cyclists increases road safety for everyone, increases ridership and may help manage roadway.” To support the statement the councilor cited a website called Science Daily which was reporting on an article initially published in Journal of Transport & Health entitled, “Why cities with high bicycling rates are safer for all road users” written by Professors Wesley E. Marshalla and Nicholas N. Ferenchak.
However, the Marshalla and Ferenchak study involved twelve large U.S. cities from Minneapolis to Chicago with populations ranging from 413K to 2.7M. The authors specifically noted that the population density was a factor. In their conclusion they indicated that the analysis involved, “data collection project that included twelve large U.S. cities” and further that, “At this point, the results should not be considered generalizable to other countries or smaller cities.”
The proposed bike lane between the sidewalk and a row of parked cars—here in Northampton—presents new safety hazards:
· Cyclists would be at risk from vehicles taking right turns onto side streets with several uncontrolled intersections.
· Cyclists would be obscured from the view of drivers coming from behind over their right shoulders at potentially higher speed than cars in heavy traffic conditions.
· Cyclists would be at risk from vehicles entering from side streets that need to pull past the curb line for drivers to see oncoming traffic.
· Cyclists and pedestrians would be at risk from passenger side doors opening in sections with parallel parking (passengers, often minors, are less likely than drivers to check the sideview mirror).
· Pedestrians (particularly small children and the elderly) would be at risk when they step off the curb to get to a parked car.
LOOKING TO CONCORD, NH
The changes to Concord, New Hampshire offer a hopeful glimpse of a brighter future and there are aspects of that design and process that we hope to emulate. The Gazette reported,
During deliberations over the project before construction took place, Concord took an active role in facilitating dialogue with downtown businesses and addressing their concerns. Over 50 public meetings were held regarding the project, according to [the Deputy City Manager], and an advisory committee was appointed by the mayor to make decisions on changes to policy details. [emphasis added]
It is only fair to note these differences in this process. Over 50 in-person meetings as contrasted with 20 meetings with none in-person. More significantly, Concord had direct dialogue with downtown businesses. These distinctions are not a criticism of our process…unless the city considers the process as over. If the city wishes to engage with the business community in a collaborative way—as contrasted to further advocating for one specific version of the design—then the lack of dialogue to date and lack of in-person meetings and fewer than half the number of Concord meetings are matters that can still be resolved.
Other differences with Concord include the general layout of the two cities. Northampton does not have the advantage of being laid out in a grid with ample bypass routes. The Gazette article quoted the head of Concord’s equivalent of our Downtown Northampton Association, as saying, “People who aren’t planning to visit downtown don’t stop here.” Concord’s redesigned street is not the main thoroughfare that Route 9 is, and vehicles will continue to travel through Route 9 after the redesign due to the lack of bypass routes.
We have surveyed 100 downtown businesses and 83 participated, 69 were opposed to the current version of the redesign; 12 had no opinion or needed more information before forming an opinion; and just 2 out of the 100 surveyed, were in favor of the current version of the redesign. The Gazette article noted how important a downtown social scene in Concord is and how that city shifted from a nine-to-five office district to arts, entertainment, and residential area. Northampton already meets that social destination definition, and the concerns of its business owners should be included in this process.
Concord’s inclusive process and lack of a protected bike lane offer some hope for an end result here that works for all of Northampton. There are some other modifications that we suggest to improve safety. These include raised crosswalks on Main Street, curb extenders at the crosswalks, flashing lights and/or signage at crosswalks and painting the travel lanes with well-marked bike lanes. We look forward to presenting the design drawing and having a productive conversation during what we anticipate will be a rereview process at the request of the MPO.
Very Truly Yours,
John P. DiBartolo, Jr.
cc: PIONEER VALLEY PLANNING COMMISSION
609286 - NORTHAMPTON- DOWNTOWN COMPLETE STREETS CORRIDOR AND INTERSECTION IMPROVEMENTS ON MAIN STREET (ROUTE 9)