Former City Commissioner Chris Mathiesen Submits Letter to Saratoga Springs City Council regarding Bikeatoga Recommendations

 

The letter is copied with permission below

 

City Council members,

I read with interest the recent letter to the City Council regarding the Complete Streets program for Saratoga Springs.  Prior  to leaving the Council in 2017, I do remember discussing the use of Henry Street as a connector for the bicycle lane network in our inner City.  Henry Street seemed to be the most logical location for north and a south direction bike lanes to link up the bike access on High Rock Avenue with the network in Congress Park.  That still seems to be workable solution.

I also agree with Bikeatoga about the need for improved pedestrian crossing areas on Union Avenue.  In 2016, taxpayers paid for a study that looked into the need for enhanced pedestrian crosswalks in Saratoga Springs.  Of the eleven crossings that the study identified as needing enhanced pedestrian crosswalk signals, the intersection of Union Avenue at Clark Street was given high priority.  As you know, Union Avenue is a very wide street with a small median, four traffic lanes and two lanes reserved for on-street parking.  The Clark street intersection is quite a distance from the Union Avenue intersections which provide pedestrian crossing signals, yet Clark Street serves as an important pedestrian link between the southeast side and the east side of our City.  The Capital Budgets of 2017 and 2018 included funding for a number of those recommended signalized pedestrian cross walks.  However, the need for such an implementation at Clark Street continues to be ignored.

It should be noted that an enhanced pedestrian crossing on Union Avenue at Clark Street would serve multiple purposes.  Not only would it significantly improve safety for pedestrians trying to cross Union Avenue but it would also help to reduce speeding on the Union Avenue corridor between Circular Street and Nelson Avenue.

I do disagree with Bikeatoga on some of their recommendations.  For many reasons, I do not support eliminating traffic lanes or parking lanes on Union Avenue in order to provide for two dedicated bike lanes.  Now that the speed limit in the City has been reduced to 25 mph, I believe that the use of sharrows is even more feasible than before.  There are a number of streets in the City where bicycle access is important but dedicated bike lanes would significantly disrupt existing traffic patterns.  Union Avenue between Circular and Nelson Avenue would be the perfect place for sharrows.  The four lanes of traffic and the heavily used on-street parking spaces would be preserved while bike access would be enhanced.

There are other parts of the City where sharrows could help to complete the currently disjointed bicycle access network.  Sharrows could be used to join the bike lanes on Lake Avenue and the bike lanes on North Broadway with other bike lanes converging on Broadway and lower Lake Avenue.  Many cities use a transition from dedicated bike lanes to sharrows and often back to dedicated bike lanes as part of a cohesive bicycle access network.  Again, the 25 mph speed limit makes such a flexible approach even more workable.

Chris Mathiesen

Saratoga Springs, NY 12866