“Cross-Bikes” Spring Up Downtown

Contractors melted bright green thermoplastic strips onto the intersection at Elm and High using a torch with a flame of up to 700 degrees of heat.

Under cover of darkness they melted five plastic strips across the intersection to form a ​“cross-bike,” a crosswalk for bikes, to show cyclists where the Elm Street bike lane continues and remind drivers to share the road. The project is part of a larger city push to make alternative transportation safer and more accessible downtown.

City transit chief Doug Hausladen said the goal is to highlight ​“turning conflicts” starting at York and Elm and continuing down the Elm Street bike lane. The biggest ​“conflict zone” in the city is at Elm and Temple Streets, he said, since many buses turn right at Temple, competing with cars, cyclists and pedestrians to use the intersection.

The green cross-bike highlights a path for cyclists down Elm. In late June, city engineers installed a 1,700-foot-long bike lane starting at North Frontage/Martin Luther King Boulevard. They added green to liquid concrete and sprayed it onto the existing concrete, choosing a treatment that will last about 10 years.

On Elm between College and Temple Streets, they sprayed the green concrete on the bike lane and sprayed red concrete at the adjacent bus stop, to prevent cars and buses from driving in the bike lane.

The cross-bike is made of thermoplastic, not concrete. Each of the five strips measures one by three feet. City engineer William Orsini called thermoplastic the easiest material to work with because it comes pre-made in different shapes and sizes. ​“Instead of bringing a truck out here with a bunch of guys trying to spray it on, it’s just easier this way,” he said.

The process of getting them on the ground is relatively simple. Engineers closed off part of the street for a few hours late Wednesday night.

They first cleaned the ground and prepped it with a epoxy glue, a material that helps the strips stick to the concrete, Orsini said. Then, they used a propane-fueled torch over the surface of the plastic, to melt it into the road.

The heat — 400 to 700 degrees Fahrenheit — sinks the glass beads on the surface deeper into the plastic, making the material reflective — easier for drivers and cyclists to see at night, Orsini said.

Usually, intersections feature only white dashes or ​“cat tracks,” showing cars driving perpendicular to that lane that other traffic is passing by, he said. This is one of few cross-bikes in the nation and the first in the state, designed by Bruce Fischer, the city’s traffic operations engineer. No national standard exists for cross-bikes.

Hausladen said the city is piloting the cross-bikes at a cost of around $3,500, to see if they are worth investing in on a larger scale. ​“In five to 10 years, we’re going to have to replace it,” since it is in an area of high traffic, he said. City officials also want to make sure the green concrete and the thermoplastic last through the winter and survive scrapes from snow plows.

By the end of the project, New Haven will have cross-bikes at five intersections along Elm Street — York, High, College, Temple, and Church Streets — as well as one at Pitkin Plaza.