Riding the city’s newest bike lane down North Frontage between South Orange and York was easy going until I hit the corner of Church Street — and almost literally hit a street sign pole, as well as a fleet of veering traffic.
Aliyya Swaby Photo
OK. That’s an exaggeration. But I did do a double take at the “Do Not Enter” sign planted directly in the 1,700-foot-long bike lane that has opened on North Frontage/Martin Luther King Boulevard. I was trying it out for the first time.
I was more than a little nervous to bike across the four-way intersection at Church — after yielding to half a dozen cars turning right at the lit green arrow.
But apparently, I was doing it all wrong.
Technically, since that portion of the new bike lane is on the sidewalk, cyclists are to dismount at the intersection and press the pedestrian-crossing button to get a turn traveling to the other side of the street, said city traffic chief Doug Hausladen. (The rest of the lane is on the street, not the sidewalk.)
The sign at the top of the lane “is not very ideal in any world, but it’s a giant leap forward to have a visible green bike way on a major corridor in New Haven,” he said.
The bike lane was completed and sealed this month as part of the $135 million Downtown Crossing project to fill in the Route 34 Connector and return downtown streets to pedestrians and cyclists.
Why paint it green? City engineers were inspired by easy-notice green lanes that are part of New York City’s newer bike infrastructure. They approached Hausladen with the idea of bringing a green lane to New Haven.
Green is the “national standard” for bike lanes, Hausladen said, and New Haven’s is one of the first in the state. Engineers added green to liquid concrete and then used a “manual sprayer back and forth on top of existing concrete,” Hausladen said. They chose the pricier treatment, with a green coating that should last about 10 years.
City engineers have also been stamping “high visibility crosswalks” along all of the lane’s intersections, Hausladen said.
The new green lane has prompted some discussion, and first-time navigating, among members of New Haven’s bike community, whose activism led officials to include a bike lane in the Downtown Crossing project in the first place. Officials promised to find a safe place for cyclists amid the traffic pouring off I‑95 into town on reconfigured MLK Boulevard/North Frontage Road.
On my inaugural ride, I started with the small starter portion of bike lane on South Orange Street, then curved right onto MLK. (Watch the video at the top of the story of local bike advocate Brian Tang riding the entire new bike lane.) The earlier part of the lane, between South Orange and Church streets, is black.
After dodging the pole and cars at MLK and Church Street, I felt safer with my wheels coasting along the serene seafoam stretch between Church and York streets.
No unexpected sign posts lay in wait, but I heeded and yielded to cars turning in and out of the numerous garages to my right.
I won a brief standoff with an orange traffic delineator blocking my path soon after College Street.
And then the bike lane markers went from solid to hashed, as a right turning lane for cars sprung from the sidewalk at my right shoulder. Some engineers call those hashes “cat tracks,” Hausladen said. Legally, cars can cross the bike lane “when it’s safe,” Hausladen said.
Cat tracks signal that cars may cross to the right turning lane — yielding to cyclists, of course.
The next obstacle the city will tackle: how to ameliorate “conflict” between cyclists and buses on Elm Street’s bike lane between College and Temple streets, Hausladen said. He wants to spray green concrete on the bike lane and red concrete at the bus stop with the word “bus” in it. (Red is the national standard for bus stops, he said.)
It would be one of the first uses of red concrete in Connecticut, according to Hausladen. The city hopes it “adds to compliance” and leads to fewer cars and buses parking or driving in the bike lane.
When is the city going to start cracking down on cyclists who run Red lights,Stop signs Ride on side walks and cut in front of cars.