A Gentle Critique of Streets
The past few years have seen some major improvements in our city's embrace of walking and biking. These two forms of transportation can dramatically improve a neighborhood's health, educational outcomes, crime rates, and property values. Pound for pound, it is one of cheapest ways to reinvigorate an area outside of code compliance efforts to reduce blight. Whether it is the new Leaf River bridge on River Avenue, Gulfport Avenue, or 38th Avenue, the City has done a great job putting in better sidewalks, bike lanes and multipurpose paths when redoing our streets.
BUT - sometimes, maybe, every once in a while, our newer projects might miss on a few details, which grates on the perfectionist in me. AND - I know our City is going to continue to implement new projects (Edwards Street, Main Street, Broadway, West Pine) and so I feel like it's important to make suggestions in a detailed way versus trying to pester City officials in 30 second increments on a Saturday when they are trying to enjoy their families. Sorry, Toby.
First, we have to start with the two most basic rules of this issue. I should note that I wasn't very aware of either of them until I started reading extensively on how walkability can improve neighborhoods.
1) Walking and biking are best thought of as a "network" problem. If segments of sidewalks or bike lanes are not connected into a network that flows without friction, their effectiveness drops dramatically. Most people would rather skip a walk or a bike ride if they have to divert to a dangerous situation like a busy road, even if it is only for a short distance. You have to think of this issue just like you would with a car. No city would put in a street that doesn't connect to other streets, right? Said another way - how annoyed do you get if you have to detour for just ONE block in a car? Bikers and pedestrians are the same way, and not connecting segments of sidewalks or bike lanes leads to them just not being used.
2) Sidewalks and bike routes have to prioritize the pedestrian and cyclist at the expense of the driver. Why? Mainly safety - a car has a couple of tons of steel and a myriad of safety features protecting the occupants. If a car meets a jogger in a kinetic exchange, you are rarely worried about the car.
But there are other reasons. My favorites are traffic reduction and saving money. Walking and cycling are much more efficient ways to transport people from point A to point B. My F-150 takes up 125 sqft of asphalt and requires roadbeds, bridges and other road structures to support 2.5 tons. Cars have an "average" number of occupants of 1.5 people - so 83 sqft and 3,333 pds per person. A bike? 14 sqft and 20 pds. Cost wise, it is way cheaper for a city to encourage people to walk or bike, and the same amount of pavement can transport a lot more people if they are walking or biking. And don't get me started on parking. Strangely, the traffic engineering industry usually designs in the reverse manner. Some things in life don't make sense. Like papaya.
So - what did we get right, and what might we improve on our new complete street approaches?
River Avenue
River Avenue Bridge Approach
The new bridge over the Leaf River is beautiful, and I am really excited about the potential for this neighborhood, especially as we incorporate the old bridge and possibly the Leaf River itself into new attractions for Hattiesburg.
Here is a picture I took from the landscaped median looking towards Petal. The first thought of many of you who have been on this road might be "That sounds a little dangerous". I can assure you that most of the cars passing by me agreed. Which is part of the problem, but I digress. Visually, this is a very pretty street to drive down, and a huge improvement on what was there before. And see that big, beautiful multipurpose path on the left? 12' wide, which is like the Taj Mahal when it comes to widths for bikes and pedestrians. Huge plusses.
Now the negatives. Those car lanes are 16' wide and gently curve as you get to the bridge. This makes it a real pleasure to drive on. And what do we do when enjoying driving on big, wide, gently curving lanes? We speed up. Posted speed limit on this stretch seems to be 30 MPH. Yall. Aint nobody going that speed on a lane with this design. We drive as fast as we feel comfortable, and I can guarantee I will be doing 45 MPH on this sucker every time I use it.
How is that going to make a cyclist or a pedestrian on that multipurpose path feel? Kind of miserable. Car noise increases roughly 5 decibels with a 10 MPH increase in speed, which is easily noticeable. Dull traffic roars don't make for a nice casual walk with friends. Second, we rightly perceive our safety dropping quickly as cars drive faster. If you want people to actually drive 30 MPH, then you should NEVER have a lane wider than 12'. Think more like 10' or 11'. Plus, narrowing the street makes it substantially cheaper to build and maintain and gives us extra room to improve design.
The multipurpose path is separated from the car lane by a 4.5' grass strip. What if we had taken an extra 4' and made the grass strip wider? We could have put in live oaks! Think how pretty that would have made this entrance to Hattiesburg in 15 years! Plus it would provide vitally needed shade, help with stormwater issues, and improve the perceived and actual safety of people on the multi-use path. The gift that keeps giving.
Square curb versus curved curb
One other suggestion. At some point, we decided that curved curbs were a good idea. I shake my head at this. A square curb is cheaper to build. It also provides a lot more protection to pedestrians and cyclists. At 30 MPH and above, a car is likely to pop a tire and come to a complete stop quickly when hitting a square curb. With a curved curb, the car tire rolls over it - it is going to be real ugly if anybody is on the other side of it.
Gulfport Avenue
Gulfport Ave
Raise your hand if you ever drove down Gulfport Ave? If you haven't you are about to! This is a street that will connect River Avenue to one of the new overpasses being built over the railroad tracks. And goodness is this a pretty driving street.
First, the plusses. A bike lane AND a sidewalk! Double bonus! The bike lane is well separated from the street (huge plus) and even has bollards to keep cars from sneaking onto it.
A few nits though. These car lanes are 14' wide. Better than River Avenue, but still too wide. That sidewalk is 2' from the car lane. That lack of separation is not going to make people feel safe walking on it. And more curved curbs. Sigh. The bike lane, as pretty as it is, has one strange addition. You might not be able to see it, but there are stop signs on the bike lane at every intersection with streets connecting to Gulfport. Yall think a cyclist is really going to stop at a stop sign every 150'? Nope. Accident waiting to happen.
The biggest question I have on this street redesign though is - where does this connect to? Yall, it is an extremely nice bike lane, maybe the nicest in the city, but if it doesn't connect to a network of other bike lanes - who is going to use it? Could we have made it half as nice and twice as long to get it to connect to the path at Ronie and Hall?
38th Avenue
38th Avenue
USM is a perfect area for pedestrians and cyclists. No matter what it does, there is no way for it to build enough parking for 10,000 students plus staff. Getting more to live on and around campus and walk or bike to school is the ONLY solution, not to mention far, far cheaper. Plus, the more you connect the campus to the rest of Hattiesburg, especially using the super conveniently located Longleaf Trace, you can also encourage fans to walk, bike, or even take a golf cart to events on campus.
The 38th Avenue project provided a much needed facelift to this side of campus, and that big, beautiful 8' multi-use path just makes me want to do a chef's kiss towards the City. Do I wish the path was separated from the car lanes by more than a 3' grass strip? Of course. Do I want those car lanes to be narrowed, square curbs, and in my wildest dreams, a dedicated bike lane? Now you are getting the hang of this. But my biggest issue is again connectivity. Transitioning from this path to the Longleaf Trace isn't easy. At all. How do you get from 34th Avenue, which at least has a sidewalk going south to Lincoln Road to 38th Avenue? We have to link these sections of paths physically and with good signage. Otherwise, no one will use them but the most dedicated.
Yall. Thanks for reading this missive. Okay, only my Mom read this far. Thanks, Mom. But if you remain interested in this topic, I cannot recommend enough Walkable City by Jeff Speck. It is a great book that will change how you look at the streets around us.