By Bill Brooks
Jamison Hutchins leaves his King Park residence most mornings, hops on his bicycle and
About 160 enthusiastic bicycle riders turned out Saturday, May 15, for Pedal Indy, a joint project by IndyCog and Green Broad Ripple. After starting at the Earth House in Lockerbie Square, the bicyclists headed south to Fountain Square (shown here, on the Virginia Avenue route which will soon be a leg of the Indianapolis Cultural Trail). The pack then headed north to Broad Ripple.
heads for work Downtown.
Mark Kesling is a veteran arts administrator who recently returned to teaching at The Project School, where he rides his bicycle many days from his Irvington home.
Laura and Tyler Henderson, who reside in Cottage Home, think of bicyclists as their primary mode of transportation.
These bicycle enthusiasts have something else in common. They use – and approve of – the bicycle lanes established last year along New York and Michigan streets as the first of what will eventually be 200 miles of dedicated bicycle lanes in the city. They also know there are numerous problems which need to be resolved.
“The lanes work a lot better than no lanes at all,” said Hutchins, who is never very far away from his bicycle. He is one of the leaders of Indy Cog, a bicycle advocacy organization which is working closely with city officials to make Indiana-polis more bicycle-friendly. Hutchins said he will go a block or two out of his way to use the lanes. “They define an area that I, as a bicyclist, am allowed.”
Kesling said the bicycle lanes work fairly well, although not so much in the Downtown area. He has other criticisms, but said the bicycle lanes are “a great start for our city. I am waiting to see where it goes in the coming year.”
Laura Henderson said she and her husband are grateful for the lanes and look forward to more. “I think that as long as the city continues to add to the bicycle lanes, it will distinguish bicycle lanes as a means of transportation, just like car lanes. I’m encouraged by the commitment of the city to continue adding more bike lanes as quickly as possible. I’ve already used the new lane on Illinois Street.”
Such words are music to the ears of Andy Lutz, the city’s bicycle and pedestrian coordinator for the Department of Public Works. It has fallen to Lutz to coordinate the massive effort which resulted not only in over 24 miles of bicycle paths but more Downtown bicycle parking opportunities, the creation of city ordinances giving cyclists exclusive right-of-way in the bicycle lanes, and an array of bicycle safety programs.
These efforts helped Indianapolis gain special recognition last fall from The League of American Bicyclists, which designated the city as a “Bicycle Friendly Community.” Lutz is amazed that the city was able to make so much progress in such a short period of time.
An auto (left) crosses over the blue bicycle lane on New York Street between Meridian and Pennsylvania streets, while a bicyclist navigates the eastbound bicycle lane. The mid-block blue section is intended to help motorists and cyclists shift position where there are right-turn-only lanes. The system was originally confusing, but indications now are that motorists are adjusting.
“Going from zero accommodations, jumping head-first into a Bicycle Friendly Community took a huge effort by the entire community,” said Lutz, praising such organizations as Indy Cog, Bicycle Indiana, the Central Indiana Bicycling Association and the Indiana Bicycle Coalition. Lutz said the city had a good relationship with these organizations before the recent blitz, but he said that if he had a chance to begin the effort again, “I would have started earlier getting everyone on the same page.”
At the same time, Lutz is deeply appreciative of the enthusiasm and cooperation from the bicycle groups. He is amazed by “how much momentum the bicycle community has. I didn’t realize how strongly they felt.”
In the Downtown area, the commitment to bicycles, which began in the Peterson Administration and has been ramped up by Mayor Greg Ballard, includes the aforementioned 11 miles of bicycle lanes along New York and Michigan streets between the White River Parkway and Arlington Avenue; seven-tenths of a mile along East Street from Sanders Street to Fletcher Avenue; and the more recently completed 1.2-mile stretch along Illinois Street between New York and 16th streets.
Coming soon, possibly through a public-private partnership, are bicycle lanes extending the Illinois Street route north to the Canal Towpath, and lanes along Capitol Avenue between New York Street and the Canal Towpath west of Broad Ripple. Other high-priority routes include Madison Avenue, Shelby Street and Lafayette Road.
On a shorter time frame, other developments include:
– The completion of the bicycle lane on Michigan Street in front of the Athenaeum, which involves a complete change in the angle parking configuration to a “reverse-angle” format requiring motorists to back into the parking spaces. Other cities have found the format to be safer for bicyclists because motorists have a wider field of vision when leaving the parking spaces because they are facing the street, not backing out.
– An enforcement blitz by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Dept., which began May 16 with a two-week period of warning tickets – to both motorists and bicyclists – along the New York and Michigan street bicycle lanes. After that, police will continue the blitz, writing very real tickets.
While much emphasis is placed on motorists who threaten bicyclists with their lack of awareness, or even possessiveness, of the road, bicycle enthusiasts know that part of the problem is that many bicyclists exacerbate the problem by ignoring the rules of the road themselves.
Lutz advises bicyclists to “obey the traffic laws – and be seen as an overall traffic component of the street. If you want to be respected, respect the law.” Bicyclists hurt their own cause in two main ways, by ignoring red traffic lights and by riding the wrong way on one-way streets.
“I think most motorists are getting used to bikes,” said Kesling, who added, “I wish bikers would be more respectful of the laws as well.” Said Laura Henderson, “There are still a lot of drivers who don’t understand that bicycles have equal rights on the road and actually should not be riding on the sidewalks. Bicyclists also have to do our job of following the rules of the road to prove our equal rights to them.”
But Henderson also added that most motorists seem to be getting the idea. “The majority of drivers are respectful of the bike lanes, and I do actually feel like drivers have become more aware and more respectful over the past year or so.” Recounting a recent experience, she added, “I was actually surprised by the courtesy of drivers all along New York Street to College Avenue. There is a rather nerve-racking lane change at New York and Penn, but for the most part I’ve found drivers to be conscientious there.”
Henderson was speaking of a Downtown block where a right-turn lane on eastbound New York Street poses a logistical problem for traffic planners. Hutchins likes the strategy used there – where solid blue paint identifies where the bicycle lane and the curbside lane criss-cross. He said making the shift mid-block is the preferred solution.
“I like being on the left side of the cars as they turn right,” he said. I feel much more comfortable shifting in the middle of the block where I have some room for error, as opposed to the point of conflict being at the turn – much more dangerous in my opinion.”
Said Lutz, “I’m not sure there is a good way.” But he likes the blue-lane technique because it alerts motorists. “You may not know what’s going on, but you know something is different.” Lutz said he expects more of such cross-over situations to feature the blue lane, most notably where the right-turn lane is heavily used.
Kesling said one problem is a lack of signage. “The striping weaves back and forth through traffic lanes that seem to end without notice for cars,” he said. He also pointed to other serious problems.
“Buses and police cars are my biggest threat,” Kesling said. “Buses do not watch for bikers and often ride in the bike lane during rush hour.” (An ironic situation since the city’s bicycle program has partnered with IndyGo to promote bicycling and make it easier for bicyclists to use buses.)
For Hutchins, the biggest culprits are delivery trucks, with logos such as FedEx, Cintas and UPS, which park in the bicycle lanes. “This is illegal and dangerous,” he said. “It forces the rider to jut out into traffic and creates a very unpredictable situation for the cars.”
Another problem area was the original lane striping, which Lutz said was done with paint – not thermoplastic – because it was originally thought that Michigan and New York streets would be repaved. Lutz said the lanes would have been marked with the longer-lasting thermoplastic, “but we didn’t want to have to come back and rip it out. Looking back, I would have done it anyway.”
Earlier this spring, most of the lanes were re-striped, easing that problem. But Kesling said the other issue is that the bicycle lanes are often the roughest part of the roads in a city not known for its well-paved streets. “When it rains, the lanes clog with water,” he said.
Such problems illuminate the challenge Lutz faces. “We understood from the beginning that there would be major issues in coordination,” he said, referring to such things as street repair. Potholes pose a major problem. “A temporary patch may not be good enough for bike lanes,” he said. “We’re still learning on that front.”
Part of the education process has come from other cities where bicycling is much more of a tradition. “We didn’t pull the system out of the air,” Lutz said, noting that the bicycle program is based on Chicago’s with a few tweaks. Based on the public feedback he has received – most notably a diminishing number of inquiries, complaints and police reports – he believes the system is working. “It’s just a slow progression,” he said.
“We’re working on everything we can work on,” Lutz continued, ticking off such components as maintenance, law enforcement, safety and funding. “We want to make it as safe as possible, not only for bicyclists but for motorists as well.”
Count Henderson as equally optimistic. She believes there’s a chance Indianapolis could ultimately rank with such cities as Copenhagen, Zurich and Amsterdam in bicycle-friendliness.
“I believe Indianapolis could be a world-class bicycling city if we commit ourselves to it,” she said. “We really have a very easy city for riding – it’s flat and we have lots of extremely wide streets, so there is plenty of room to share the road. It’s definitely happening. I certainly see a lot more cyclists riding on Michigan since the bike lane went in. There’s a pretty steady flow of folks throughout the day. I also encounter a lot more cycles when I’m riding around town, even in the winter and even in the rain. I don’t know if we ever will have the bicycling culture of the world’s current top bicycling cities, but we certainly could. It’s all about education, access and choice.”
More about bicycles
– To learn more about the city’s bicycle program, including a timetable for bicycle lane construction, go to www.sustainindybikewsays.org.
– For more in Indy Cog activities, go to www.theindycog.com.
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