Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Two Lane Roads with dedicated Bike Lanes make Dunwoody a safer community for everyone.

The City of Dunwoody will not be four laneing our major roads to alleviate our rush hour traffic jams, instead we will be adding turn lanes where appropriate along with additional street width for dedicated bike lanes.   As a member of the City Council I hear quite a bit of negative feedback on us spending money on the bike lanes that we are attempting to add to our main thoroughfares and let me tell you that the investment is not just for our spandex wearing bikers.

These lanes are there for everyone to use in the case of an emergency; as it is those lanes which will allow drivers enough room to move to the right to allow an emergency vehicle through.  Grid locked streets without a means to allow emergency vehicles to pass, is poor planning therefore bike lanes are part of the long term solution.  This message though communicated before, needed to be repeated as I believe it was one aspect that has been forgotten about in our conversations of government spending.

Below are drawings for Mount Vernon Rd with 11 ft lanes and 4 ft "bike lanes" and a foot and half gutter on each side for a total of 33 feet curb to curb.

A typical car or SUV is 7 to 8 feet wide.  A fire truck needs about 10 feet for passage.  So most places on these streets could conceivably allow for two cars and a fire truck side by side but the planned cross section would certainly allow for a fire truck to operate with a little more room which would likely benefit response time.



3 comments:

Joe Hirsch said...

3Yet, you realize the Renaissance Project you approved has no bike lanes and encourages on-street parking? This was done either to help the builder squeeze in as many homes into the property without adequate driveway parking or as our city manager said – to help slow down traffic on the street by narrowing the roadway. Which theory do you subscribe to: narrowing our streets or keeping them wide?

Joe Seconder said...

Like one person mentioned during Public Comments at last night's Council meeting, "For an ROI - Return on Investment -- , there has to be an 'I' to get an 'R'". Dunwoody is a better place with the active & on-going implementation of our Complete Streets Policy incorporated throughout our Public Works projects. Here's an early example that continues today: http://www.bicyclingjoe.com/2011/08/dunwoody-complete-streets-policy.html

GaryRayBetz said...

Hey, John, how about reminding me, and anyone else as densely uninformed as me, the official election date, and what time the polls open? I need to ensure I stay sober on election day eve.