Now we’re getting somewhere! Baltimore had it’s first (?) Cyclovia event last Sunday on Roland Avenue between Northern Parkway and Cold Spring Lane. The southbound roadway was closed to vehicular traffic, but open to cyclists, pedestrians, families, dogwalkers, skateboarders and anyone else who wanted to use the road without a motor.
The road closed at 8am, but few ventured out that early. The bewildered passers-by would ask what was happening and were amazed at the answer. “Really? We can just walk down the middle of the street?” As the sun climbed, so did participation. By 9:30, the “traffic” was evident. While most were riding bikes, more families emerged with strollers, bike trailers, scooters, tricycles and wagons. Plenty of sidewalk chalk was on-hand and was well used.
One goal of all Cyclovias worldwide is to enhance the sense of community. This goal was achieved early on and blossomed as the event continued. Neighbors who hadn’t seen each other in years were catching up, of all places, in the middle of Roland Avenue.
Not only did the residents come out, but so did their ideas. I repeatedly heard requests to build a cycletrack on Roland Avenue. A cycletrack is a bi-directional bikeway separated from travel lanes by a barrier or buffer zone. This concept was well received by Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke, who was instrumental in making this event possible. The Roland Park Cyclovia would not have been possible without the vision and leadership from Phil Spevak and Mike McQuestion from the Roland Park Civic League.
Now that Baltimore proved it can do a Cyclovia, let’s get some more going on!
24 comments
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10.28.09 at 10:01 am
Johnny
Sunday was indeed freakin awesome! I was a late starter, and I walked with the pregnant wife and didn’t get to ride. I think I missed most folks, since I didn’t get up the library until folks were already packing up. But it was a beautiful day, and even at 12:15-1:20-ish, there were people everywhere. Everyone was smiling and talking to other people — it was incredible, to use a hackneyed word.
MANY thanks for Nate, M.P.C., One Less Car, Greg C. and everyone else who made this possible!
10.28.09 at 10:45 am
Kali Durga
Very cool. It’s not something I’d necessarily participate in ’cause I’m not a fan of crowds (though I love Fells Point Fest. Go figure), but anything that fosters that sort of atmosphere in the city is a darned good thing. I certainly hope it becomes a regular event.
10.28.09 at 11:29 am
travelxlight
I was actually just working on a post about the two-way bike lane idea. While I suppose its good that Mary Pat Clark is acknowledging cyclists, the suggestion of putting a two-way bike lane on Roland Ave strikes as knee-jerk and really out of touch. There isn’t a lot of money to go around for improvements, and what there is to spend should be going toward making Baltimore, the whole city, safe and sane for bicycling-as-transportation. That means bike lanes, designated bike routes, education, basic advocacy etc. It shouldn’t be giving a (sorry) white affluent neighborhood a (sorry) plaything. I’m sounding harsh I’m sure, but Roland Ave already has bike lanes, which is more than can be said for most places in the city. I honestly have no idea what it would cost to re-engineer Roland for this–and I think it would take a relatively massive re-engineering–but that’s a lot of money that should be going to make Baltimore a bikeable city, and I don’t feel like this is an equitable step to take toward that goal.
10.28.09 at 12:43 pm
dukiebiddle
travelxlight, by and large I agree with you, but you have to remember that money gets allocated, and more money gets allocated to communities with higher tax bases. I can even partially agree with the argument that a percentage of tax dollars should stay within the communities from which they were drawn. With that said, a cycletrack on Roland Avenue, a super-wide, super-safe route that already has bike lanes would an exceptionally poor allocation of bicycle infrastructure funds, especially as there STILL isn’t a completed route connecting downtown with north Baltimore.
10.28.09 at 1:28 pm
travelxlight
Hmmmmm. . . I think you may be incorrect about allocations. The Department of Transportation isn’t under any sort of mandate to distribute improvements in relation to higher tax bases. DOT (and other departments) do things at their own discretion. Philosophical concerns aside, part of the problem in doing that is simply tracking where transportation dollars come from. Much of it comes from federal and state governments and much of it comes from gas taxes, and I suspect the portion of it that comes from local Roland Park taxes is pretty negligible. All that aside, imagine if every City service in Baltimore were handled like that, with blue lights all over Federal Hill and Roland Park, once a month trash pickup in Poppleton, and a new light rail proposed to connect Charles Village and Fells Point. Things would look pretty different.
10.28.09 at 1:47 pm
Johnny
Hell, I’m just glad Roland Avenue and University Parkway are getting resurfaced. They’ve been pretty bad. The route gets used by lots of folks who don’t live in Roland Park; it’s a nice way to get to and from the county (I know of some folks who do this). I’m telecommuting today, and they’ve been out on University working on this beautiful afternoon. 🙂
10.28.09 at 2:05 pm
travelxlight
Yeah, I use Roland a lot to get to northern County rides, and the brutal pavement–like the entire way from Hampden to Lake–makes it more of a chore sometimes than the cruiser it could be. Glad that’s happening.
10.28.09 at 2:57 pm
dukiebiddle
I was presupposing that any money for a Roland Avenue cycletrack would NOT come from transportation funding, but from a community allocation. And, of course, not every city service is handled like that, but some are. If much of the money that goes towards city bicycle infrastructure comes from federal and state governments, then why is Baltimore nearly a decade behind Washington, Philadelphia, New York and Boston? Obviously, a vital and substantial percentage of the funds comes from local tax revenue. Or, we shot our entire fed bicycle infrastructure wad on 3 costly switchbacks.
Regardless, if Baltimore has any interest in having anything remotely resembling a bicycle transportation network, the priority needs to be in connecting the northern bike lanes on Roland, University, and 33rd with the cycletrack around the inner harbor downtown, on routes that would actually be used. A handful of sporadic blocks of sharrows on Guilford and the Fallsway, on opposing sides of the Jones Falls and the JFX are not going to cut it.
10.28.09 at 3:59 pm
dukiebiddle
Oh! I just looked up what a cyclovia was. I’m not sure what officially constitutes a cyclovia, but the JFX has been closed to automobiles and opened to cyclists and pedestrians in the past.
10.28.09 at 4:17 pm
travelxlight
No city service is based on tax revenues by neighborhood (not officially, anyhow). Baltimore lags in large part because of poor governance. The money is there, but it’s up to the cities to, first, lobby for it and, second, use it wisely. The largest parts contributing to the city’s capital budget are state and federal grants, the motor vehicle fund, and bonds.
It’s possible you’re thinking of local improvement districts, but that doesn’t have anything to do with the city.
10.28.09 at 5:22 pm
dukiebiddle
Thanks.
I find it hard to believe that the recent cycling infrastructure improvements in Philadelphia and New York don’t dip heavily into local tax budgets.
To clarify, now that I have a clearer picture of the budgeting, I’m in complete agreement with you. If the city considers spending money improving upon the infrastructure that already exists in Roland Park, while continuing to postpone or neglect bicycle transportation infrastructure for the rest of the city, I’m going to be one irate citizen and cyclist.
10.28.09 at 5:43 pm
travelxlight
Every city is different in how it pays for things, so it’s certainly possible. But, I looked just for kicks at Philadelphia (http://www.phila.gov/streets/Bike_Network.html) and it turns out its bicycle plan is funded federally (and outside of the normal Streets Department budget). There’s lots of money out there for this kind of stuff, particularly right now, but it takes savvy and motivated planners and politicians. (And, for the record, Nate Evans seems to be both savvy and motivated.)
I guess an example would be California, which doesn’t have an extra dime to its name, yet is able to fund a new high-speed rail line.
Many states and cities used stimulus funds for bike improvements, and on Baltimore’s list of projects, I don’t recall one of them being bike-related.
10.28.09 at 6:04 pm
dukiebiddle
Since this is a post that very likely has Nate Evans’ eye, I’m wondering what if he has seen this.
a) Did the city really shorting the barrier arm in the Board of Ed parking lot to facilitate north/south cyclist flow?
b) Why did they replace the arm and cut off the route to cyclists this morning?
10.28.09 at 6:59 pm
Johnny
Nate sent an email about it today. That’s messed up that they’d block it. Is it right outside the Success Academy/East Entrance?
I’d like to interrupt this program to point out how much Nate Evans KICKS ASS.
🙂
10.28.09 at 10:39 pm
travelxlight
GAH. Really? How is Baltimore supposed to improve as a biking city if half the city government has no idea what’s going on with biking/is actively working against it?
10.28.09 at 10:43 pm
travelxlight
And judging by the cones, I can really only think this is intended to keep bikes from cutting through the lot. Which I thought we were supposed to.
10.29.09 at 4:31 am
mike mcquestion
I’m glad our little Sunday Streets event in Roland Park has generated some buzz, here and in other media. We coughed up the $4500 to prove a point: If you build it, they will come. Our second aim was to identify the actual procedures the City would use to carry it out. I think we, the police and the Transportation Dept. all learned a lot. Believe it or not, the City workers loved the experience last Sunday. Our next step is to pull off a bigger ciclovia (maybe 10 mi.), in March or April (Earth Day?) by connecting Roland from Lake Ave, down University to 33rd, then east and west to Lake Montebello and Druid Hill Park, respectively. This will mean dusting off an earlier ciclovia proposal by One Less Car and linking it to ours. To do this we’ll need door-to-door level organizing all along the proposed route. Each neighborhood has to generate a volunteer team if the thing is to be financially feasible. We are working toward building that critical mass of neighborhood associations, led by our City Council members (who know a good thing when they see it). We can do it if we all pull together.
10.29.09 at 8:26 am
Nate
Some many questions, where to b’gin:
1. For real, I don’t see a cycletrack as necessary for Roland – bike lanes are working pretty good there and they’ll be better once the Cold Spring to Lake is repaved next year. (We’ll probably widen the bike lanes too)
2. A cycletrack would be more well suited for a higher-speed/volume, direct route arterial like MLK, North Ave, Northern Pkwy, Edmondson
3. Bike lanes are NOT installed due to community affluence. In fact, bike facilities are needed more in neighborhoods where auto ownership and transit dependence are high (def. not Roland Park). It is also these areas where gaps in the bike network exist, but I’m on it.
4. With the upcoming Park Heights and Southeast bike network (Spring 2010), I’m developing Eutaw & Park Ave routes to mid-town. Plus the Jones Falls Trail (Phase 2) will connect downtown to mid-town via Fallsway. So this time next year, Baltimore should have a bike network, not just spuratic (sp) facilities here and there.
5. All bike projects come from the state’s MVR fund (Michael’s totally got his facts straight). B’more’s lags behind other cities due to a) getting on the bike bandwagon late b) limitations on funding – look at DC c) not having a fiercely vocally advocacy group that demands improvements (WABA, GPBA, TA, CBC, etc)
6. I’m pretty hot about what’s going on at North & Guilford. Don’t get me started….
10.29.09 at 6:27 pm
dukiebiddle
Thanks for all the info, Nate. I have a much clearer picture of the blueprint now.
But what is going on at North and Guilford? Will we get ticketed if we continue to use that route? Are we no longer allowed to cut through the Board of Ed parking lot?
10.30.09 at 1:29 pm
Nate
Guilford should be open today – no tickets either way. I’m heading up there this afternoon to check it out.
10.30.09 at 1:52 pm
travelxlight
I cruised through there this morning, and the cones were gone and a worker was about to start laying into the concrete with a saw. All clear–and maybe even clearer when the dust settles?
Thanks Nate!
10.31.09 at 9:23 am
Nate
GUILFORD UPDATE – The chain is gone but a new pole is in place. This may just be the first traffic calming project for BIKES i’ve ever seen. Basically, there are 3 poles there now which makes bikes slow down to squeeze through, BUT now we have clearly maked bi-directional flow.
10.31.09 at 12:02 pm
Johnny
Awesome! 🙂
10.31.09 at 8:28 pm
dukiebiddle
Fantastic news. Thanks, Nate. I don’t mind being calmed one bit.