Suburban streets get complete

Two large-scale construction projects have delivered impressive "complete streets" transformations along parts of Route 1 in South Portland and Falmouth this summer.

To the south, a sewer upgrade project along Main Street in Thornton Heights slimmed down a four-lane road into a two-lane city street in the neighborhood's center, widened sidewalks, and added landscaped curb extensions that will also help filter stormwater before it flows into storm drains. Construction's not quite done, but some of the new sidewalks and curbing have been installed, along with some of the basic stormwater filtration gardens:

Thornton Heights is a classic streetcar suburb, but the neighborhood has had a hard half-century since it became the dumping ground for traffic from a nearby Maine Turnpike spur road.

Unfortunately, the new Main Street is still only an island of walkability – it remains cut off from surrounding neighborhoods, thanks to that previously-mentioned Turnpike stump at the neighborhood's southern edge and the inhospitable stretch of Route 1 that leads through the ugly Cash Corner intersection.

Also discouragingly, South Portland city councilors last year rejected a proposal to allow more walkable and transit-oriented zoning in the neighborhood. So, even with a more urban, walkable street, it's questionable whether neighborhood-oriented small businesses will follow, given that the status quo zoning favors auto-oriented strip mall development.

On the other end of Route 1, in Falmouth, they've just finished a very similar street project for that town's main drag. This one also includes new, wide sidewalks, lots of new street trees, lighting, bike lanes and several landscaped medians for safer crosswalks:

Unlike Thornton Heights, Route 1 in Falmouth is mostly surrounded by strip malls and parking lots – it's hard to tell there whether you're in Maine or in suburban Texas, so the town's nice new street feels pretty lonely.

But Falmouth is one step ahead of South Portland in one important respect: it's enacted some progressive zoning to encourage new walkable development along their new main street. That's been slow to come so far, but the new sidewalks and street trees should help encourage the hoped-for investment.

After over 16 years, Portland gets a sidewalk to its bus and train station

Back in the late 1990s, Concord Trailways moved its bus terminal out of Bayside to more spacious quarters on the edge of the central city, on Thompson's Point. That gave the bus company lots of room to grow, from a handful of daily roundtrips to Boston to the near-hourly, round-the-clock service we enjoy today. But there was one problem: there were no sidewalks on any of the streets leading to the bus station.

The problem got worse about 10 years ago, when the Amtrak Downeaster started running to the same station. Car-free arrivals from Boston and other points south found themselves stranded at the edge of a huge parking lot and a tangle of hostile freeway ramps.

It didn't feel like arriving in Portland – it felt like arriving in the strip malls of Falmouth, Scarborough, or Freeport.

In truth, though. it's only a 30 minute walk from the Portland Transportation Center to Longfellow Square, in the middle of the city. Back in 2008, the Portland Bike and Pedestrian Advisory Committee designated this area one of the city's top priorities for bike and pedestrian infrastructure improvements – due largely to its significance as a destination for Portland's car-free travelers.

This summer, thanks to a grant from the federal Economic Development Administration, street improvements in the area have finally created a few passable walking and biking routes to the city's busiest transportation hub. I took a bike ride down there this weekend, and here are some shots of the area's newly completed streets.

This new crosswalk across Fore River Parkway connects to Frederic Street, a dead-end for cars that will now serve as a nice bike/ped shortcut to and from Congress Street (there had been an informal goat path through a fence here before, but the new one is accessible to bikes and wheelchairs).

The new Thompson's Point Road now boasts sidewalks. It was also widened, from 2 to 3 lanes, but the center lane will be a "reversible" lane to be used only when events are happening at a still-unbuilt Thompson's Point arena.

Sewall Street (below) also received some new sidewalks, and remains cut off from Thompson's Point for motorized traffic. Sewall is the first built link in a planned and funded "neighborhood byway" connection that will run on quiet neighborhood streets from Thompson's Point to Deering Center, 1.5 miles north of here. 

Part of the new neighborhood byway includes safer crossings of the three busy streets that lie between Thompson's Point and Deering Center – Congress, Brighton, and Woodford. Here's what the corner of Congress and Sewall looked like a few weeks ago:

...and here's the same scene from this past weekend. Sewall Street has been narrowed down and the crosswalks have been improved with ADA-accessible ramps.

Finally, Fore River Parkway has gained a new separated shared-use path that runs from Thompson's Point Road to Congress Street. I understand that the bike lane on Park Avenue, which currently peters out into a freeway on-ramp, will be extended to flow into this new bike path. 

Fore River Parkway still lacks a sidewalk on its western shoulder – building one there will require the roadway to sacrifice a lane for car traffic, so we'll still have one good battle to fight. Still, it's a good start.

Maine DOT goofs up, but publicity, bike/ped activism is making it right

Here's the good news: the Maine DOT is planning routine maintenance of the well-used Casco Bay Bridge sidewalk this summer, in a project starting next week. So kudos to them for keeping important infrastructure, used by hundreds of people every day, in good working condition.

Here's the bad news, though: our highway engineers in Augusta forgot that people actually rely on the sidewalk that they're repairing, and neglected to make any credible detour plans for the project.

As told in greater detail in yesterday's Portland Press Herald story, the state's transportation agency hadn't made any plans to create a temporary walkway as a detour on the main route between Portladn and South Portland for the 3-week period of construction. Instead, the construction plan apparently expected pedestrians, joggers, and wheelchair users to make their way across the bridge on the roadway's bike lanes – in close proximity to cars and trucks going 40 miles-per-hour.

When Portland's Bike and Pedestrian Advisory Committee learned of this plan at our regular monthly meeting earlier this week — just one week before construction began — we immediately reached out to the City of South Portland's bike and pedestrian advocates, the Bicycle Coalition of Maine, and Portland Trails. The next day, the Press Herald story linked above ran on the front page with a dramatic photo — attracting a lot more attention to the problem.

Today, though, we're hearing that the DOT is floating new plans to keep most of the bridge's sidewalk open, with a much shorter sidewalk detour on the "lift span" part of the drawbridge where the actual work is taking place.

The whole episode has been embarrassing for the Maine DOT — and rightfully so. Just last month the agency was just boasting that it had adopted a "complete streets" policy, but this gaffe makes it clear that its old, motorists-first mentality persists in the bureaucracy.

Still, thanks to rapid and coordinated responses from Portland and South Portland advocates, the upcoming bridge project won't be nearly as disruptive or dangerous as it might have been.

Photo at left by John Brooking. 
These signs, as seen on July 17, are meant to notify pedestrians of the proposed bridge closure — but they're located far away from the sidewalk in the roadway's median, and have been overlooked by most of the bridge's pedestrian users. 

New Martins Point Bridge will open to bike and pedestrian traffic next Tuesday

Some exciting news from the Maine DOT, courtesy of a recent press release:

"As the first step to opening the new Martin’s Point Bridge to traffic, CPM Constructors will allow pedestrians and bicycles onto the new multi-use path around midday next Tuesday, June 3. The path will be open to pedestrians and bicyclists only. All motor vehicles will continue to travel over the old bridge."

The bridge between Portland and Falmouth is still under construction, so the car-free status is only temporary — enjoy it while you can!

Will "The Forefront at Thompson's Point" scuttle a key link in Portland's Bikeway Network?

On the western edge of the Portland peninsula, the Mountain Division railway offers a scenic direct route between Portland and downtown Westbrook — and from there, on to Windham, Standish, and Fryeburg. The corridor (shown in red in the map below) has long been envisioned as a regional bike and pedestrian connector — a safe and scenic alternative to travel along the outer Congress Street bottleneck.

A 10-foot-wide shared use path (highlighted in green) already extends from the Portland Transportation Center, the easternmost point of the Mountain Division line, along the Fore River Parkway to Veterans Bridge and West Commercial Street, where another trail connection into downtown is in the works. The next link westward would go through the planned Thompson's Point development to the area behind the Westgate shopping center.

That development, called "The Forefront at Thompson's Point," has spent several years in limbo, but it's going back to the Planning Board yet again on Tuesday to seek approval of a scaled-back Master Development Plan.

And unfortunately, the developers' new Master Plan cuts the Mountain Division off in favor of a surface parking lot. A trail could be carved out from portions of a single row of parking stalls, but the developers say they can't sacrifice 12 or so parking spots in a development that's planning to construct 1,290 parking spaces in all.

The good news is that city staff are pressing the developers to be more creative and figure out a way to fit the trail in. It's helpful that the trail corridor is in the city's official Comprehensive Plan, as part of the "Planned Bikeway and Pedestrian Network" approved by the City Council in December 2012.

If you want a safe bike and pedestrian link between the Portland Transportation Center and the Stroudwater neighborhood (and eventually on to Westbrook), chime in now by sending an email to the city's Planning Board and the City Council.

Bike lanes and a side path could be built this summer on West Commercial Street

The proposed expansion of the International Marine Terminal's cargo facilities on West Commercial Street (under the Casco Bay Bridge) might bring a big influx of state transportation funds to Portland this summer — and with those funds could come new bike and pedestrian routes along West Commercial Street.

In order to accommodate more activity and a new freight rail line in the area, the state is planning to rebuild sections of West Commercial Street between Veterans Bridge and the Casco Bay Bridge. This is a significant bike route, and there are already city-adopted plans to extend the Veterans Bridge off-street path eastward towards downtown. The International Marine Terminal project might turn those plans into a construction project as soon as this summer.

Right now, Commercial Street is a bumpy road with no sidewalks between Bernie's Clam Shack (near the Western Prom, where an asphalt path leads to Veterans Bridge) and the Star Match building on the eastern end near Beach Street. That asphalt sidewalk near Bernie's was designed to be an off-street shared-use path, and this project could extend that pathway all the way to Harbor View Park, under the Casco Bay Bridge. The rebuilt Commercial Street might also include new on-street bike lanes, plus an improved, traffic-calmed intersection at Beach Street.

Although the project is fast-tracked and could begin construction this summer, the actual plans are still up in the air. Bike/ped advocates are encouraged to weigh in at a public meeting this Wednesday, at 6 p.m. in City Hall's State of Maine room (that's upstairs, in the western wing of the building).

Sundays on the Boulevard

Over the summer, a sewer construction project kept most of Baxter Boulevard closed to car traffic — but it remained somewhat accessible to bike and foot traffic. It became a popular place for people to recreate next to Back Cove, especially on nice weekends, and now that the construction is almost finished several organizations including Portland Trails and the Back Cove Neighborhood Association have asked the city to consider continuing the street closure on Sundays.

Tonight, City Council's Transportation, Sustainability and Energy Committee is meeting tonight to discuss the idea of closing Baxter Boulevard between Vannah Avenue and Payson Park every Sunday from 9am to 4pm. It has the city staff's support but it sure wouldn't hurt for a few ordinary members of the public to show up and tell councilors that they like the idea.

The meeting starts at 5:30 in council chambers on the 2nd floor. It's the 4th agenda item after some pretty basic on-street parking rule amendments that probably won't take very long — I plan to get there around 5:45.

Here's the full agenda for tonight's meeting, and here's a detailed description of the proposal [PDF document]. In a nice touch, city staff are proposing an exemption for food trucks to be able to park on the closed street to feed hungry joggers and cyclists.

New bike paths, traffic calming in the East End

The city is finally building long-planned access improvements from the East End to Tukey's Bridge (in order to fix some of the problems I blogged about six years ago). I was walking in the area this afternoon and, even under construction, they're already doing a great job of slowing down traffic that comes into town off of the freeway:

The project is tightening up the wide intersection of the Eastern Prom Road with Washington Avenue (at left) and adding a landscaped median where pedestrians can wait. Cars are already driving through the area much more slowly than they used to.

This view, looking north on Washington towards the bridge, shows how much wider the new bike/ped path (the dirt area) will be compared with the current sidewalk (still visible in the foreground), and how much shorter the crossing distance is on the new crossing of Washington:

 The path shown above extends all the way to the Tukey's Bridge ramp, where another new bike path will connect down the hill to the left to join up with Anderson Street and the Bayside Trail.

Kudos to the city's bike/ped committee, PACTS, and the City of Portland for making this happen!

Tonight: final public meeting for Libbytown freeway ramp removals

Tonight at the Clarion Hotel near the Portland Transportation Center (on bus line 5) from 6:30 to 8:30 pm will be the final public meeting of the "Libbytown Circulation Study," which I'd written about previously here.

This will be the final meeting before the consultants present their recommendations to the City Council for endorsement. Word has it that they'll propose removing most of the connecting on- and off-ramps to Park and Congress Streets (shown in red below), except for the northbound on-ramp from Park Ave. This would open up acres of land for transit-oriented redevelopment.

Other positive elements of the plan would add sidewalks on both sides of Fore River Parkway to the bus station, shrinking the intersection of Fore River Pkwy. and Congress Street, new traffic calming, improved sidewalks, and landscaping elements on Congress and Park, and new, high-comfort bikeways that would connect the bus and train station to Deering Oaks Park and the Bayside Trail.

The public will have additional opportunities to weigh in on the plan when it goes to City Hall, but if you've got a free evening, consider coming down to Libbytown tonight to see what's in the works and express your support for a significant pruning of freeway infrastructure.

Public hearing on Libbytown freeway ramp removals

Tomorrow, the Libbytown Traffic and Streetscape Study holds a public workshop at Portland City Hall, Room 24, from 5 - 8 pm (entrance is off Myrtle St. on the east side of City Hall). Displays illustrating the proposed changes will be available from 5-6:30 pm and 7-8:00 pm for comments, with staff available to answer questions. A presentation on the neighborhood conditions and the proposed changes will take place from 6:30 - 7 pm.

This study is a pretty big deal: it proposes to remove multiple freeway ramps that connect to Congress and Park at the western gateway to the city, immediately adjacent to our bus and train station (in fact, the cruddiness of this intersection was one of the first things I blogged about when I first moved to Portland years ago). 

All of the alternatives under consideration would sell off acres of empty space currently occupied by looping freeway ramps and make that real estate available for transit-oriented infill development, like housing or offices. All alternative would also install high-quality, separated bikeways to connect the bus and train station to downtown Portland, plus better sidewalks and calmer, smaller streets throughout the neighborhood.

Doing these things would be relatively cheap, and could be implemented in the next few years, but only if these ideas receive public support.

Here's my personal favorite option, alternative 1b (note the conversion of a freeway ramp into a bike path, which could extend all the way into Deering Oaks Park and ultimately connect to the Bayside Trail):

Click here for a more complete view of the alternatives being proposed.

Freeway deconstruction: now in progress

To anyone who doubts whether Portland will ever be rid of Interstate 295 through downtown and along our Back Cove waterfront: we've already started to dismantle freeway infrastructure from the 1950s. And so far, drivers have hardly noticed the difference.

In the 1950s, before Interstate 295 existed, the original Veterans Memorial Bridge was built with a freeway-like on- and off-ramps on either side of the Fore River to carry high-speed Route 1 traffic. Here's a road map of the area from 1957, when the Route 1 expressway was brand-new:

Here's a view of the grade-separated off-ramp on the South Portland approach that existed until early last year:

And here's what it looks like now. Fewer lanes, a cheap stop-sign controlled intersection, and a nice wide new path for bikes and pedestrians:

Has South Portland become choked with traffic since losing one of its oldest freeway spurs? No, it hasn't been.

The biggest impact to losing a freeway spur has been that thousands of residents of South Portland's neighborhoods now have safe and convenient access to the West End of Portland by foot or by bike.

And this is only the beginning.

Portland's new Bicycle and Pedestrian chapter of the Comprehensive Plan

Please note that this meeting has been rescheduled to November 5th due to Hurricane Sandy.

The Planning Board's next meeting, on Monday the 5th, will workshop the rough draft of Portland's new Bicycle and Pedestrian chapter of the Comprehensive Plan (download the PDF here).

The plan includes a map of planned citywide bike routes, cyclist safety education initiatives, and a framework of "quality of service" engineering standards that will set measurable benchmarks for safer streets and sidewalks. This Planning Board workshop will be a chance for the Board and citizens to offer feedback and suggestions before the document goes to the City Council for formal adoption, which will give it legal force as a component of the city's comprehensive plan.

New Veterans' Memorial Bridge Opening Tomorrow

The new Veterans Bridge (first speculated about here back in 2008, then discussed again back in 2010, when a design and construction team was first selected) is finally opening tomorrow, on June 28th, 2012, with a fantastic new bicycle and pedestrian pathway that extends all the way from the West End to South Portland's Ligonia neighborhood.

You have a few more hours to enjoy the new bridge without any traffic. It will be open to pedestrians and bicyclists only until the end of a grand opening ceremony, which runs until 11:30 am tomorrow. After that, cars will roam free on the main lanes, but bikes and pedestrians will still be able to enjoy a nice wide path on the southern edge of the bridge all to themselves.

Corey of Portland Maine Daily Photo took some nice shots of the new, empty bridge late last week; you can take a look here.

Calming Outer Congress

Outer Congress Street, between Stevens Avenue and the Stroudwater neighborhood, is a choke point in the city's bicycle and pedestrian network. Aside from long detours through Westbrook or South Portland, it's the only non-freeway connection between Portland and the Jetport area, a district with thousands of jobs and some of the region's biggest employers. It's also a gateway to one of the city's most scenic parks, the Fore River Sanctuary.

Unfortunately, it's been designed to be a dangerous speedway for cars. Large sections of the street don't even have a sidewalk, leaving bus riders to wait in the ditch. The natural surroundings give drivers the impression that they're in the countryside, not in a city, so that many of them hit speeds of 40 to 50 miles an hour along this relatively short stretch:

Image: via Bing Maps

When I first moved here in 2006, Stroudwater neighborhood residents had prevailed on the city to do a traffic study of outer Congress Street. Unfortunately, the hired engineers took it for granted that moving cars would continue to be the most important role for this public space. They also predicted, wrongly, that traffic would increase considerably. The study recommended only minor changes, and  the public that paid for it had little appetite to implement its recommendations.

This year, the Maine DOT is repaving the section of Congress from roughly Stevens Avenue to Johnson Road near UNUM. This presents an opportunity to make some more meaningful improvements, and city staff have revisited the old study to examine where it went wrong, and how its recommendations might be revised to make more meaningful changes for everyone's safety.

It's a good start. But to make more permanent changes, like landscaped medians designed to slow down traffic and give pedestrians a safer place to cross the road, the city will need to spend some of its own money.  The capital budget under discussion includes $175,000 line-item to install more traffic calming, better sidewalks and crosswalks, along outer Congress Street. Please write to your city councilors to ask them to support this expenditure (and if you do, please leave a comment with their response —we're trying to keep track of who's on board with this).

Here's an outline of some of the changes being proposed for the short term. You can take a look at maps at the city's website.

• Large sections of Congress Street will be constricted to one inbound lane with a left turn lane and two outbound lanes. This basically formalizes the status quo, where the inbound left lane is usually filled with cars waiting to turn left anyhow...
• ... but it also opens up the opportunity to create new median islands and crosswalks with pedestrian refuges, especially at intersections like Westbrook Street and Frost Street, or close sidewalk gaps, like the one between Stroudwater and Frost Street. It's also bound to help calm down inbound traffic.
• Near the railroad tracks (from near Frost Street to the Italian Heritage Center driveway), the road will narrow to one lane in each direction, with space in the middle for future left-turn lanes and/or landscaped median refuges. Pending the city's budget, this area could be the future location for a nice crosswalk to connect the Portland Trails network across Congress Street; the extra space could also be put to use to widen the sidewalks or provide better bus stops. 
• "Bikes May Use Full Lane — Change Lanes to Pass" signs (pictured) would be installed at several locations between Johnson Road and Stevens Avenue, giving motorists notice that they should expect bikes in the roadway and giving cyclists an opportunity to question the literacy of the sad, road-ragey motorists who honk at them.
• Inbound cyclists would also gain a climbing bike lane between the Fore River Bridge and Westland. This section has a blind curve, where slow-moving cyclists climbing uphill in the right lane are out of sight of speeding motorists coming up from behind. Even experienced cyclists doing everything right are one texting-and-driving teenager away from a disaster (it's a little better on the other side of the street, heading out of town, and there won't be new bike lanes on that side of the road). Like a truck climbing lane, this bike lane will give slower vehicles a little extra room; hopefully it will be combined with more permanent traffic calming so that the cars move a little slower as well.

Portland's Proposed New Bike and Pedestrian Plan: Public Hearing on March 1, 6:30 pm

Grade "A": Bedford Street in the USM campus is comfortable to walk and bike along, or to cross as a pedestrian, and would therefore be considered a street with a high "quality of service" for bikes and pedestrians...

Grade "D": Forest Avenue in the vicinity of Morrill's Corner, with its high volumes of speeding traffic and lack of safe crosswalks, would receive much lower grades.

Failure: Franklin Street, with its complete lack of crosswalks or sidewalks, would receive an "F."

Portland's Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (which I chair) has lately been working with city staff on a new chapter of the city's Comprehensive Plan that would be focused on improving the city's conditions for bikes and pedestrians.

The plan goes under the public's scrutiny for the first time at a public hearing on Thursday, March 1, at 6:30 pm in the Merrill Auditorium Rehearsal Hall (behind City Hall; entrance on Myrtle Street).

Pending its approval from the City Council, this plan would have a certain legal force under state laws like the Sensible Transportation Policy Act and the Comprehensive Planning and Land Use Act.

On a practical basis, that means that future real estate developments and road projects would have to abide by the plan's recommendations. One of its more exciting elements (to me) is how it would implement new "quality of service" measures for walking and cycling in various neighborhoods across the city.

Streets would be graded according to the quality of their crosswalks, the speed of traffic, and other factors that affect how useable and safe they are for pedestrians and cyclists, with particular focus on vulnerable users like kids and the elderly (see the examples at right).

The city would also set targets for various districts to achieve certain ratings: a neighborhood center like Woodfords Corner or North Deering would be held to a higher standard than an industrial area like Warren Avenue. And as new development occurs, builders and road projects would be held to those aspirational standards.

So, even though the area around the Northgate shopping plaza in North Deering might currently rate a "C" or "D" in terms of pedestrian quality of service, new road and building projects in the neighborhood would be expected to add wider sidewalks, better crosswalks, trail connections, and other amenities to aim for an "A" rating.

One drawback of the Comprehensive Plan is that it will take a long time to implement, because by default, change will only happen incrementally, as new road projects and developments come along.

To get things going a bit faster, one idea kicking around is adding in a recommendation for a dedicated source of funding for new bike routes and pedestrian improvements, perhaps through a 25 cent surcharge on hourly rates at public parking meters and garages, so that the city wouldn't necessarily have to wait for development projects to come along in order to make improvements.

It's unlikely that city staff will make a recommendation like that on their own, but if enough members of the public speak out, it could be more realistic. And if it were included in the plan, then City Councilors would have a chance to vote on a new source of funding, along with the plan's other good ideas.

You can download a draft outline of the plan, plus a map of proposed official city bike routes, on the City's Transportation, Sustainability & Energy Committee webpage.

How to Get Rid of Crosswalks in Saco

Annoyed by the need to yield to pedestrians? If you're lucky enough to live in of Saco, Maine, here's how you can get rid of those pesky crosswalks in three easy steps:

1. Get drunk.
2. Plow your car into an elderly lady using the troublesome crosswalk on her way to church.
3. Traffic engineers will take care of the rest, and cite "safety concerns" to remove the crosswalk on your behalf.

It's that easy!

Some bleeding hearts might say, "wait a minute, how does taking out a crosswalk solve any safety concerns? In a busy downtown area, won't people walk across the street anyhow? Doesn't the crosswalk keep those pedestrians safe in most situations among law-abiding, sober motorists?"

How trite of you to focus on those little old ladies who can't drive anymore! Who is thinking about keeping the motorists safe - safe from scurrilous vehicular manslaughter charges? I'll tell you who is: Gorrill-Palmer, the traffic engineering firm that advised the City of Saco to delete two Main Street crosswalks.

Sure, some lousy pedestrians will continue to try to cross the street on foot, even without a crosswalk there. But now, without any legal crossings nearby, you'll be able to "teach them a lesson" without any fear of legal recourse!

So pedestrians, take notice: unless you're road kill, the City of Saco will not tolerate your presence on Main Street.

A Daily Paper Double

Today's Portland Press Herald editorial page goes to bat twice in favor of transportation policy reform:

Our View: Work needed for walkers, bikes and cars to share city's streets

Portland is one of the rare urban centers where people can get around almost as well without a car as with one...

But that doesn't mean that the city has it all worked out. There are gaps in the system, where sidewalks and bike lanes suddenly disappear, leaving pedestrians and cyclists dangerously exposed. There are also gaps in the behavior of people, both on the street and behind the wheel, who break the rules of the road, creating unnecessary danger...

Everyone in the city has an interest in making this work. Walkers and cyclists reduce congestion, demand for parking and air pollution. Good facilities help people save money and promote healthy living.

But as gas prices climb, more people will leave their cars at home, so it's important to fill these gaps now.

This is in reference to Portland's new Complete Streets resolution, which the City Council passed earlier this week. Under guidance from Bruce Hyman, our Bicycle and Pedestrian coordinator, the city is set to get to work to create an official Complete Streets policy, which will ensure that bikes and pedestrians are accommodated and made welcome in all of the City's future construction projects. This is a big deal, and I'll be writing more about this soon.

The second editorial deals with the disgraced Maine Turnpork Authority:

Our View: MTA needs more than a board shakeup

The resignation of longtime Maine Turnpike Authority Executive Director Paul Violette has led to some fast-paced scrambling by the agency's board of directors...

In the end, public anger and calls for legislative action were not just about gift cards, but about what those expenditures represent, which is a political organization that has been allowed to exist outside the checks and balances of government.

Violette used to refer to his organization as a business, which it resembled when it borrowed money on Wall Street to finance projects. But at the same time, the Maine Turnpike provides an essential public service and manages a resource, in the form of tolls collected from tourists and trucking companies, in which the entire state has an interest.

Reshuffling the responsibilities of a board that meets one day a month for less than two hours at a time is not enough oversight for an organization that collects $99 million in toll revenue each year.

The fact that its revenue does not come directly from the taxpayers does not make the Maine Turnpike a private business. If the board has been lax in its oversight of staff expenditures, the same can be said of past Legislatures, which have not adequately asserted their duty to raise questions about how the MTA is run and how it fits with other state priorities.

Republican lawmakers have called for a top-to-bottom review of the MTA and raised fundamental questions about the management structure of the Maine Turnpike Authority and its recent inability to turn over any operating surplus to the state to defray other transportation costs.

The MTA board's scrambling is understandable and probably overdue. But it is not a substitute for a serious legislative inquiry.

The Maine Alliance for Sustainable Transportation (of which I'm a part) is working on promising legislation that would address a number of these issues, by requiring the Turnpike Authority to provide a regional commuter bus system and to help fund basic road maintenance and repair throughout the rest of the state, before it takes on any of its more expensive widening projects.

It's called LD 673, "An Act To Expand Fiscally Responsible Transportation through Increased ZOOM Bus Service," and here's how you can help get it passed. More on this, too, in a future blog post.

Love Walking and Cycling? Come to Tonight's Bike/Ped Committee Meeting

It's a very romantic Bike/Pededestrian Advisory Committee Meeting tonight, starting at 5:30 pm in Room 209 (upstairs) of City Hall:

• An update on Portland's first proposed "Neighborhood Byway" - a traffic-calmed route that would prioritize bikes and walkers on neighborhood streets between Deering Center and Sagamore Village
  
  
• A call to action regarding grumpy drivers' efforts to remove a traffic calming median island on Woodford Street
  
  
• Ideas for a bike route along outer Congress Street, from Libbytown to the Airport
  
  
• Updates from Augusta (including the status of the Maine Alliance for Sustainable Transportation's ZOOM bus legislation)

We'll adjourn by 6:30 pm. See you there!

Commenters' Questions

A few questions have cropped up recently in the comments section, and I'll do my best to answer them here:

[From Anonymous] A woman who lives near my house routinely parks her car in a driveway, but the car completely blocks the sidewalk. As a pedestrian, today, I literally had to walk through a snowbank to continue on my way around her car (SUV). I have asked her to keep her car off the sidewalk, but she basically flipped me off. Who is legally correct here? Who owns the sidewalk?

While the property owner technically "owns" the land under the sidewalk, it's a public right of way that must be kept clear. If you would like to report an uncleared sidewalk, call Portland's Inspections Department at 874-8793, or citysidewalks@portlandmaine.gov. Use the same number for neighbors who don't shovel.

You could also encourage her to take a long drive tomorrow in the snow - with an SUV, she'll be more likely than others to get it stuck in a snowbank along the side of the freeway, opening up your sidewalk for a while.

[From Turbo]: "I'd been wondering whether you were biking to work on these days when the Rt. 1 shoulder is under multiple inches of grimy snow. I've been taking the bus myself most days-- probably passing you en route. I have to say, though, I find the bus depressing. I spend most of the ride trying to think of ways to make it a more appealing experience."

In general, I'll take the bus too if there's slush on the roads - getting damp salt on my bike and clothing is not much fun. I'll admit it's been making me a little stir crazy, though.

I have ridden in the last couple of days, since the roads are generally dry. I rode in to work this morning as well, but with the snow flying outside, I'll probably make use of METRO's bike racks on my way home.

When the shoulders are icy, I take the middle of the lane, which is perfectly legal and arguably makes a cyclist even safer by virtue of improved visibility (I'm in motorists' direct line of sight, instead of in their peripheral vision). If cars want to pass me, they switch lanes - just as they would do with any other slower vehicle. Winter tends to make people slow down on the roads anyhow, so it's not much of a problem to keep up.

As far as making the bus ride less depressing, I'd say it's a damned shame that METRO plasters its buses with advertisements that keep us from looking out the windows. The part of Route 7 that I ride might be one of the most scenic bus routes anywhere, with abundant views of Back Cove, the Presumpscot River, and Casco Bay's islands - often with sunrises and sunsets at this time of year to boot. Of course, I get off before the same bus enters the cluster of strip malls around Route One, also known as Falmouth's Lower Intestinal District.

I usually bring a book or a magazine, or just rest my eyes for a few minutes. In the past few years I've seen a lot more people sending emails or web browsing with smartphones. Reading or writing are things you just can't do in a driver's seat. I'll take a dingy bus and a good magazine article over the cushiest Lexus any day.

TONIGHT: Portland Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee at City Hall

October's monthly bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee meeting has been rescheduled to Wednesday this week, due to the holiday on Monday. We'll meet at 5:30 pm, in Room 24 (in the basement level at the eastern end of the building) of Portland's City Hall.

At our last meeting, members voted to choose 4 top priorities we'd like to advance through the local and regional planning process over the next two years. Those priorities are:

• Reconfiguring the Exit 6/Forest Avenue interchange to make it more pedestrian and cycle-friendly. The current cloverleaf interchange swallows up over 6 acres of valuable real estate and clumsily cuts off access from major pedestrian destinations like the USM campus, Deering Oaks Park, Bayside, and the Hannaford grocery store. It is a high-crash location for automobiles. It's dangerous for everyone and a waste of space, and it's time we made plans to fix it.


• Bike Boulevard pilot project. Bike boulevards are low-traffic neighborhood streets that include traffic calming elements and other features to make them extra-convenient routes for bikes and pedestrians. We'd like to establish a pilot Bike Boulevard somewhere in Portland, and have it serve as a model for other routes connecting throughout the region.


• Bayside Trail/Preble/Elm area of Bayside: Even though this neighborhood has seen increasing amounts of investment and new development, the streets are still relics of the days when this neighborhood was an industrial backwater. There are large gaps in the sidewalk network, one-way streets that are wider and faster than they need to be, and numerous blockages to handicap accessibility. Future development offers the opportunity for the city to make the neighborhood's streets much better.
  
  
• "Bikes May Use Full Lane" signs. Many of Portland's larger streets, like Congress Street and inner Washington Avenue, don't have enough space for bike lanes, but they're still important connecting routes for bike commuters. New signs would educate motorists and cyclists alike that bicycles are allowed to use the full lane, instead of squeezing themselves into the gutter.

Do any of these ideas sound appealing to you? At this month's meeting, we'll discuss our strategy and convene small working groups of people who are ready and able to seize these ideas, move them through city and state approval and funding processes, and make them a reality.

Join us TONIGHT at 5:30 pm, in Room 24 (in the basement level at the eastern end of the building) of Portland's City Hall.