Comments on: Providence Bike Friendly?

By: Alan Barta

Alan Barta — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 02:06:21 +0000

Dave’s too generous evaluation of 20 is still firmly a “D”. Yes, you CAN blame mayor for bad pavement and lack of response leaving bad grates, no shoulder, few parking restrictions in biking’s favor. They argue that all the colleges take up a lot of resources and room and pay no taxes. Yet some of these deficiencies go back decades. That segment of cobblestone on Pine St has been rattling my teeth for 40 years. City Hall just doesn’t care.

In any grand vision of this tiny state becoming the equal of some bike mecca, like Portland, Or, rests squarely on Providence’s shoulders… literally. You can’t go anywhere in this state surrounding a bay without passing through Providence. Yet they threw in an I-way without the least idea of including a bike lane, especially when there’s supposed to be a huge new $15 million bike-ped parallel on that side of the George Washington Bridge in 2012, if ever. Somebody just doesn’t get it at RIDOT, an agency who pays people to study and implement intermodal transportation, at least give lip service to it.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:34:53 +0000

I’d also like to add that I’ve heard a fair amount of frustration from the cycling community over the lanes on Blackstone—it boils down to “the boulevard was wide enough and didn’t need it” and “it wrecks things for the paceline”—and I feel compelled to give my opinion, which is this: anything that removes a lane of traffic for a bicycle lane, I am 100% in favor of it. No, it wasn’t done ideally. No, the signs posted around the city don’t add up to a comprehensive bike path/route system. But it’s two less lanes of car traffic and two dedicated lanes for bikes.

As someone who uses a good stretch of the Boulevard on my daily commute, it makes all the difference to me not to have constantly to be looking in my mirror/over my shoulder. No road is wide enough for bike travel if it’s all dedicated to cars. As for the paceline, I have a hard time understanding how they won’t find room to maneuver around in the parking lane if the bicycle lane ever does get overwhelmed with riders. Besides, I have yet to encounter a peloton that wasn’t very vocal about its approach well in advance.

By: David

David — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:19:34 +0000

One more thing. I looked up the Bikeability Checklist on the NHTSA website mentioned above by Alan Barta (which is based on a scale of 5 - 30, 30 being the best), and I ended up with a rating of 20. Which according to the checklist means that “Conditions for riding are okay, but not ideal. Plenty of room for improvement.” Which is a fair assessment. Some of the points taken off were not the fault of the city (roads being hilly) and some equally affect motorists (potholes, slippery roads in wintertime) so you cant fairly count them as “bike discrimination”. Here is the link to the checklist, in case other people want to test it out: http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/pedbimot/bike/Safe-Routes-2004/images/bikabilitychecklist1.pdf

By: David

David — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:56:52 +0000

I think Providence is for the most part bike friendly. I’ve been commuting to and from work on a bike for four years, although I will drive a car when the roads are icy or the temperatures are unbearably cold. We do use the car for groceries, because there is no way we can haul groceries for the week for the whole family on a bike. I also drop off and pick up my 5 year old son at school on my bike, he rides on his Alleycat tandem trailer. While there are no real bike lanes, traffic density is not particularly high and as long as you bike safely you should be fine. You also need to get used to the driving habits of Rhode Islanders. However, I never feel uncomfortable or unsafe biking with my son in the alleycat behind me. I agree that downtown is not the most bikeable area, but even there is fine, as long as you use common street sense. That being said, you don’t really need to live right downtown since there are very walkable and bikeable neighborhoods just West, East and South of downtown, and the city is so small you can get around quickly, despite all the hills (seven to be exact). So, while things could be improved by bike lanes and such, I think you will get a lot of use from your bike here. I do.

By: Alan Barta

Alan Barta — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 23:50:19 +0000

Meanwhile, I had a chance to reflect on what’s worst about Providence’s Plan for Bicycling.

The signs I’ve seen say “Bike Route”. This gives no indication as to where you’re headed. When I consulted with city planners, I suggested a “subway” plan, with signs that were color coded: Yellow for SE-NW, Red for N-S, Blue for E-W (6 main directions of travel). These signs are shown in the video I put awhile back on YouTube.com… http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CpBzEvvXFuA

Every bit of Providence Bicycling infrastructure is represented in the video, along with bike culture, historic images, local color, and, not to forget, a bunch of whacked out bicycling songs. It’s believed I have the world’s largest collection of them, several hundred, from over 1,000 listed in my book.

Every local survey I conducted and bicyclist interviewed said they didn’t know HOW to transit downtown, because there are no group rides, no marked lanes, and no connections between existing infrastructures, the actual bikeways in adjacent cities and towns. The mayor’s attitude is that there are no abandoned railroad rights of way or similar structures upon with to build them downtown. Agreed, very little real estate to work with… and yet, plenty to throw more huge high rise luxury apartments, but no affordable housing. Yeah, Providence is headed in the same direction as Hartford. It will soon be unlivable except for millionaires with concierge service to distant markets.

By: Alan Barta

Alan Barta — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 17:03:06 +0000

Yeah, that 1.6 miles of Promenade “bikeway” is riddled with 140 storm grates with parallel running slots. Broadway has been promised for 5 years without action. Allens Ave, not mentioned but the first section of bike lanes established in city, is so full of train tracks and trash as to be almost unusable. Sweeping is too expensive for city, or so I’ve been told. One-way, double wide Blackstone Blvd didn’t need stripes, was actually where paceliners trained for years before; it’s a case of misplaced priorities. Planners here have no clue how to deal with bicycling, other than say they love it.

That said, you CAN ride a bike here, do it myself all the time, 4 seasons. I’ve resorted to using Kevlar belted tires (Vittorio Randdoneurs) and Mr. Tuffy Tire Liners. Adds weight but seldom get flats as much as I used to. A lot of people use mtbs instead of roadies; there is a cult of fixies, too.

By: Eric

Eric — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 20:02:44 +0000

Django, don’t be scared off by a few comments. Providence is no cyclists’ mecca, but conditions in most of the city are adequate for any street-smart rider. You’ll also find that there are indeed places where one can live car-free, combining biking and walking with RIPTA (our bus system) and a train station (Amtrak and Boston-based commuter rail).

Of course, these are not guarantees of bicyclist safety, but they are signs that the city is making attempts to create better conditions for cyclists: the city’s bike route network is finally getting marked with signs (happened largely last week), a 1.5 mi road was striped with lanes the week before (Blackstone Blvd), another road (Broadway, 1 mi) will be striped this summer or fall, and both Promenade and Kinsley have bike lanes (1.6 mi combined) that will be re-striped this year as well.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 12:35:21 +0000

Bring your bike for sure. You will be glad you did. Providence is called “the walking city” but you can seriously get around faster on a bike then you can if you are walking or driving. After riding around for a week or so, you will learn the best routes to take and become more comfortable with riding with traffic here and predicting what the drives here do.

You don’t really want to live RIGHT downtown, because living just a few blocks away from downtown in any direction is still reasonably affordable and is as close as anyone would need to be to downtown. There is no point living directly downtown.

By: Django

Django — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 01:51:10 +0000

hmmm, maybe ill just leave my bike in manhattan where it belongs:\ Alan’s saying everything I was afraid of! Id love to live downtown but all there seems to be are those crazy expensive lofts that dont allow pets (i have two dogs). wtf? My friend lives outside of Wakefield and swears Im better off out in the woods, Im beginning to wonder if he’s right?

By: Ryan

Ryan — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 23:10:00 +0000

I just recently moved to Providence from a city with car-wide bike lanes on every road, and I found it a surprise for such a large college town with tons of students riding their bikes…there is not any bike lanes! However, I don’t find bike lanes totally necessarily in a city like this, because with how a lot of the drivers are in this town, they will start using the bike lanes for swerving around other cars, a turning lane and whatever else they can squeeze into it.

The main problem is, many of the providence streets that are surely wide enough for two lanes don’t have ANY road markings are lines, so people just really drift wherever they feel like driving! Sometimes it’s just one car down the center, or sometimes it can be 3-4 cars wide. So…before we get bike lanes or anything of the such, Providence has to start fixing the traffic control downtown and in certain areas, therefore making people around here drive better. By doing this, it will make it safer for bikes.

Finally, many of the roads seems like they been hit by several earthquakes, and some pot holes are deep enough consume your skinny road bike tires. Many of the roads could very easily be fixed and traffic detoured to the next block over. I guess the winters just take their toll on the roads and they rarly get fixed.