Saturday, a driver hit a cyclist near the same spot on S. Main Street where a pedestrian was hit and killed in a crosswalk last year. The weather was clear and warm and it was during the day. Both the driver and cyclist were heading north when the driver turned right and hit the cyclist.
South Main Street has a problem. It’s not safe for anyone outside of a car. It’s a neighborhood street that people live, walk, bike and roll on that connects other neighborhood streets. Yet, like many of the major neighborhood streets in our village and town, it is designed for those who use it to pass through from one place to another in a car. And they do so quickly, with little regard for those outside of vehicles that are also using those streets.
Within the Village boundary, the speed limit is 30 mph. It’s 35 mph as you leave the village (where the cyclist and pedestrian were hit) and speed increases from there. Most of the traffic flows just below 40 mph between Stone and the Village. (If you don’t think that’s fast for neighborhood streets, keep in mind that a 35 mph speed limit on a neighborhood street is well over the threshold of what the human body can handle if hit by a vehicle.)
Intersection where driver hit cyclist.
Intersection at Sunset & S. Main where pedestrian was killed
The Town worked with DOT to install yellow pedestrian signs and a speed radar indicator after the pedestrian was killed at Sunset & S. Main. [See above photo]
The road is straight and fast, there are no bike lanes, the shoulder is crumbly and full of debris, there isn’t street lighting to emphasize crossings, there is a sidewalk only on the east side (which means pedestrians and kids on bikes have to cross to have safe infrastructure) and there is no curb to prevent a driver from comfortably meandering right into the sidewalk.
Beyond the design and the fact this neighborhood street is used as a pass-through, there is an issue that looms like a dark cloud over the ability for the village and surrounding areas to be truly walkable. It is a culture that prioritizes drivers first. Very few drivers yield or slow when pedestrians and cyclists are present. So when drivers are traveling the same direction as a cyclist, many assume they have the right of way at all times. When drivers see a pedestrian waiting at a crosswalk or crossing when they have the right of way at a signalized intersection, very few yield or wait to make their left or right turn.
I’m going to quote my thoughts after the pedestrian was killed on S. Main, because they still apply:
We do not have a culture of road sharing in and around the Village. We have a culture that prioritizes driving. The road design encourages high speeds. The heart of the Village was sacrificed as a pass-through as the town sprawled outward. And we have lots of people who drive through our community that don’t ever use anything but the car as transportation.
We can continue to let our roads be highways and give in to the car-first design mentality that overtook our streets in the 80s and 90s. Or we can inconvenience drivers a little bit (not even a lot a bit; just a few minutes extra as they commute through our streets).
We can’t have it both ways. If we want safer streets for everyone who uses our streets (including drivers), it does mean that we as drivers will be inconvenienced more than we are right now. We will lose 30 seconds when we stop for a pedestrian. We will lose 35 seconds when we have to drive 25 instead of 40 on Monroe Ave through the Village. We might have to leave a few minutes earlier for work. But the trade-off is safer streets.
We have not yet made that choice.