Sections:
Sharp-Edged Curbing
Sharp-Edged "Safety" Railings
Road Shoulders
Drainage Grates

Sharp-Edged Curbing (also in Road Hazards For Pedestrians)

People do slip and fall. Street facilities, even granite curbing, should be designed to lessen the harm caused by such accidents.

That would be good, but it doesn't always happen. Consider this photo of chamfered old curbing meeting sharp-edged new, 2005 curbing along Route 135 in Natick.

Further east along Route 135 in Natick, where Marion Street splits off in Lincoln Square, this pedestrian crosswalk has an even worse idea.
Its new, 2005 curbing doesn't just come to a sharp edge. It comes to a point! And not once, but four times! Four unnecessarily dangerous places, which will greatly increase the injury to any walker or bicyclist who happens to fall in this wrong place. This wrong place happens to be across from the town's Senior Center. In icy weather, it will become even more hazardous.

Sharp-Edged "Safety" Railings (also in Road Hazards For Pedestrians)

People slip and fall on sidewalks, too. Presumably, that's why Natick and Mass. Highway installed these "safety" railings in 2008, as part of the Route 135 reconstruction project. But what a mess!

We're looking east on Route 135 (West Central Street), toward the Speen Street intersection. Cars are waiting for the traffic lights to change, and so is a bicyclist - on the sidewalk. It's no surprise that he's there. Only the bravest cyclists would use the street, with heavy traffic and no bike shoulder.

But what if that sidewalk bicyclist were to hit that rail? It's low enough to flip his bike and him into the street!

Also, the rails present a new and unusual hazard themselves; the ends of the warped wooden rails fail to align. Why not? Aside from using cheap, green wood, only the nearest pair of bolts are at a rail end. All the others fail to attach a rail END to a post, to prevent it from warping. The exposed edges are left sharp, and already present some splinters. That's an unnecessary hazard to cyclists AND pedestrians.

But wait, there's more! Would you believe that both ends of this "safety railing" are missing their wooden rails? No rails at all, leaving the sharp metal uprights directly exposed to anyone who, on bike or afoot, slips into one! This hasn't been ignored for only a few days or a week, but through the summer of 2008, all of September, and still counting.

Whoever installed this "safety" railing was not a bicyclist, nor are its inspectors. I expect that they don't walk much, either. As safety rails go, this one is remarkably unsafe.

Those without street-bicycling smarts wrongly assume that bicyling is banned on major highways. That's only true on a very few special roads, such as the Massachusetts Turnpike. Route 9 in Natick is more typical: a place to "share the road" with bicyclists. Route 9 serves many businesses. For those near it, Route 9 is the only way past Lake Cochituate without miles of detour. Route 9 has a legal obligation to serve bicyclists as well as motorized vehicles. And in most places, Route 9 has wide shoulders.

Road shoulders are a mixed blessing for bicyclists. You can "take" a good one, to free the driving lanes for faster car traffic and to provide easier biking. But typically, shoulders are the most poorly designed and managed section of the roadway.

Reasons to avoid riding on the shoulder, or to use it with extra caution, include:
 Shoulder has inadequate width or is obstructed; will cause unpredictable zig-zagging into traffic.
 Poor cleaning: debris, loose sand, leaves, snow.
 Poor repair: potholes, cracks, broken pavement.
 Dangerous drainage 

Drainage Grates

Drainage grates admit rainwater and snowmelt to storm drains, which channel them downhill to the local streams and ponds. Grates also keep larger items from falling in. Typically, smaller sinking objects stay in the bottom of an underlying catch basin, where they should be scooped out twice a year before they clog the drain pipe or that stream or pond.

Bicyclists must spot drainage grates in time to gracefully avoid them, or to confirm that they are aligned safely for riding over. Avoid riding on any grate with slots that are not perpendicular to your direction of travel.

This slotted grate has two problems. Its slots are parallel to the curbing, ready to grab a bicycle's front tire and cause injury (and a following car can make it worse). Also, note that one corner of this grate is bevelled so it can't be turned 90 degrees. That was intended to avoid this very problem during later maintenance; but since its collar was installed wrong, now it can't be rotated to correct that problem!

Let's look at that same grate as we'd approach it if we were riding in the shoulder. Better ease around this dangerously-oriented grate, even if that means merging back into traffic. (If you are not taking this exit, you should merge here anyway, as you're about to lose your "lane".) 

In the near distance, where the exit lane causes the shoulder to disappear, see the batch of leaves?  Let's look ahead to there, while we still have some reflex time.

Here's that second location, as we close in on it. Good thing, that we looked in advance! There's another one of those wrongly-oriented slotted grates, and this time the right side of its casting has been broken off and a stone has lodged in there. To its right, the curb-side waffle grate is designed for bike safety in any orientation; but we won't cross it anyway, because it is covered with slippery leaves and it's too close to the curb. Note that there's a deep hole in the sidewalk, too, where rain has cut a hole through weak pavement down to the catch basin.

If you want better roads, YOU must report problems and follow up. The NBPAC thought Natick was already free of these particular problems, but someone else's sharp eyes reported them and I acted promptly. The above photos were taken on Route 9 westbound in Natick, on the downhill approaching Route 27. (The first grate was at the exit to the Brigham-Gill car dealership.) Route 9 is maintained by MassHighway, not Natick, so we notified MassHighway District 3 (and copied the Natick DPW) late on Thursday, October 13th, 2005.

The next morning, MassHighway District 3 replied that the task is assigned to Maintenance, the repairs should be completed within several days (and I'll be notified), and that safety cones will be placed until then. Despite heavy rains and winds over the weekend, MassHighway rotated these grates and patched the sidewalk hole on Tuesday, October 18th. Well done!

MassHighway is doing its part. But it's still up to us to spot and report these problems.

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