Sections:
Sharp-Edged Curbing
Sharp-Edged "Safety" Railings
Dangerous Crosswalks

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

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.

Cutting-edge technology may be good, but cutting-edge curbing?

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 Bicyclists)

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.

Here's an even better example - in a US Corps of Engineers park in Northbridge, MA. Look and learn.

It doesn't take much to do it right - if you know what's right.

Dangerous Crosswalks

Incredible as it may seem, studies indicate that marked crosswalks are more dangerous than unmarked ones! This probably is because they inspire pedestrians with unwarranted confidence that drivers will see and react well. Good crosswalk design demands extra attention.

Well-situated and very visible crosswalks increase pedestrian safety. So do advance-warning signs to alert vehicles, and police enforcement. Does your police department keep drivers (including bicyclists) from stopping in crosswalks?

The ssecond photo on this web page also shows bare-minimum crosswalk markings. That's just a Federal design guidelines' minimum of two white lines to define a crosswalk.

Making crosswalks more visible is the next step. That wasn't yet done when that photo was taken in Fall 2005, during the reconstruction of Route 135 in Natick, Massachusetts.

The Natick Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee has requested the same crosswalk design that's used in adjacent Framingham, a "railroad track" pattern that includes the two minimum white "rails" but adds visible "cross-ties". Natick has agreed, with one change. Natick will use all-white coloring, where the Framingham "cross-ties" are yellow.

Framingham's recipe for an 8-foot-wide crosswalk is simple:
12" white thermoplastic tape for the "rails", which are placed with the outsides 8' apart.
12" yellow thermoplastic tapes for the perpendicular "cross-ties", each 6' long. Although it previously called for 3' gaps, a 1' gap (equal to the tape width) is now generally used for increased visibility. (See the photo at right.)
An earlier plan view is online here, courtesy of the DPW of Framingham, Mass.

Whether in thermoplastic tape or in paint, the surface should be specified as skid-resistant.

Coloring the cross-ties bright yellow increases their visibility in various lighting conditions - and especially in distracting situations, through fog and during the early and critical, surprise-skidding stage of a snowfall, when white lines lose their visibility sooner. The NBPAC recommended following the Framingham precedent in that, too, but it won't happen. Natick DPW objected, explaining that the need for two colors would double both the installation time and its traffic tie-ups. Natick's crosswalk design will be all-white.

Motor vehicle regulations say that drivers must not stop in a crosswalk, and must stop when a pedestrian occupies a crosswalk in that lane. But locally, even in the best of weather, not all drivers do stop for pedestrians. Very visible crosswalks placed where pedestrians use them, signs posted in advance of crosswalks, and police enforcement all add to pedestrian safety.

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