Bicycle Board Members,
I had an excellent meeting with Bill Austin and Brian Radabaugh, WVDOH today. We cruised West Run and discussed West Run Rd., Van Voorhis Rd., Rt. 100, in-line grates and Share the Road signs. Following is a summary.
In-line grates The in-line grates that we have identified on Walnut Street Bridge, Beechurst Av. and Mon Blvd. should all be replaced with bicycle friendly grates by this fall. The Walnut St. bridge grates will probably be replaced first and soon. We did not discuss the Westover Bridge grates whose cross pieces are falling out.
Rt. 100 I explained to Brian that: Rt. 100 is a main route out of town because it is flat and connects to good rides in Green County, PA as well as the PA A-Bike Route. The annual Appalachian Spring Spectacular is the first Sunday in May and always uses Rt. 100 and has had up to 138 participants from local as well as afar. Rt. 100 from Granville to Rt. 19 is riddled with cracks and potholes. Brian agreed to get Rt. 100 patched before May 1 and to put it on a schedule for regular maintenance every year before May. We also discussed putting Share the Road signs or Bike Route signs on Rt. 100. See signage discussion below.
Signage Brian and Fouad "Fred" Shakry are developing a standard to use for deciding where to put Share the Road signs. Brian thinks we already have too many signs of all kinds on our roads. He also thinks that putting Share the Road signs where bicyclists won't ride dilutes the effectiveness of the sign. He invites input from us on routes to be signed. Our recommendations must include credible explanation that significant bicycling use increase will result.
West Run Road Before we cruised West Run Rd., we discussed the message that I had sent January 20 addressing the plan to widen the roadway to 11-foot lanes. Then, we cruised the road while discussing options. When we returned to the meeting room, Brian stated that his current thinking is to widen the lanes to 12-feet center-line-to-edge; stripe the travel lane to 10-feet width leaving a 2-foot paved shoulder; use any remaining budget to improve sight lines, e.g. cutting back steep banks in curves. Brian observed that wider travel lanes can encourage speeding, especially in the absence of enforcement.
We also discussed the West Run segregated bike path that would run from Van Voorhis to Easton. Brian favored the bike path over further widening West Run Rd. beyond the total 24-feet that we discussed because he felt that acquiring right of way and building roadway would cost more than acquiring right of way for the path and building the path.
We also drove a short distance along West Run from Van Voorhis toward the river where I explained to Brian and Bill how the West Run path could extend down to the Mon River Trail.
We also cursorily discussed the bike path from the WVU Research Park down to West Run but didn't get into much detail.
BTW, currently planned West Run Rd. improvement is only between Stewartstown Rd. and Van Voorhis Rd., and does not include the segment from Stewartstown Rd. to Pt. Marion Rd. (119) as we had thought.
Van Voorhis Rd. We drove up Van Voorhis from West Run to Windwood Village where I led us up through the development to show Bill and Brian how cyclists will wind our way up through there and across the grass to Wedgewood Dr. to avoid climbing the north side of Van Voorhis. We also discussed how it's practically the same coming up the south side. Brian said that he would look into widening the climbing side of each side of the hill when they do the drainage improvement on both sides of the hill and the sidewalk on the south side of the hill.
Wrap Up I exchanged many e-mails with Brian while we were working on the in-line grates and I was impressed with his open-mindedness, technical competence and dedication to safety and doing the job right. Meeting him, my opinion is doubly reinforced. We are indeed very fortunate to have him working for WVDOH in our district. I hope he stays for a while!
We also owe gratitude to Bill Austin for facilitating these discussions with Brian and in general showing WVDOH that bicyclists have a right to the roadways.
Frank