South Portland eyes Broadway bike lane

SOUTH PORTLAND — Thanks to its two-year-old bicycle-pedestrian committee, changes are afoot in South Portland.

On Monday, Dec. 17, the group will meet with consultant Phil Goff, of Boston-based Alta Planning and Design, to review plans to improve crossings for bicycles and pedestrians in Cash Corner. The group also is slated to decide on whether to pursue creation of a third lane for bicycles on Broadway, from Cottage Road to Stanford Street.

That concept is among several the committee hopes will lead to making South Portland a city were bicyclists freely share the main travel ways with motorists as actual commuters, rather than be relegated to separate-but-equal status on the Greenbelt Trail as a form of recreation.

“Whether this is a pipe dream or not, what we are saying is we want the future to be about changing the mode of travel, rather than creating more capacity,” said City Planner Tex Haeuser, at the committee’s most recent meeting, on Monday.

However, the problem with making space for bikes, said Haeuser, is that the city’s main arterial, “was only ever optimized for vehicular traffic.”

In addition to a possible bike lane on east Broadway, the planning department is prepping a $400,000 capital improvement project to help out walkers and riders on the Mill Creek section of Broadway between Cottage Road and the Casco Bay Bridge.

Meanwhile, in addition to a myriad of minor improvements made in light of recent neighborhood complaints about traffic congestion in the Willard and Ferry Village neighborhoods, help is on the way from the state.

According to Haeuser, state Rep. Terry Morrison is slated to introduce a bill that would force motorists to stop for people in crosswalks. Under Maine law, cars only have to yield the right of way. If that bill passes, said Carl Eppich, a planner with the Portland Area Comprehensive Transportation System, it would clear the way for the city to install so-called hybrid lights at intersections, from which pedestrians could use a signal to compel cars to stop.

On the other hand a movement to install those lights, deemed “not cheap” by Haeuser, could impede on the bike lane idea. Also mutually exclusive is another concept on the table, to create sidewalk “bump-outs” to narrow the intersections.

If created, the dedicated bike lane would only run as far east as Stamford Street. Between that intersection and the end of Broadway at Southern Maine Community College, the road narrows to 31 feet wide, curb-to-curb. The wider section, however, is mostly 40 feet wide and could accommodate a 5-foot-wide dedicated bike lane on either side of the road, in addition to travel lanes and a 4-foot-wide painted “island” to separate bikes from cars.

“The key is to get people not comfortable going on Broadway to go,” said Haeuser. “If you are not going to have an raised island, or posts, you need to make the divider as wide as possible.”

However, even among bicycling enthusiasts, there are several obstacles on the way to what Dr. James Tasse, education director of the Bicycle Coalition of Maine called, “the new normal” with which motorists may soon have to contend.

It was widely presumed city plow drivers would take a dim view to raised islands separating bike lanes from travel lanes. Haeuser at first suggested the use of fiberglass posts as a “vertical buffer,” but Parks Director Rick Towle said such posts are more trouble than they’re worth.

“The get hit a lot and they shatter,” he said. “I don’t care what they tell you, they splinter everywhere into fiberglass shards.”

Although some committee members felt a four-foot painted stripe “creates a wide buffer,” chairwoman Rosemarie De Angelis said a physical barrier of some kind is necessary.

“Without the posts, cars are just going to travel on that, to turn or whatever,” she said.

Meanwhile, Brad Lyon, from the city’s contracted engineering firm, Sebago Technics, pointed out that creating a dedicated bike lane, depending on how its configured, may mean no shoulder, especially if posts or raised islands are used to delineate the bike way

“That means, if you do get a car that does break down, it can’t pull off,” he said. “You like to provide some means of bypass no matter where your road is.”

Monday’s committee meeting with Goff, whose work is being paid for by the regional Portland Area Comprehensive Transportation System, should set the stage for both the near-term look of Broadway, as well as the group’s next pubic forum, to be held Jan. 24 at the Opportunity Alliance Family Center on Lydia Lane.