An elderly woman who was using a motorized wheelchair sustained serious injuries after she was struck by a driver late last week while crossing Washington Boulevard at Main Street in downtown Stamford.
Washington Boulevard is like many of Stamford’s downtown streets: a wide, multi-lane arterial that is out of place in a downtown area. There’s a well-marked crosswalk and a narrow landscaped median on this segment — a good start, but more should be done in a central business district such as this. Ideally that median would extend into the crosswalk and serve as a pedestrian safety island. Without one, you’ll need to get all the way across seven lanes in one phase of the pedestrian signal (which you might consider much of a challenge, but imagine doing it in a wheelchair).
We took some rough measurements of Washington Boulevard using Google Maps. It appears to be 80 feet wide curb-to-curb, with lane widths of about 11 feet. We uploaded these characteristics into Streetmix and came up with an alternative design that considers more than simply level of service for cars and trucks.
Here’s what Washington Boulevard looks like today:
And here’s what it could look like:
One lane has been removed, and the remaining lanes have been adjusted to 10 feet. With that reclaimed space, we carved out just enough room for buffered bike lanes and a seven-foot pedestrian safety island — just a bit wider than the minimum width recommended by the NACTO Urban Street Design Guide.
With a bit more panache, one could envision removing another travel lane or two and installing a parking-protected cycle track — or perhaps even exclusive bus lanes. Submit your Washington Boulevard redesigns in the comments section.
SWRPA prepared a plan for bicycle and pedestrian safety improvements to Route 137 / Washington Boulevard in 2012: http://www.swrpa.org/default.aspx?Transport=125 (pages 36-41).
Washington Blvd is a major north/south artery, used by heavy trucks / tractor trailers, and both by commuters into Stamford and residents commuting out or heading to 95 and the Merit Parkway. It terminates on the southern end at the junction of I95, the Metro North and amtrak train station and UBS RBS head quarters with thousands of employees. On the northern end it terminates at Bulls Head, where four other major streets converge – Long Ride, High Ridge, Summer Street and Bedford street. It is already full of heavily traffic – removing lanes from motor vehicle use or significantly reducing their width (given the use by large trucks) would result in significant (and well justified) push back by residents.
We need to find a way to share the road and extend it to add bicycles – not take portions of it away from people ho need it to support their livelihood.
The issue of pedestrian safety is a real one. Recent enforcement of “no turn on red” rules at larger intersections and speed limits will go far. The dedicated turning lanes are also very helpful as traffic backs up waiting for pedestrians to cross before they turn – though the new design in this article removes those dedicated turning lanes that calm traffic. Changing behaviour of pedestrians so they don’t jaywalk would help as well.