Janelle Irwin Taylor
Tampa Mayor Jane Castor is beginning a series of bike lane improvements to make cyclists safer when sharing the road with drivers.
Under Castor’s instruction, the city is installing flexible delineators on Azeele Street near the SoHo Publix. Flexible delineators are white polls that can easily be installed along roads to create a physical barrier between cyclists and cars.
The city has already installed them on portions of Bayshore Blvd.
The delineators also discourage drivers from parking in bike lanes.
“As a police officer, I saw firsthand a family’s devastation when I had to tell them their loved one passed away due to a distracted driver and that’s why, as part of our Transforming Tampa’s Tomorrow initiative, we made a commitment to Vision Zero,” Castor said. “Tampa’s residents and our visitors demand and deserve safe pedestrian, bike, multimodal lanes and sidewalks and our team is hard at work delivering just that.”
The project is part of Castor’s Transforming Tampa’s Tomorrow initiative.
Riding a bike is technically safer in bike lanes, but many cyclists are afraid to use them because there is no buffer between them and passing cars.
The city plans to add buffers to bike lanes over the next several years including raised curbs. The delineators can provide a temporary fix until raised curbs can be installed.
The city is testing other locations for protected bike lanes.
Locations currently being studied include Cass Street and Green Spine in North Hyde Park, Floribraska Avenue in Tampa Heights and V.M. Ybor, Florida Avenue, Tampa Street and Brorein Street in downtown and the Beneficial Drive Bridge in Harbor Island.
The city is currently working within its existing budget, but might soon have access to additional revenue for transportation improvements under the All For Transportation tax residents and visitors are currently paying in sales tax. That revenue is on hold pending an appeal with the Florida Supreme Court seeking to overturn it.
6 comments
gary
December 16, 2019 at 6:17 pm
stupid! This is what stupid Democrat leadership looks like! Promoting bikes, or pedestrians to be within inches of 5000 lb vehicles is simply STUPID! Just like LA, sit back and watch the death rate go through the damn roof!
My God people are losing their minds!
Questions
December 17, 2019 at 12:35 pm
The whole point of this is to add a 3D barrier between the cars and the bikes so that cars will be required to respect the bike lane. What future would you support instead? Everyone just drives everywhere all the time, be damned the consequences?
Daniel
December 17, 2019 at 9:50 pm
You seem great, Gary.
I guess all of Europe is stupid and Democratic. 🤦🏽♀️
Tammy
December 17, 2019 at 7:23 am
As a cyclist .. I thank you.. we should be safe to ride a bike around our beautiful city without fear
Uber Eats Driver
December 17, 2019 at 9:24 am
OMG downtown is bad enough! NOOOOOOOOO!
Smart Cities Supporter
December 17, 2019 at 12:33 pm
This is a massive improvement. Encouraging people to bike is difficult when cars regularly swerve into the bike lane or ignore them completely; I see it regularly on my way to work, with other cars driving entirely over the line in the bike lane for really no reason at all. Barriers like this would emphasize that the street is meant to be shared, it is not for cars alone, and car drivers MUST be more careful about the way they drive. Traffic will improve when more people choose not to drive; people will choose not to drive when there are safe and effective alternatives, like protected bike lanes.
Comments are closed.