This is Central City Mobility Project update #17.

I regularly ride the newly repaved streets with separated and/or parking protected bikeways, because I want to see how bicyclists and drivers are dealing with the new design. Well, the turn wedges are a complete failure. At every intersection where there is a turn wedge for left turns, drivers are cutting the corner and turning at higher speeds than they did before. The city has created a danger that was not present before, when there were regular bike lanes. The city has not completed work on the turn wedges, and for now, they are an incredible danger to bicyclists. The city has not placed construction signs at these locations, though at least according to the rough designs the city has shared with the public, construction is not complete. Nothing has been installed in the turn wedges. That means that the city has left the project in an incomplete state, but is communicating to the public that the project is complete.

The number of close calls that I have personally experienced at these turn wedges now numbers over 40. As an experienced bicyclist, I know what to watch out for and respond, but having to slam on my brakes to keep from getting run over is not something I or any other bicyclist should have to do.

The city must stop this madness before people die. The city knowingly has installed unsafe roadways, and has not fixed them despite knowing that they are hazardous. This means that the city is legally responsible for any bicyclist-driver crashes that happen at those corners. I will happily testify against the city, and hope that they have to pay our millions for their incompetence. But of course someone will be dead or severely injured, and the city won’t have to be liable for that. Traffic engineers depend on ‘approved’ designs to isolate themselves from direct legal responsibility, but these are not approved designs, they are ones that the city invented using pieces and parts of internationally recognized designs.

City, fix this now, or suffer the consequences!