Bike advocates have been asking the city for infrastructure, asking engineers to add more bike lanes and freshen up old paint jobs. They want safe streets - not bumpy bike lanes and impossible intersections.
If you're like me and many folks in town, you see Missoula's roads mostly from a bucket seat. I wanted to see the pavement from over the top of the handlebars, so I asked Bob Giordano and Jim Sayer for a tour.
Two weeks ago, on a warm and breezy Missoula morning, we pedaled off for an adventure. We navigated a path that looked like Missoula's skinniest bike lane - merely inches wide - and a treacherous intersection. We saw a place where bike lanes might disappear - and also a place they might turn up. We cruised two-by-two down a wide and easy lane on Spruce Street, and we stopped by a sad site, too. On Higgins Avenue, a white ghost bike stands in memory of a young man who died in a bike accident last fall.
The day was full. For an amateur cyclist afraid of Reserve Street, it was also illuminating.
We meet downtown in front of Adventure Cycling, and before we even hop on our bikes, Sayer is talking about a painted road sign he'd like to see Missoula start to use. It's called a “sharrow.” The large stencil of a bike and arrows tells drivers and bikers to “share” that part of the road.
“So far, they've been effective where they've been used,” Sayer says.
One place is San Francisco. We don't know this then, but Sayer's wish will be granted. Last week, Public Works Department director Steve King said at least one sharrow is due to arrive on a street in Missoula shortly, maybe on Third Street between Myrtle and Orange.
“We're implementing those immediately,” King said.
When we climb on our bikes and pedal off, Giordano leads the way. Soon, we're heading east on Spruce, and the lane is so spacious we ride side-by-side and talk. The regular cyclists say that's one of the benefits of a generously portioned bike lane.
“You can ride socially,” Giordano says.
The easy stretch, freshly painted and bright, helps break in the fair-weather rider of the group for the scary intersections and disappearing bike lanes ahead. The novice is me, an occasional biker easily dissuaded by cold weather, hot weather, carrying groceries, tall hills - and of course the list goes on. And it includes busy Reserve Street.
We tackle the monster street later, and it won't be the only hazardous part of the journey. In the lower Rattlesnake, there's another problem. If you're a cyclist heading into town on Van Buren, the bike lane shrinks and disappears. Sayer says if you're a logical person, you're staying on the right side of the white line - but soon enough, the white line is practically next to the curb. At one point, it's just plumb gone.
“What car driver would tolerate going from a 10-foot lane to nothing?” Sayer says.
Giordano says there's plenty of room under the freeway for bike lanes. The Montana Department of Transportation's Dwane Kailey said he first has to make sure cars have enough room to maneuver. But he tries to balance safety for both cars and bikes, and a bike lane or sharrow could work under the overpass and be in place fairly quickly.
“I'm hoping we'll have a solution by the fall,” said Kailey, Missoula district administrator for the DOT.
The DOT has a say in the next big intersection we cross, too. That's the path across Fifth Street where Madison turns into Arthur Avenue. It's a place where cars and trucks travel quickly and also wreck a lot around the Fifth Street corner.
“This is probably one of the worst spots in Missoula,” Giordano says.
We trundle over the bridge anyway, and sure enough, we run into trouble - or more precisely, trouble in the form of a large truck that nearly runs into us. It's not really the truck's fault, though, and it's not our fault either. We're heading straight for Arthur, and our job is to get out of the shoulder area and left across traffic before the turn. That's so cars don't smash us as they turn onto Fifth Street.
Once we're safely across Fifth, we cross back the other way. I don't like weaving back and forth like that in front of heavy trucks, but the bike experts insist it's the proper way to navigate.
“That's what you're supposed to do,” Giordano says.
“I'm not sure it's even logical,” Sayer says.
The DOT's Kailey points out a relatively new and alternative route - one that's a far sight less perilous than its sister above.
“The one nice thing with that area is they have the bridge underneath,” Kailey said.
It's a bicycle and pedestrian bridge, and it might be the best thing for cyclists in that area for years to come. The DOT, city of Missoula and University of Montana are planning changes to the road, but they're a ways out.
Today, it's nearly impossible for an amateur to cross. If I had been alone, I'd have gotten off my bike and walked. At another trouble-spot later on, we see someone doing just that for at least three blocks. It's evidence of the broken system the bike people talk about.
There's evidence city and state officials sometimes respond to the public, too. We hit Arthur Avenue next, and a couple years ago when it was redone, Giordano asked the city to widen the bike lane. Public Works director King passed along the request to the DOT, and the department agreed.
“This is a cool spot,” Giordano says.
Some roads are easier to change than others, though. The cyclists also want bike lanes on South Higgins near the Hip Strip. While King isn't against the idea, he said he can't unilaterally decide to paint them there either. Putting in bike lanes would change the road design, and larger changes need to happen in the context of the city's transportation plan. The city did paint a broken white line on the west side of Higgins, though. It buffers Third Street, and it's a visual cue and reminder that bikes travel there.
In that same area, we see a woman dismount her bike. The bike lane ends farther south on Higgins, and cycling on can mean getting caught between a fast vehicle and an opening car door. The woman chose the sidewalk instead, and she walked.
One of the reasons traffic engineers balk at the idea of adding bike lanes is they take away room for car lanes. Geraldine Carter, a board member of the Bike/Walk Alliance for Missoula, said that focus is too narrow. She said authorities need to think about traffic a different way.
“It's about the number of people you can move - not just the number of cars you can count,” says Carter, who rode along.
From here on out, we're heading for uncharted territory, at least from my perspective. We bounce on Higgins over bumps at the corner of Front Street and then cut toward West Broadway. We're heading to Mullan and Reserve Streets. They're busy roads, and cars go fast. They don't really seem fit for bikes, or at least for new bikers. Still, plenty of bicycle commuters use the lanes - and a bike lane on Mullan west of Reserve is in a predicament.
The DOT is trying to cut down on the congestion there. Kailey said a left turning lane from Reserve onto Mullan is maybe one of the busiest intersections in the state. At one point it, it seemed the bike lane would get whacked to make room for cars, but Kailey said he's seen an option that might work to move along more cars and keep bike lanes intact, too.
“With a little bit of work, I believe we'll be able to accomplish both,” he said.
At the intersection of Mullan and Reserve, Giordano and Sayer praise a special narrow lane called a slip lane. Carter says that little lane - it's just a few feet of paint - is important. It offers all people on the road a message about how traffic moves there. It offers predictability, she said, and that's the key to making roads safe. Good signs on the pavement go a ways, and they don't cost a lot of money.
“So much of this is just about paint,” Sayer says. “If you compare the cost of paint to a lane mile of asphalt - no contest. Paint is cheap.”
For me and Giordano, the trip ends near a memorial erected for a cyclist who died when a drunken driver hit her. Since last fall, two other people have died in bike accidents in Missoula. The first crash, near Higgins Avenue and Beckwith, fueled the conversation about bike infrastructure in the Garden City.
Cyclists insist that bettering the bike system is a moral imperative. Good roads allow choice. They put more riders on the road, and experts say once there's more riders on the road, there are fewer injuries.
“I think the city has a duty to do just that - to make it safer and accommodating,” Giordano says.
Changes don't always need to be grandiose, though. Along the trip, we see metal scraps strewn in the lane. We see cracks and potholes and faded stripes and those bumps on Higgins.
Those are the kinds of things Public Works director King said he wants to hear about because sometimes, he can help. But he can't if he doesn't know.
“The eyes of the public are very helpful to us,” King said.
The entire system won't change overnight, but a recent recalculation of the city's bike lanes and routes shows some 33 miles altogether. King said that isn't bad, and Giordano said he's counting on more small steps in the right direction.
“Little improvements over time can make a big difference,” Giordano said.
Reporter Keila Szpaller can be reached at 523-5262 or at Keila.Szpaller@missoulian.com
See video on Missoula's bike lanes here herehttp://www.missoulian.com//tad/1/biketour.php
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