![]() According to David Fields, the city’s chief transportation planner, “efforts not identified in the VZAP, such as the suggested change to signage implementation, are not currently being pursued.” I asked the folks at Vision Zero whether such efforts have been included in its action plan, which identifies 50 actions the city can pursue to eliminate deaths and serious injuries on Houston roads. Step one: update the Vision Zero Action Plan (VZAP) to include a mandate that bike lanes that abut curbs be accompanied by “No Parking” signs. Here’s a two-step process that could pay huge dividends. So how can the city fix this issue? Easily. That means the only legal place for cyclists to go is back out onto the main portion of the street. Because, as BikeHouston noted the other day, when the bike lane in front of the Houston Public Library’s downtown location was blocked by city barricades, it’s illegal for cyclists to take their wheels to the sidewalk when their bike lanes are blocked, according to City Ordinance 45. But Houston must work a bit harder, and certainly smarter, to be able to reach Vision Zero’s actual goal of reducing deaths by 100 percent.Īnd employing systems that ensure these bike lanes are not obstructed by parked vehicles can go a long way to get there. ![]() And I’d love to write a column crammed full of positive statistics like that. And those investments appear to be paying dividends: According to Vision Zero’s 2022 Annual Report, spans of roads that have had safety improvements have seen significant dips in deaths and serious injuries.įor example, on Austin Street, between Holman and Commerce, the number of crashes resulting in injuries dropped by 17 percent after the addition of a bike lane. While Vision Zero doesn’t have its own funding stream, Houston has directed more than $5 million to improving cyclist safety in recent years. In 2019, Mayor Sylvester Turner signed the Vision Zero Executive Order, committing the city to completely eliminating traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030. That’s … not a lot - especially when you consider there have been at least 14 cyclist deaths so far this year, according to the organization BikeHouston, already eclipsing the number recorded in all of 2022.Īnd bike lanes, by definition, are designed to reduce harm to bicyclists. The following year, Houston logged 95 citations in 2022, 105 citations were issued.Īnd so far this year, only 33 citations have been doled out. In 2020, the city recorded 17 parking citations in bike lanes between the October passage of the No Parking in Dedicated Bicycle Lane Ordinance and the end of the year. But just how often is that ordinance being enforced? It is actually illegal to park in a city bike lane, thanks to an ordinance passed in 2020, which set fines at $100 per violation. You’ve probably wondered about this at some point, while navigating around this city, where it’s not at all uncommon to see bike lanes obstructed by cars and trucks – including vehicles performing official city duties. “It is not common practice to erect no parking signage in lanes that are utilized by bicyclists,” Billy Rudolph, chief of staff for the city’s administration and regulatory affairs, informed me earlier this week.
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