By Marcos Boyington
I bike to work on the south side of Iris Avenue every day — even when it’s snowing (I technically trike to work on those days). I also drive down Iris every day, while taking my kids to school in the morning. And my home is on Iris Avenue.
Unlike some cyclists who are bothered by the car traffic on Iris (drivers are definitely going above 35 mph consistently), it doesn’t bother me much — I understand I take on some risk biking. If Iris were to remain unchanged, I’d make do, as I have for the past 11 years, but there is certainly room for improvement.
Speaking as a driver, when I see slow-downs on Iris, four lanes is the cause, not the solution. There are a lot of neighborhood outlets and driveways off of Iris; drivers block the left lane to turn across traffic, and traffic backs up behind them. The backed-up cars then swerve out from behind the turning car, slowing the adjacent lane.
This is all very easily solved with a center turning lane: one lane moves fluidly for cars passing through the neighborhood, while residents turning across traffic don’t unexpectedly block the cars behind them causing a slow-down. As such, I’m confident two lanes plus a center turning lane will improve the flow of traffic, contrary to what some drivers believe.
My hope is that the proposed Alternative A (with three lanes) will organically cause drivers to go at the posted 35 mph speed. With a four-lane road, it’s easy to go 45 mph: it feels natural with a street that wide.
Speaking as someone who bikes to work every day, protected bike lanes would be nice, but it’s not something I would passionately fight for. What I would passionately fight against, however, is a plan to put a two-way bike lane on only one side of the street (Alternative B and Alternative D, as they’re called).
I’m concerned with the danger of a two-way bike lane on a street with so many cross streets and driveways. Drivers turning across traffic or onto Iris are not only going to have to look at oncoming traffic, but they’ll also need to be looking at bikes going in two different directions and pedestrians on the sidewalk. It’s almost certain that cyclists going 15 mph in the opposite direction of car traffic are not going to be seen and are going to get hit.
The two-way bike lane seems to be proposed as an idyllic option for emergency response, but a center lane that will be mostly clear would meet that need. It doesn’t seem worthwhile to make things objectively worse and more dangerous on the off-chance emergency response might use the bike lane.
If the two-way bike lane were put on the south side of Iris, it’d be more convenient for me. But at what cost? There’s a clear loss for residents on the side without bike lanes: How do they get to the bike lanes on the opposing side? They would be forced to walk their bike on the sidewalk to an intersection or ride their bike on the sidewalk.
I hope that both drivers and cyclists take these points into consideration when choosing their preference on how to move forward with the improvements to Iris Avenue.
Marcos Boyington lives in Boulder.
