On June 24th, Bike Durham joined with staff from Durham’s Department of Transportation to talk with neighbors of North Miami Boulevard about a proposal to add protective posts to the bike/walk lanes planned for this stretch of street between Raynor Street and East Geer Street. This is a stretch of street where three people have been hit by drivers while walking in the past two years.

The first woman who stopped to speak with us was Ms. Brown. She was using her powered wheelchair in the curb-side travel lane because there is no sidewalk on stretches of the street. She liked the idea of adding the bike lanes with protective posts so that she has a designated space to operate her wheelchair. Next we spoke with Mr. Davis who lived around the corner. He told us that he had purchased a bicycle two years ago, but doesn’t ride it because the streets are too dangerous. He also supported adding bike/walk lanes with protective posts so that he could bike or walk his dogs in them.

In all, we heard from twenty-one residents who were all concerned that too many drivers go too fast up and down North Miami Boulevard, and reported hearing or seeing crashes on a regular basis. In addition to speeding concerns, we heard concerns about gun violence in the area. This is an important reminder that we need to think beyond street design in our advocacy for safe and healthy streets for everyone.

The City had already planned to restripe this street to reduce the driving lanes to one in each direction, adding buffered bike/walk lanes to each side. In 2019, the City held their own public input process for re-striping this street and eight other streets totaling just over eight miles of new buffered bike lanes. These projects, all funded with federal grant funds, were all delayed last year by NCDOT when they decided to slow down spending due to their financial problems. We received grant funds from the American Heart Association to work with the City to install protective posts on buffered bike lanes. This project should be completed this Fall.

We are hoping to secure additional funding to continue this work with residents in the neighborhoods where all eight miles of planned buffered bike/walk lanes that the City will stripe this Fall. If they are supportive, we’d like to see all of these bike/walk lanes protected with posts.