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To the Editor,

I read in the WDN the city council wants to improve bike and pedestrian connectivity via adding bike lanes and pedestrian traffic measures. This is needed most desperately on the 15th Street corridor.

It’s distressing to see a wheelchair-bound pedestrian who often has a couple of children riding on her motorized wheelchair with her on 15th Street as she tries to negotiate traffic while going to the Food Lion shopping center from the apartment complex in which she may live nearby. It’s distressing when two cars going in opposite directions are trying to make a left turn at the same intersection and neither can safely see the vehicles approaching in the outside lane. It’s distressing when you’re traveling the outside lane, and the vehicle in front of you in the inside lane changes lanes suddenly to avoid having to wait for a vehicle trying to make a left turn ahead.

This can all be avoided without unnecessary delay and expense of construction to widen an already horrific street and the tree removal that will surely come with it. The solution is: paint!

Simply take the same street width and repaint the traffic lanes to include one (1) center turning lane and two (2) lanes for thru traffic with a designated bike/pedestrian lane on either side. Problem solved. Thru traffic will only need to be aware of vehicles turning right, and vehicles turning right will only need to watch for pedestrians and cyclists. Vehicles turning left will be able to see approaching vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists much more clearly. Thru-traffic vehicles will no longer be delayed by vehicles turning left.

And paint is much, much cheaper and less disruptive than construction.

Just my thoughts.

 

Tracy Warren

Washington