11th Street redo for cyclists heats up
Nearby residents fear long traffic waits and awkward deliveries; bike fans eyeing safety
A discussion planned to laud Houston’s efforts to expand bicycling access Thursday turned into a debate on the merits of a two-mile stretch of 11th Street.
The city’s plan to reduce 11th to one lane in each direction from Shepherd to Studewood — cheered by cyclists — has faced late opposition as construction nears. Residents concerned over the traffic impacts of taking away an automobile lane and the benefits of adding protected bicycle lanes used a scheduled discussion about the city’s bike lane progress to reiterate their concerns to City Council’s transportation, technology and infrastructure committee.
Critic Ann Derryberry, who lives near 11th, said numerous residents have raised alarms, concerned that adding bike lanes will force residents to sit in heavy traffic longer, reroute cars onto nearby residential streets, complicate deliveries for area businesses and lead to little safety benefit for cyclists.
“You say it is a protected lane, but it will be mostly painted because of all the driveways and alleys,” Derryberry told council members and their staff, noting the need to paint green warnings where cars and turns will turn across the lane.
Rather than reduce and slow traffic, critics of the plan said the city should commit to cycling and safety improvements elsewhere, and perhaps add a signal at 11th and Nicholson where the Heights Hike and Bike Trail crosses.
Cyclists and safety advocates argue that diverting attention from 11th would be ignoring that the street is the problem and speeds along it are what make traveling by car, bike or foot unsafe.
“Houston has prioritized cars for decades,” said Kevin Strickland, a Heights resident active with various cycling and neighborhood groups. “We have a right to safe streets we are not getting.”
City planners, citing an average speed well above 40 mph — 10 mph over the limit — opted to narrow the street to one lane after three years of discussion with community groups and study.
The single lane and a center median with dedicated turn lanes at some locations, planners say, will keep traffic speeds lower and provide room for adding protected bike lanes along 11th.
Unlike the four-lane thoroughfare runners and cyclists dart across now, supporters said, narrowing the road also will allows safer crossings, and space at Nicholson to safely wait for oncoming traffic to pass.
To sort out some of the concerns, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said Wednesday he wanted to take “a closer look” at the project, convening stakeholders and city staff for a review. Turner did not indicate any change to the project is forthcoming, or that the delay would offset plans for construction to begin later this year.
Other city officials, however, said numerous concerns should lead to changes in the project. AtLarge Councilman Mike Knox pressed some supporters on the concept of forcing drivers to slow down by putting cyclists on the street.
“It looks to me we are using live bodies as a traffic control device to slow down drivers,” Knox said.
The street will have concrete curbs separating automobiles and bicyclists, with the curbs acting as a calming effect and giving riders room. David Fields, Houston’s chief transportation planner, said that makes the project less about using bicyclists as shields and more about shielding them.
“Bicycle infrastructure is what makes it safer so that people can use it,” Fields said.
Though just a small stretch compared to the city’s plans for more than 1,400 miles of safe bike lanes as part of the Houston Bike Plan approved in 2017, the 11th Street project is indicative of the challenge of adding safer routes for riders, said Joe Cutrufo, executive director of the advocacy group BikeHouston.
Sweeping plans often receive praise and support but when it comes to specific projects, people balk at the changes, he said. If the city gives in, that “emboldens people in other neighborhoods” and fewer and fewer projects are completed.
The plan for 11th, supporters say, addresses Turner’s preference for a “paradigm shift” in area transportation while following the preferred route laid out in the Houston Bike Plan, slow a dangerous street as part of the city’s Vision Zero plan to reduce roadway fatalities and meet the goals of less car use as part of Houston’s Climate Action Plan.
For Turner to listen to the critics, and cancel or radically redesign the project on 11th, “he would be turning his back on so many of his stated priorities,” Cutrufo said.