What are your ideas and suggestions for improving traffic and pedestrian safety here at Berkeley Lab?

I wish the Lab could do more to mark pedestrian walkways around the lab.  There are several heavily-used pedestrian routes that don't have adequate protection for pedestrians, for example Lawrence road between around Bldg 34 and the Firehouse.  I do appreciate the efforts that have been made to address pedestrian safety in the last year; the new sidewalk along Glaser is great!

Steven, I agree. The fact that you provide examples allows the Traffic & Pedestrian Safety folks to assess specific areas.

get rid of all the stop signs and put yield signs instead

I also agree, traffic safety is important, especially now that so many buildings are being built on the main campus.  I have often found that walking down from B75B to B26, there is no walkway and a few times, if I don't walk right along the curb, a car or truck has swerved to avoid hitting me.

We are doing better than when I joined the Lab in 2000, but a lot more can be done with safer and clearly marked pedestrian walkways!

This only affects the few people who bike up the hill to work, but I think it would be helpful for those few of us.

On the right side of the road in uphill directions, it would be nice if the division between road and raised walkways was smooth instead of a squared-off curb. When biking up hill, I get passed by a lot of vehicles. Some of them (especially trucks and buses) get too close for comfort (especially when another vehicle is approaching in the opposite direction–the roads aren't wide enough for two cars plus a biker). In areas where the street-to-sidewalk transition is smooth (for example, just north of building 50), if there are no pedestrians I can just temporarily slide over to the sidewalk when I hear a truck rumbling up behind me. In places with a squared off curb, I have actually crashed my bike by running into the curb on two different occasions when I felt forced off the road by a big vehicle passing too close.

The walkway up Lee Road from Bldgs 62 and 66 is so uneven I generally walk in the street.  It would be great to have a sidewalk along the bus turn-around as well...it's challenging for both bus drivers and pedestrians to share that space, and lots of us use it to walk from the parking lot to Bldg. 66.

The New Grizzly Gate is hard to see at night.  Reflecting tape could be easily applied.

I second the idea of better marking for pedestrian walkways and crosswalks. LBNL property is confusing enough to navigate by car, especially for contractors, visitors, and others who are new to it. Some additional signs by or before some of the more risky crosswalks might help alert drivers to approach with caution. One place that could use this is the crosswalk on Smoot Rd where drivers from either direction are coming from around a corner, and often at speed.  Better marking of the walkways in general would also help guide pedestrians to stay on them.

As someone who bikes up the hill, I fully agree with Dilworth's comment above.

In my experience, the most accident prone area for a bicyclist biking up the hill is between the road that goes to Cal's Foothil Parking lot (south east off Cyclotron) and Building 65. The hairpin bend is especially nerve racking for a bicyclist if a long truck happens to be coming downhill and there are vehicles going uphill. There is nothing in terms of a shoulder at the bend for a bicyclist to take refuge. Extending the outer shoulder by a few feet at the bend there will definitely be a major safety improvement for those biking up the hill.

Steven, Luca, Teresa, Dula, Sally, William, Karen, and Biju:  Thanks so much for your prompt replies and great ideas!  I'll be visiting some of the specific sites you mention - along with those identified by future posters - over the next few days with our traffic and pedestrian safety team to prioritize and begin to address as many of these as we can.  

Please keep the great ideas coming!  And whether you choose to offer an idea at this time or not, please exercise care as you walk and drive about our busy campus!  -  Glenn

Thank you to whoever started this thread.

I just came from Medical Services after laying down my bike going around the Bevatron Circle traveling from Building 90 uphill toward 50.  As I came around the circle I saw the ground was wet from the street sweeper that is cycling around to control dust from the various construction activities.  From experience I recognized the situation was higher risk (risky to brake, risky to turn). I tried to finesse it as best I could and was doing okay until my front wheel hit the crosswalk paint.  It lost traction; my bike and I went down and slid until the front wheel slammed into the post holding up the end of the guard rail.  Fortunately just some bruises and scrapes (and less fortunately a bent front wheel).

What really concerns me is I know another experienced cyclist at the lab that went down in this circle six months or more ago due to losing traction on water on paint.  Unfortunately she received a concussion (right through her helmet).  The concussion effected her for quite awhile (and I don't actually have confirmation it is not still effecting her).

It is standard in cities now to use paint, or better yet thermoplastic, with grit or grip to remove this accident cause.  Given the prior accident and then today's accident, when is the lab going to implement standard practice with regard to materials used for road marking?

Regarding riding uphill on Cyclotron Road, it would be great if the lab provided another facility for people to bike in from Berkeley.  Besides the physical hazard of this climb, there is the chronic environmental hazard from breathing the more concentrated exhaust from trucks and cars laboring up the hill.  Having grown up in LA, I was culturally trained to discount this hazard when I first started working at the lab. After years of riding up that hill, some friends sent me peer-reviewed studies regarding the health impacts of exhaust hot spots created by roads with higher motorized traffic volumes.  After that I stopped riding that road.  Instead I ride to the end of La Vereda Road and carry my bike along the trail in through the pedestrian gate or ride to the end of Campus Drive and come down the trail in through the pedestrian gate behind Building 71, both of which I am very grateful for.

Still, it would be better if there was a more direct, fully rideable, separated route to come up to the lab.  Facilities planning had something like this in the works years and years ago that involved a path coming up the slope below 88, but the effort fell through for some reason.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for reading, considering, and contributing.

Preston

For the future:  why notgive some attention to mapping out the ideal walkway locations. With efficiency, safety and enjoyment in mind the LBNL would become known for the best walking experience if we found the shortest routes to the best science, with the best views.

Poor lighting along walking paths is an ongoing safety issue.  Lighting is inadequate at various locations, can be obstructed by overgrown landscaping, and is sometimes removed or relocated due to construction activities causing coverage gaps.  I currently park East of Bldg. 77 and walk down from Bldg. 76 at night.  There are dark areas along 'S' Road and Glaser where I can't see the transition from road to curb or the character of the road/path surface upon which I'm walking.  Fog and rain conditions exacerbate the potential hazards.  For my part, I should do better to always have a flashlight with me.  I am hoping that a plan could be developed to analyze lighting conditions at pedestrian walkways and parking areas.

Others have given similar examples, but we lack well marked walkways in many areas frequented by pedestrians: the area near the firehouse, the part of Glaeser Road between 48A and the S Road intersection, the stretch of McMillan road alongside 76, Lawrence Road alongside 34/37/35, etc. Improved markings, or better yet, actual sidewalks, would help tremendously.

While truck drivers may have strict instructions regarding texting and cell phone use, they are not always followed. The other day I observed a "pilot" truck, hazard lights on, driving down toward the Bevatron circle, with the driver leaning out the window talking on a cell phone.

I don't bicycle up the hill, but for the hardy souls that do bike up the main (Blackberry) entrance, I would support an alternative path for them, as I often find myself trying to accurately judge maneuvering around a bicyclist while remaining enough in my lane to avoid a large truck heading downhill.

I would like for the traffic and pedestrian overseers to identify major pedestrian routes and destinations, and then provide signage, maps and other improvements which encourage pedestrians to use the pedestrian routes. This would improve safety by encouraging pedestrians to stay on the pedestrian thoroughfares instead, and help to keep automobile & pedestrian traffic separate.

UC Berkeley provides large maps of the campus which are very handy for visitors. These maps are located along major pedestrian thoroughfares. I have not seen a single map on the LBNL campus.

I do not work on the main Lab campus very often but I find that it is very easy to get lost. Sometimes I end up on a road with no sidewalks, or one one of the many second-class sidewalks which is crammed right ontp to roads used by large delivery trucks. It doesn't feel safe.

I sometimes walk from the Cafeteria to EHSS or the Health Services building (Building 26). The route is very circuitous and requires that I walk up and down mysterious staircases bolted onto the back of a building, through parking-lots, around the backside of the ALS, etc. There are few signs which direct me to a safer route.

Every morning (in the pre-dawn darkness) when I cross between the Bldg 65 bus stop and Bldg 50, I hit the pedestrian caution button to turn on the flashing lights on 3 signs: the two at the crosswalk itself, AND the sign that is located well before the crosswalk and just around the bend to warn vehicles coming from Blackberry Gate.  The cars coming from Blackberry seem to have plenty of time to slow down and stop for me because I haven't experienced anything close to a near miss. 

I recommend installing such warning lights (pedestrian activated) at high-pedestrian-use crosswalks and in particular at cross-walks that are hidden by road curves.  Key is to place an extra warning sign well in advance of the crosswalk, if it is not visible due to a road curve.

Perhaps such warning lights could be placed at non-crosswalk areas as well. 

I noted that the ones near the Bldg 65 bus stop have solar cells....which should relieve the constraint of figuring out how to run power to such.....

I occasionally park in the Bevatron lot. Recently I was entering the crosswalk leading to Bldg. 50 and a woman accelerated up the hill toward me. On another day, a Facilities pickup sped right on through. And two weeks ago, a car coming down the hill was going much faster than I realized and the driver had to really hit the brakes (I'm pretty good at judging this and figured I had plenty of time). Drivers ignore the crosswalk roadway markings about half the time I use that lot.

I see other employees who park there walking out the middle of the entrance toward that island in the roundabout -- no sidewalk at all, no crosswalks and a spot without a lot of visibility for cars coming up the hill and heading either to the Bevatron lot or the Pit. Throw in the dump trucks, street sweeper and Lab buses going in and out of the lot with the cars and it can get pretty interesting.

I suggest that Pedestrian Crossing signs be installed above and below the crosswalks. Not sure what to do about people just ambling out of the lot into the roadway, but maybe the safety experts can go out between 8-9 a.m. and come up with some ideas.

While driving north on Lawrence Road near the Guest House, there are five (5!) pedestrian crossings within a short distance, and some are safer than others.

Frequently, when pedestrians cross the road on the crosswalks near the ALS, their visibility is obstructed by cars parked in front of the Guest House. Since the crosswalk starts at the bottom end of the staircase, they start walking into the crosswalk, past the parked cars and into oncoming traffic.

This has lead to near hit situations several times, especially when pedestrians are distracted by chatting with others or on a cell phone.

The problem seems to be that the crosswalk starts too far on the right before the road begins, and there is no distinction between the safe part of the crosswalk and the car lane. A limit line as a visual barrier (as shown below) could help mitigate the problem.

Installation of limit lines as visual barriers on pedestrian crosswalks (suggestion for pedestrian safety improvement).

It is cheap to install (just some white paint) and would provide pedestrians with a visual cue as to where the traffic lane begins. It could cause pedestrians to either pause or at least look to the left before they cross the road.

While visual barriers are often used to slow down vehicular traffic, they should also be effective in slowing down pedestrians.

This suggestion could help improve pedestrian safety at these particular crosswalks.

Regarding cycling up Cyclotron: As Dilworth and others pointed out, it's unsafe for cars to pass cyclists going uphill when the road is narrow and there's oncoming (downhill) traffic.  One solution for cyclists is to be more assertive and "take the lane" (ride in the center of the lane) when there's not enough room for a car to safely pass you.  This will prevent an overtaking car from attempting a pass in the first place.  Then when the road widens sufficiently, move back to the right to share the lane again.  Also, maybe install a sign that says "No passing if oncoming traffic" with a diagram of a car passing a cyclist with an X through it.

If this solution is unpalatable to drivers, then there really should be an alternate path for bikes separate from the cars.

Steven and Joerg,

Thanks so much for your great suggestions regarding the crosswalks between the Guest House and Cafeteria. This is a very busy area and anything to help pedestrians cross more safely is very much appreciated. Per your suggestions, lines to signal the beginning of the roadway have been painted. Great ideas!

Bill,

The reflective stickers you suggested for the new Grizzly Gate really stand out. Thanks for contributing the idea to this forum.

In the center of the aerial view image above, there is a pedestrian crossing from the cafeteria, which basically leads into a wall. This is a leftover from the previous passage to the ALS, before the guesthouse was built. It comes with a stop sign for the cars. I do not understand why this crossing is still there. I would not encourage anyone  to cross here just to get to the parked cars there, since this is where the parking lot narrows and I would strongly encourage to get to this parking lot using the crosswalk further down the road, where there is more space and one would be forced to face the upcoming traffic when approaching the only car, which is parked along the direction of the road.

Many colleagues have been expressing concerns over inadequate accommodations for pedestrians.

Are we getting better?

Consider this example: March 2013, a brand-new “walkway” was painted onto Chamberlain Rd. (near building 71). There is no buffer or curb between “walkway” and roadway. Width of the new “walkway” is 22 inches.

22 inches are not a “walkway” in any traffic engineering design guide (4 foot = 48 inches is standard minimum). 22 inches? I am an average size person, I tested whether I could possibly fit into this “walkway”. Lying down on it to outline the shape of my body with soccer-game chalk, it’s clear: when someone like me is the person trying to walk, then this “walkway” isn’t one.

Rather than solving anything, the new “walkway” designs popping up on our hill systematically marginalize our walking colleagues while prioritizing drivers. Pedestrians walk in the street here because, by engineering design, we are not giving them the option not to walk in the street.

We could do much better. Chamberlain is a tiny back-road with very little traffic – why don’t we just give to the pedestrians the space to do safely what they must do anyway?

Traffic engineering standards do not limit the maximum width of crosswalks. We are free to extend markings between separate crosswalks, forming extra-wide pedestrian-priority “crosswalks”.

In a place like the top of Chamberlain Rd., a design change of this nature would have practically no cost, zero effect on motor vehicle flow, and no loss of parking capacity.

The solution to improving traffic safety lies in helping the drivers realize that they share transportation corridors with other drivers as well as people on foot and on bike. Markings like the new sub-standard “walkways” may easily result in the opposite, encouraging an automobile-centered view that more likely strengthens the underlying cause of accidents.

LBNL aims to improve walkability, bikeability, and sustainability. We are looking for good places to create pedestrian-friendly areas, where drivers and more vulnerable traffic participants can safely and cordially navigate around each other. The top of Chamberlain Rd. is an excellent location to start.

Glenn,

The heightened attention you are bringing to traffic safety is very good, and we gratefully acknowledge some localized improvements. However, our traffic system is afflicted with fundamental problems to such extent that suggestions to “follow the rules” may have unintended consequences that increase our exposure to risks of serious crashes.

Looking at our traffic system, Ting Zhang and I observe design idiosyncrasies that place bicyclists and pedestrians systematically at risk. As a result we place people into situations where we routinely break laws precisely because following rules would raise risk.

What do we make of a population where rule-violating is the norm, does that signal a poor safety culture? Does ‘fixing the problem’ necessarily involve deterring violations through education or enhanced enforcement? Accountability for rules and rule-violations and how it plays out in managing risk is a crucial question. 

We find that instead of always improving safety, stepped-up focus on individual accountability may be combining with our systemic challenges to strengthen underlying causes of some of our most serious crash risks. We don’t imply that individual traffic participants have no responsibility; rather that the Organization shares in that responsibility - everyone has a part to play and everyone is accountable. Accountability for a traffic system that’s designed and managed with humans in mind is an organizational commitment, rather than a question of individual behavior. Individual accountability depends on the organization’s success in maintaining systems designed to give people the authority and the latitude to make decisions to be safe.

Let’s examine what we mean by accountability in this traffic system. We might start by observing that many bicyclists often treat “stop” signs as “yield”^[1]. Is rolling-stop by bicyclists reprehensible? Some states are embracing bicycle “stop-as-yield” behavior in their vehicle codes^[2], this signals that a judgment call may be at work. One quick answer might be to say that, for us, California laws apply^[3]. What’s curious is that this quick answer raises fascinating questions about our LBNL safety culture. Think of how drivers, bicyclist, and pedestrians interact on the LBNL campus more generally.

The interactions we see are cordial and safe for the most part, but let’s stay on the topic of rule-violations. In short, it turns out that breaking laws designed for safety is surprisingly normal for those of us who drive. While we - as an organization - tout application of California traffic law, we tacitly endorse routine and willful violating of no-pass rules; this is a peculiar attribute of our safety culture. In concluding this column we’ll look at possible solutions. But first, consider our status quo.

All bicyclists climbing up our hill into our site (Cyclotron, Chu, McMillan, Lawrence Rd.) are unable to sustain the advised speed of 15 mph and practically all motor vehicles encountering the uphill bicyclists pass when it is safe to do so. On all our roads the lane marking is a “no-passing” double yellow line and the width of the lanes is small, mostly around ~10 feet. As a result, most times a driver passes a bicycle, the driver chooses to break the law by breaching the no-pass center line. We monitored this by observing from the side, from the inside of motor vehicles, and by bicycling up the hill: on our LBNL site drivers nearly always pass bikes illegally, with no hesitation. This includes the vast majority of our driving colleagues, the vast majority of the professional drivers, and members of our security force.

As bicyclists, we are not ungrateful to the “violators”: they may be saving our lives. The engineered design of our transportation system simply does not promote behavior that combines law abidance and sufficient safety margin at the time that safety matters most, during the encounters. If cars were to stay in their lane, drivers would cause unacceptable risk to our biking colleagues. And if we were to enforce the no-pass law, we would cause socially unacceptable congestion.

Bike safety reminders claiming that “lane markings exist to make the Lab a safer place for everybody”^[4] are well intended, but are they correct? Arguably, in our culture where drivers pass bikes despite the no-pass markings, the lane markings make the more vulnerable party in these encounters less safe.  

Current placement of officers around our site, including plain-clothes undercover officers to observe and enforce traffic rules^[5], communicates that we all “must follow California Vehicle Code rules” to the letter. This is counterproductive. It could easily lead to unintended consequences - imagine the crisis that might result if we had a serious crash where a driver trying to stay within yellow lines collided with a bicyclist, God forbid. Our hunch is that, within the given system that we have, promoting a culture that has no tolerance for rule-violations is detrimental to our safety, as this would stifle reasonable judgments all of us make in negotiating safely around hazards. Karlene Roberts of CCRM^[6] points out that organizations with very strong safety cultures (she and her colleagues coined the term High Reliability Organizations) emphasize the need for critical mindfulness and judgment in deciding when to follow rules - individuals are encouraged to break the rules when they judge it to be the safer way to proceed.

If violations are the wrong problem - what might be the right problem? If the quality of our system designs and rules were reliable, then fixating on “violators” might be more interesting. But our given system, even addressing localized issues by plastering our environments with more marks and warnings, on the presumption that “signs, signals, and lane markings exist to make the Lab a safer place for everybody”^[4] will not solve the traffic safety idiosyncrasies associated with our substandard lane width. For reasons including history and our budgetary priorities it would be slow and perhaps unaffordable to widen lanes enough^[7] for application of California law to work properly. If we do want to address the mismatch between driving/biking/walking rules and our reality, what can we do?

We are free to think seriously about changing the rules. One thing we could do is turn the site into a on-way system, where the second half of our roads becomes nice, large, multi-use pathways. Alternatively, there is actually substantial evidence that improved traffic and safety results from drastically reducing signage and control devices. This ‘Shared-Roads’ approach creates environments in which cars, bikes, and pedestrians are more likely to engage in cordial and safe interactions within a shared space. This approach was pioneered by a traffic engineer named Hans Monderman^[8] and a survey of applications of the shared-space concept in our part of the US is provided in Ref. [9].

We suggest exploring the shared-space concept to figure out how we might benefit from it. We believe the solution to improving traffic safety lies in helping the drivers realize that they share transportation corridors with other drivers as well as with more vulnerable people on foot and on bike. More traffic signage is likely to reinforce an automobile-centered view that could strengthen the underlying cause of accidents. Instead, we suggest simply removing yellow lines from the center of our roads: our roads will look like those between our houses in places like Berkeley. Shared Roads experience suggests that the absence of traffic control markings can have wonderful effects: people realize that they and other people around them have skin in the game, they moderate speed, reducing the risk of accidents. As a Shared Space, our LBNL campus would look a lot like many tracts on the campuses of our managing institution, UC: blacktop roads with no lines, drivers driving carefully, even without lots of ‘calming’ signage. If you like snorkeling in the tropics (we recommend it), UCB traffic at high load reminds of fish interacting in a tropical reef. Like people, these creatures prefer moderate speed and they are successful at avoiding accidental collisions with astonishing degree of perfection. What’s real interesting is that without the clutter of control devices, all of us - bikes, cars, clusters of walking/talking people - are compliant with the safety rules, and proud of it.

“Zero-tolerance” applies to system design:

In contrast to risk models based on assumed importance of counteracting delinquency through enforcement, the example of bike/car interactions shows that our workforce may be wiser and more safety conscious than the system design. One view of road safety “is based on a premise where individual road-users are solely responsible when crashes occur. In that case countermeasures are aimed at altering the behavior of the road-user in order to adapt him/her to the existing road transport system.”^[10] More enlightened transportation systems designed to account for and manage risk are premised on “the so-called zero-tolerance position, whereby road safety is built around two axioms; the system must be adapted to psychological and physical conditions and limitations of the human being, and responsibility for road safety must be shared between the road-users and the designers and professional operators of the system.”^[10]

In plain English, “people are not idiots - when you treat people like idiots they’ll behave like idiots”^[8], Hans Monderman expresses the two sides of our most basic Integrated Safety Management principle: we strive for individual accountability to take care of our own and each other’s safety. He captures how this is a balancing act: individual accountability depends on the organization’s success in maintaining systems designed to give people the authority and the latitude to make decisions to be safe.

Lowest achievable accident risks is a moral obligation and an intellectual challenge. How do we apply safety rules in our workplaces? What is the role organizational accountability? Traffic is an interesting model that helps us examine and develop our safety culture. We are hoping to encourage and sustain a wider conversation, we look forward to hearing your thoughts.

References:

[1] “Why Bicyclists Hate Stop Signs”, Joel Fajans and Melanie Curry, 2001 wwww.sfbike.org/download/bike_law/why_bikes_hate_stops.pdf

[2] “Legally Speaking- Stop As Yield”, Bob Mionske, 2009 http://bicyclelaw.com/articles/a.cfm/legally-speaking-stop-as-yield1

[3] California Vehicle Code 2013. http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/vc/vc.htm or http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/.html/veh_table_of_contents.html

[4] “Road Rules Reminder For Bike, Motor Scooter Riders”, Today at Berkeley Lab 12/14/2012, http://today.lbl.gov/2012/12/14/road-rules-reminder-for-bike-motor-scooter-riders/

[5] “Lab Traffic Officers Go Undercover to Monitor Crosswalk Safety” Today at Berkeley Lab, 3/5/2013, http://today.lbl.gov/2013/03/05/lab-traffic-officers-go-undercover-to-monitor-crosswalk-safety/

[6] Center for Catastrophic Risk Management, UC Berkeley. http://ccrm.berkeley.edu/index.shtml

[7] The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials indicates minimum lane width for safe passing of bikes is 14 feet. At LBNL, lane width is 10 feet. See: “Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities”, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials 1999. www.industrializedcyclist.com/aashto.pdf

[8] “The traffic guru”, Vanderbilt, T. (2008). Wilson Quarterly XXXII (3): 29-32 at http://www.wilsonquarterly.com/article.cfm?AID=1234

[9] “‘Shared-space’ streets cross the Atlantic”, Philip Langdon, Better Cities and Towns, 2008 at: http://bettercities.net/article/‘shared-space’-streets-cross-atlantic

[10] “The need for a systems theory approach to road safety”, Peter Larsson, Sidney W.A. Dekker, Claes Tingvall, Safety Science 48 (2010) 1167–1174

First of all, thanks to whoever started this thread. I think it's great to have a place for comments on this topics.

There have been some excellent comments that I would like to support.

Since I also bike on the lab, I would like to second the request of removing the double yellow line on many roads (or replace them by a single dashed line?) to make it actual legal for cars to pass the biker and leaving an adequate space between the car and the biker.

I also really like the idea of adding pedestrian zones (or really wide cross walks) in some areas where a lot of people cross the road or where there is not enough space to allow for a separate walkway, a bike lane, and a road to coexist at the same time. A perfect place for this IMO would be between the cafeteria parking lot and the guest house/building 2 area where we have 5 pedestrian crossing at the moment. Painting the street in some different color, adding signs that you are entering a pedestrian zone and leaving it at the other end plus removing the stop sign near the guest house sounds like a great solution for pedestrians and cars. This looks also like a good solution for areas like the road near Bldg 71 (although I don't use that one). Some bus stops that are on the road could also benefit from this idea, since it would probably make it more clear to cars that people might be walking near a stopped bus (e.g. bus stop at the fire station).

Making some lanes into one-ways would also be a good solutions to be able to add a good sized walkway and a bike lane. One area that comes to mind where this could be of advantage is the two way road from the fire station to the cafeteria near Bldg 15 (part of Lawrence Road?). Near the fire station there is no good walkway and further down pedestrians have to walk onto the street to avoid parked cars sometime. One could make this a one way street (driving towards the fire station) and have cars from the fire station use the the road closer to the ALS, freeing up a lot of space on the (now) two way road to add  a nice walkway and even a bike lane (something that is impossible to add right now) making walking to the Cafeteria a lot easier for people from NCEM, the Foundry, etc. One could probably even add some parking spots if that road would be a one way.

I also agree with earlier comments that there seem to be several places in our traffic system were we encourage braking the law and where it would be easy to change these problem without making the area unsafe. The roundabout near the Bevatron parking lot for example could have Yield signs instead of stop signs. The majority of cars don't really do a stop there anyway and as far as I know the whole point of a roundabout is, so that you don't need Stop signs in the first place while at the same time reducing the risk for accidents. At least I'm not aware of many other roundabouts that have Stop signs. There are also other stop signs, where you have a great view of the intersection and IMO a Yield sign would do the same job, making it also easier for bicycles to navigate on the hill (having to stop on a hill with a bike and then start again on a narrow road with cars driving by very close can be challenging to say the least).

Besides engineering LBNL roads to be safer for all users, I believe changing LBNL policy to support employees commuting by other than single occupancy autos would increase employee health and safety as well as benefitting the sustainlbl effort, capital demand and health insurance costs.

Years ago Congress provided employers permission to provide a benefit to employees that bike to work.  The benefit consists of reimbursement of equipment costs up to a nominal maximum amount per month (I believe more expensive items can be reimbursed over a period of months under the rules).

Subsequently I learned that various large firms in Silicon Valley as well as the EPA Region IX office in San Francisco had implemented this benefit.  I subsequently advocated through various channels for LBNL to implement such a benefit.  Eventually I was informed the lab had analyzed offering such a benefit in 2010 or 2011. The result of the analysis was that "It was determined that the benefit versus the cost to implement would not be cost effective.  The research showed that there were significant IRS rules associated with the benefit and tracking mechanisms that would be required.  In addition, using this benefit would impact employees ability to use the more significant pre- tax benefits associated with our public transportation program (Wageworks)."  I still do not understand how the EPA, another federal agency, can get this done while LBNL can not.  The finding that a cycling benefit would compete with the more significant benefit for public transportation also appears poorly formulated.  Many to most people that bike to the lab do not take public transportation.

Beyond this, it appears LBNL's analysis did not take the lifecycle approach piloted by Stanford in the 1990's according to http://dc.streetsblog.org/2013/04/16/transport-u-colleges-embrace-policies-to-reduce-driving/.  Specifically I doubt the analysis considered the cost of a motor vehicle parking space at LBNL.  For instance the relatively new spaces along Lawrence Road below Building 15 cost $30,000 a piece.  The annualized capital cost of these spaces plus the cost of their maintenance is thousands of dollars at any reasonable discount rate.  For this amount of money, even a monetarily inefficient benefit would almost certainly motivate more than one person to commute to the lab other than by driving themselves.

Besides possibly saving money, reducing vehicle parking demand would obviously have a number of other potential benefits.  It would result in less traffic on lab roads and so a lower potential for motor vehicle accidents. It would provide more unpaved space, thus reducing peak storm flows into the lab's storm drains and surrounding creeks. Or the freed up space could host new facilities. This space would likely be cheaper to build upon than creating new sites on steep slopes as is currently taking place with the CRT.

The flip side of the lab not providing a cycling benefit is that the lab does not charge for parking.  Years ago I had the opportunity to push this question while working with the lab directorate and DOE site office on another issue.  The first response was that the lab would never charge for parking.  I pressed for a reason.  Ultimately the best reason that was offered was because if it did charge, the money would go to the US Treasury's general federal funds rather than come back specifically to LBNL.  This is a classic political problem outlined in Donald Shoup's "The High Cost of Free Parking."  A solution proposed there was to create a parking fee benefit district so that those would have to approve the fee would see direct benefit to doing so.  I would hope that LBNL, in the spirit of leadership engendered by Carbon Cycle 2.0, would lead an effort to get federal policy changed so that it would have an incentive to implement a parking fee.

Given LBNL's leadership in life cycle analysis, I encourage the lab to engage researchers with expertise in life cycle assessment in EETD to research the lab's transportation policies with regard to safety, the environment and capital planning.

I second everything that has been said in regards to biking on the hill, coming up hearst can be quite sketchy, thanks for being willing to make cycling safer!

1. The intersection of Lawrence Road and Segre Road - right next to the fire station - is a tricky 3 way intersection where 2 directions have to stop and 1 direction can proceed without stop. Adding to the trickiness is the fact that you can make a sharp left if you are coming up Lawrence Road and want to turn left onto Segre after a stop and you can make a sharp right if you are coming off Segre onto Lawrence after a stop. I have narrowly avoided being hit on my scooter when cars barely stop at the stop sign and proceed to make a sharp turn in front of me. I'd like to suggest additional signage. Something like the links below named image 1 and image 2.
   
   
2. Narrow and low visibility road next to bldg 75, where motorcycles go to park and where Radiation Protection Group parks their vehicles - vehicles often pull out from this narrow road and do not check for pedestrians or other vehicles. It is also difficult to see due to stacked parked cars next to the road as you pull out. I'd like to suggest a traffic mirror mounted here and signage to check for pedestrians and other vehicles. Some suggestions are in links below named image 3 and 4.

Thanks!

Image 1 - Stop, 3 way

Image 2 - 3 Way

Image 3 - Traffic Mirror

Image 4 - Slow, Pedestrians

Wayne and Stephen,

Thanks for your suggestions and comments to improve the walkways around Building 48. The redesigned walkways address your astute observations.

Preston,

Taking a spill on your bicycle when it hit the slick paint on a wet crosswalk must not have been pleasant. However, sharing this experience has led to repainting crosswalks at the roundabout with higher-traction paint. Thanks for making the Lab roads safer for future cyclists.

Glenn,

The other day at dinner, my mother in law asked me about our progress in improving the LBNL traffic system. I had stopped talking to her about how LBNL traffic enforcement combines with our narrow lanes and no-pass lines to generate systematic peril against bicyclists, because (a) I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve made zero progress on that front and (b) I’m afraid she’ll tell me to stop riding my bike. So I thought I’d tell her something lighter, perhaps some good news about new walkways.

Ann was a professional investigator before she retired, she is remarkably quick to get right to the heart of things. “Lines painted into the roadway to corral pedestrians? I don’t know, Andreas, I think that may not be legal…”

Her point is interesting. I googled “walkway” and “safety” and very quickly, it does look like what we are doing up here at LBNL may be really foolish.

The top link that comes up is guidance posted by the Federal Highway Administration, titled “Safety Benefits of Walkways, Sidewalks, and Paved Shoulders”. It starts by describing how not to design a walkway. What’s funny is that the photograph FHWA uses to illustrate inadequate and inherently unsafe design is practically a mirror image of what our new walkways look like, including the one that is celebrated in yesterday’s post, around building 48. [http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/ped_bike/tools_solve/walkways_trifold/]

Explaining her comment about laws, Ann says she’s referring to the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Architectural Barriers Act. By these standards, 5 foot is the minimum walkway width for one pedestrian to safely navigate around another pedestrian as they move along at unequal speed or direction. At LBNL, our old walkways appear to be ok in this regard. But our new “walkways” are detached from any such standards: little sections may be as wide as 4 feet, but most lengths are barely 3 feet wide, if even that.

There’s an astonishing example up by building 71: this new walkway frequently disappears under the hoods of cars, even when the cars are compacts pulled smack up against the curb in the stall… and when fully exposed, this “new and improved walkway” measures 21 inches in width - it is smaller than the width of many pedestrians before we even start walking.

Trying to understand, I made some phone calls. I was told that LBNL traffic design is not concerned about compliance with ADA/ABA laws. I was told that our new walkways are engineered with the assumption that pedestrians are supposed to walk into the street as soon as another pedestrian gets in their way. I was told that the 21-inch walkway isn’t meant to really be walked on at all – it is meant to be a psychological attraction device to make people walk closer to that side as they walk down the roadway. To me, that sounds like (a) magical thinking and (b) not safer than no walkway at all; but I was told that all of this this is perfectly reasonable, because naturally the responsibility for not getting run over by a car rest on the shoulders of the pedestrian who must look for cars before stepping into the street.

Reporting back to Ann was interesting. She insists that the idea of pedestrian facilities is to provide safety by separating walking people from motor vehicles, she explains that lines on asphalt are not a barrier, cars cross lines all the time for all kinds of reasons ranging from sloppy driving to respectfully navigating around other traffic participants, such as passing of bicyclists, etc. For walkways, she insists that this is why engineering standards promote curbs and buffer zones.

Indeed - as a bare minimum, the US Dept. of Transportation holds that “where landscaped sidewalk buffers cannot be provided due to constraints, on-street parking … can serve to buffer pedestrians from motor vehicle traffic lanes.” [http://www.walkinginfo.org/pedsafe/moreinfo_sidewalks.cfm]. Specifically using the term “walkways”, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials sais that “a buffer zone is desirable and should be provided to separate pedestrian walkways and sidewalks from the street. … Parked cars and/or bicycle lanes can also provide an acceptable buffer zone.” [http://safety.transportation.org/htmlguides/peds/description_of_strat.htm]

By reversing the conventional positions of parked cars with respect to walking people, the new “walkways” we are painting onto our streets systematically expose pedestrians to peril.

Trying to understand, we made again some phone calls. Arguments we hear include the suggestion that this way bicycles will use the sidewalk – yet, DMV and all bike safety groups strongly advise against the idea of biking on sidewalks. What’s most surprising to us, we are told that placing our walkways between the roadway and the parked cars is important so that there is a buffer to protect parked cars from getting crashed into by the moving cars. I am not making this up.

We all expect responsibility and accountability from each other. Ann’s point that we might look at technical standards and laws is meaningful (our own LBNL requirements and policies manual stipulates that our system designs comply with the standards.) Paint-marks that marginalize pedestrian safety while prioritizing motorized traffic may well create for drivers the illusion of a well-managed roadway, but that is not the same as improving safety culture, walkability, and pedestrian safety: the ongoing “improvements” may be increasing our exposure to risks of serious crashes as well as liability.

Andreas

 Click here for more thoughts on walkability

I have been an employee here for decades.  Thanks for opening this forum, and allowing access through TABL today.

When driving up into the Lab from Hearst, we come into the Blackberry Gate.  In the morning, at the gate there is a fork in the entry  way.

Problem:  A very confusing sign directs Visitors / Employees to one or the other part of the entry fork for the morning entry. 

The reason it is confusing every morning is as follows:

These words are one below the other, black on white background.  As I recall, the Visitor is on the top, and Employee on the bottom.  There are arrows pointing to right between the two words, and another arrow pointing to the left below the lower word.  Because the arrows and the words are all equally spaced, it is NOT obvious that each arrow is supposed to be relevant to the word above it.  As an employee, I come in and see the word Employee and two arrows pointing left and right, equally spaced, one above it and another below.

Suggested solution: Change the background of the two parts of the sign to be different color.  Or use different colors, and match the color for text and arrow.

thnx.

Mr. Kubiak, with all due respect, I would like to add my name to the list of those who would like to hear your, or your representative's, response to the serious issues of traffic system design brought up by Andreas Schmid. For those who are unaware, this forum is hardly the only place that he and his collaborators on these lines of thought have presented their ideas on risk management and traffic system design.  I know that he has been discussing these issues with those people here at the lab whose official responsibilities are in this area.  However, this is the most public space I have seen it discussed. In the interests of transparency and understanding I would very much like to hear your reasoned counter points to the serious issues he raises.

For example, even if the reasons Andreas has characterized as the lab's justification for narrow pedestrian walkways placed between parked cars and roadways are self consistent and defensible as a cogent alternative philosophy to roadway standards, the lab's roadways do not exist in a vacuum. To have a system of traffic control that is so clearly different from the National Highway Standards seems really really unsafe seeing as I drive within the confines and assumptions of the national standards 99% of the time I am in my car.

Thank you for all your efforts in this small but important area of your responsibilities. I am a great proponent of the public discussion of these types of issues and believe it is a great force for employee ownership and buy in of laboratory policies.

-Andrew Doran

For years, even now with all the improved traffic signages, vehicles from the outside (mostly delivery or construction/contractors trucks) do not always follow traffic laws, such as stopping at STOP signs or not following the imposed speed limit. I have been honked at by such vehicles because I've either come to a complete stop at a Stop sign or going at the suggested lower speeds. They don't seem to realize the Lab's traffic laws are as good as those on the streets outside.

My suggestion is: at all entry gates, hand out a notice to outside drivers reminding them that all the traffic laws within the Lab's premises are monitored and enforced by our UC Police and other traffic officers and that they could be ticketed and fined if they violate any traffic laws.

-Anthony Ma

The stop sign going down the k2 parking lot near B2 is slippery, got scratched badly twice (on a scooter), I slid and fell when stopping,

Personally I think Yield signs are more effective than Stop signs anyway to keep people alert, but it would be nice to avoid a slippery stop.

S.

Thanks to everyone for continuing the conversation on improving pedestrian, motorist, and cyclist safety at the Lab.  While Glenn Kubiak is away on business travel, I thought I would keep the dialogue going.  As chair of the Traffic and Pedestrian Safety Committee, I participate in most of the improvement efforts.

While this blog conversation is valuable, I thought some of you might like to discuss this more in person or review our traffic improvement designs, etc.  I am scheduling a meeting June 20 in Building 2, Room 100 from 3-4 pm to further discuss your ideas, comments, and suggestions. I will review some of the more notable safety concern issues related to traffic safety and review the Lab-wide roadway and walkway assessment plans. We also can discuss opportunities for you to participate more directly in the traffic and pedestrian safety program . Please feel free to invite others.

I look forward to hearing more from you.

Richard DeBusk

I love Andreas' "walkability" PowerPoint posted on May 22, and his suggested transportation corridors in April 11 and 13 posts.  If the Lab does consider implementing transportation corridors--especially in the Guest House area from Z Lot to the Cafeteria, and at Bldg. 71--it would be a great opportunity to take advantage of the research done by EETD's Heat Island Group on cool pavement technologies.  By applying cool pavements to the transportation corridors, they could be distinctively colored to capture people's attention to operate safely within those areas, while at the same time beginning to combat the heat island effect from roadways at the Lab.

I have walked the road from Bldg. 62-66-67 to the cafeteria and ALS, hundreds of times over the years, as many of us have done. It is a beautiful walk, and a relaxing mid-day exercise.  Often it is also the fastest way from here to there.

The problem, as many have already stated, it is that the walk is fraught with danger from cars, lack of sidewalks and narrowness. I am sure there have been many proposals to remedy this over the years, and I would love to see what they are.  So at the risk of repeating some of these proposals I would propose the construction of a dedicated pedestrian trail, even if it is on dirt, parallel but outside the road.  This will cost $$ for sure as the sloping downhill side of the road where sections of this pedestrian trail will have to be built complicate construction. However it would be a great asset to the lab, adding beauty, safety, and a legacy to future generations.

This morning I was startled to look up and see a GEM reversing almost silently toward me.  My only distractions were thoughts of the day's work load and background construction sounds masking the barely audible back-up alarm.  This has happened several times in the past even without the distractions.

The electric GEMs operate very quietly, so pedestrians can't hear them coming under normal conditions.  When in reverse, the back-up alarms only annunciate within the cabs.  This poses a significant safety risk.  The driver hears the alarm clearly and would assume the alarm is just as distinct to those outside the cab.  But pedestrians and other vehicles cannot hear the alarm.  This may lull the driver into a false sense of security and increase the risk of a collision.

I first raised concerns about pedestrian safety around the quiet running GEMs in 2005.  The first 4 GEMs were delivered without the safety package, which includes back-up alarm.  They were subsequently retrofitted with alarms, and all later GEM procurements included alarms in the cabs.  The interior alarms not being adequate, I continued to pursue for an external solution.  Unfortunately none was available at the time.  I still don't understand the point of having a back-up alarm to warn the GEM driver, who should know s/he is in reverse, and not warning personnel outside the GEM that it is backing.  Have there been any design improvements that provide external back-up alarm functionality that we could consider?

Thanks to Miguel on keeping beauty in the conversation!  Let's create a master plan for the optimal routes for pedestrians, bikes, shuttles, and large vehicles. Pedestrians should get the best views with an occasional bench for meeting up with colleagues.