By Laurie Hurowitz and Pierre Swick
Waitsfield has encouraged efficient and safe pedestrian travel within Waitsfield Village and Irasville. In 1993, the town began planning with VTrans to upgrade and extend existing sidewalks and to pave bicycle lanes along Route 100 from Bragg Hill Road to the elementary school. Waitsfield Town Plan 2012-2017, Page 58.
In Vermont, the new motor vehicle law recommending that drivers give bicyclists at least a 4-foot clearance when passing is inspiring towns to rethink how everyone can more safely travel down the narrow main streets of our communities.
From a bike’s-eye point of view, we believe the following recommendations would calm traffic, set up clear expectations regarding traffic flow, maximize safety for all and improve some problem areas of the paved bike lane around Waitsfield Village.
1. Reduce the speed limit.
We’d like to see the posted speed limit be reduced to 25 mph from Bragg Hill to the elementary school. Waitsfield has a senior living center, a weekly farmers’ market (in season), shops (some with barely off-road parking), churches, schools and cultural institutions like the library and the theater on this stretch.
Let’s respect them and the people who want to use them who travel by foot, wheelchair, bike or other slower means. Warren, Montpelier, Stowe, Morrisville and Middlebury are all posted at 25 mph in their downtown district and approaching it.
2. Create a shared travel lane.
We suggest motorists and bicycles share the north and southbound travel lanes and that vehicles be instructed to stay in lane around Waitsfield Village.
Currently, the bike lane abruptly ends on Route 100, traveling north, approaching Bridge Street. As the road continues to the elementary school (north and southbound), there is effectively no bike lane due to parked vehicles. Be advised from a bike’s-eye view, the road’s shoulder is a bike lane or it’s a parking lane. It is not wide enough to be both.
A shared travel lane would end cyclists having to weave in and out of the travel lane as they encounter obstacles in the shoulder such as the bike lane’s end, road debris or parked cars. Motorists would no longer have to be reactive, looking long to gauge oncoming traffic to swinging around bikes, etc. All of this maneuvering distracts drivers from things such as attending to pedestrians crossing Main Street.
A shared travel lane would result in greater space between cyclists and pedestrians. Bike lanes that abut a curb or its extension (as proposed in the most current west sidewalk proposal) put bicycles and walkers in unnecessarily close proximity.
A shared travel lane gives pedestrians two lanes of traffic to cross in the village, instead of the current four.
When bikes share the travel lane, traffic is calmed to a bike’s pace, perhaps 25 mph, but more likely 12 to 17 mph. This is the kind of traffic calming that should put a smile on the face of a pedestrian trying to cross Main Street.
3. Signage is critical.
We like the suggestion of a village storeowner to put a radar sign that reads out real-time speed at the south end of Waitsfield on Route 100. The north end is already covered by the one posted near the school. By all accounts, it’s very effective at bringing traffic to the posted speed limit.
The west sidewalk project proposal offers signage to alert vehicles to pedestrian crossings, median signs to help shorten the distance for pedestrians to get across, and road painting at crosswalks, which we support.
Regarding bicycles, we’d like to see signs to Share the Road (replacing the Bike Lane Ends sign) and Stay in Lane approaching Waitsfield Village from the north and south. The painted sharrows (the bicycle symbol with a chevron above it, indicating a shared lane), currently in the parking lanes in the village, need to be moved to the center of the north and southbound travel lanes.
4. Enforce the speed limit.
It is our experience that seeing law enforcement parked at the gateway to a town is a powerful reminder to slow down. Waitsfield should post an officer, at least every now and then, to help locals and visitors alike remember to respect the community’s posted travel limits.
The vision of a paved bike lane from Bragg Hill to the elementary school is an excellent goal, but its current execution has shortcomings around Waitsfield Village. We strongly urge VTrans and the Waitsfield Select Board to consider our recommendations to create a safer paved bike lane along its length from Bragg Hill to the elementary school.
For more information about the new bike safety law for motorists, we recommend this article by Local Motion: http://vtsports.com/new-road-rules-safe-riding-driving/. If you have comments to share, you can write us at
Hurowitz and Swick live in Fayston.
