Cyclists and drivers be warned. The Maryland State Highway Administration, apparently without consultation with the city, has painted bike lanes on Greenbelt Road heading west from the intersection with
Kenilworth Avenue. They run from the intersection, past Dora Kennedy French Immersion School, the school bus lot and the first two entrances to Beltway Plaza. The bike lane is between the middle and rightmost travel lanes, which is now marked a “Turn Lane” and ends abruptly prior to Cherrywood Lane.
This new traffic pattern means that, for cars to turn into any of the multiple access roads to their right from the travel lane, they must cross the bike lane. Drivers make their intended right turn from there. There isn’t supposed to be a continuous flow of traffic in the right lane – just entering and leaving it to turn. The bike lane is thus sandwiched between two traffic lanes: the one to its left side for travel and the right-hand one for turns. Vehicles leaving the school, the bus lot and Beltway Plaza from these lanes must also cross the bike lane to resume travel on Greenbelt Road. With likely hundreds of bus accesses per school day – not to mention school and plaza car traffic – the bike lanes will be constantly in the path of turning or accelerating vehicles.
Cyclists Unimpressed
Local cyclists, including John Campanile, for example, are concerned. “It seems to be rather dangerous,” remarked Campanile on being queried about the safety of this geometry. “And I’ve seen and heard comments to the effect of, ‘What were they thinking?’ And why in the world does it suddenly end prior to Cherrywood?” He recommends the state “paint over the existing lines, do some research, and try again!”
Cyclist Jeff Lemieux (longtime Greenbelt resident and co-owner with his wife Laurie of local bike shop Proteus Bicycles) is also very critical about the safety of the new lanes, criticizing not only the state’s specific development on Greenbelt Road, but its overall strategy of placing bike lanes on other fast or busy highways. He feels bike lanes are out of place on such roads and that any provision for bikes should be segregated from the vehicle lanes.
Mayor Emmett Jordan, also a keen cyclist, said that, to his knowledge, the state had not contacted the city about the lanes. He expressed concern about the closeness of the crossing points for vehicles to the access roads they were serving and felt that these would be confusing to motorists and lead to sudden and awkward turns. He recommended considering the strategy used in D.C. where bike lanes are sometimes demarked by bollards.
Forced Lane Changes
The bike lane creates a second problem by forcing additional lane changes, which seem hazardous. Instead of simply being able to stay in the right lane after the Greenbelt Road/Kenilworth Avenue intersection to get to Target, for example, vehicles must first cross the bike lane to the left and then cross back over it to make a right. Not only is the likelihood of a vehicle-to-bike collision high, there’s also more risk of two vehicles colliding because of additional (and potentially confusing) lane changes required immediately after the intersection.
