Bloomington Bicycle & Pedestrian Coordinator Hank Duncan (far right) speaks to members of the public at a Tuesday meeting at the Sample Gates.
(Lucas González, WFIU/WTIU News)
That’s according to information shared at a Tuesday meeting, the first of three the city has scheduled to gather public input on the project.
A city news release says the project aims to “increase safety, connectivity and accessibility” along the corridor. The project’s scope focuses on a roughly half-mile stretch of Indiana Avenue between 10th Street and Atwater Avenue as well as a small portion of Henderson Street from Atwater to Smith avenues.
A map of the project area. (Provided, City of Bloomington)
The release says the city may add protected bicycle infrastructure and upgrade pedestrian crossings and bus stops. The exact details haven’t been finalized.
City Bicycle & Pedestrian Coordinator Hank Duncan led the Tuesday meeting at the Sample Gates. He said its purpose was to hear what members of the public think would make the corridor safer.
“We are not proposing anything right now,” Duncan said. “We will take all this feedback from this meeting and the online survey back and start to compile those notes and transfer that feedback into a preliminary proposal.”
Hank Duncan (Lucas González, WFIU/WTIU News)
Duncan said that will happen over the next month. At the second public meeting on July 16, the city will present a preliminary concept design and gather even more feedback.
Duncan said since 2018, there have been nine collisions along the corridor that led to death or serious injuries. More detailed data from the city show all nine crashes involved serious injuries, and one involved a fatality.
Five of the crashes involved a pedestrian and four only involved vehicles, data show. The most common cause listed for the crashes is failure to yield the right of way (four of nine), followed by disregarding a signal or red light (three of nine).
Duncan said he heard a variety of comments from people he spoke with Tuesday, including fast drivers along the corridor and unease for pedestrians crossing it.
“There are quite a few areas where even if certain folks haven’t been hit by a driver or have experienced their own collision, there have been close calls,” Duncan said.
IU faculty researcher Yong-Yeol Ahn was one of the attendees to share ideas for the project. He said he was surprised to learn there have been as many serious crashes as the city says.
“That means all the students, faculty, staff, from IU all the visitors to Bloomington, they're kind of exposed to serious injuries or deaths from traffic crashes,” Ahn said. “I'm really glad that city is acting on it and trying to make it safer.”
Yong-Yeol Ahn (Lucas González, WFIU/WTIU News)
Ahn, who gets around on foot, by bike and by car, added he supports infrastructure that slows drivers and protects pedestrians and cyclists.
“In the U.S., there has been a long tradition to maximize traffic flow, not thinking about safety of other, more vulnerable road users,” he said. “But I think it’s slowly changing, and I think it’s really important to make sure to prioritize the safety of people, rather than the speed of cars and traffic flow.”
Others were more critical of the city’s proposals. IU Professor Emeritus Bill Witte regularly drives on Indiana Avenue and said he worries the project will make it harder for him to do so.
“Traffic calming in general, I think in a lot of cases, is counter-productive and doesn’t work very well,” Witte said. “I ride bikes, too, but I wouldn’t ride a bike north on (the corridor). The traffic is too heavy, and I don’t think it’s appropriate for a bike.”
Bill Witte (Lucas González, WFIU/WTIU News)
Witte said the city recently installed traffic-calming devices on Maxwell Lane, where he lives. He said this wasn’t needed and has only made the street more difficult to drive on.
Witte added the city’s crash data for the corridor doesn’t strike him as unordinary.
“Of course, crashes are — if you’re involved — traumatic, or can be,” he said. “A lot of the traffic incidents that I'm familiar with are due to people who aren't paying attention, or pedestrians or bicyclists who aren't paying attention, or we don't obey the rules.”
He also called the city’s goal to eliminate traffic fatalities and injuries unrealistic.
Duncan said this is just one step toward that goal.
“A common comment that we receive on any project, but especially this project, has been, ‘It is fine as is; we don’t need to change anything,’” Duncan said. “The data tells us different. Again, in the past five years, having nine lives altered is something that, as a city, we can’t abide by.”
Duncan added others have expressed they feel the project is specifically geared toward bicyclists. He said this is a misconception, and the project is intended to make transportation safer for all road users.
“If better bike infrastructure comes out of it, wonderful; that helps the demographic of Bloomington,” he said. “But it is not the end goal. The end goal is to create safety for everybody along this corridor and across this corridor.”
More information on the project, including future meeting information links to an online survey, are available online.
Editor's note: This article has been updated to include the city's crash data for the Indiana Avenue corridor.
