Yesterday, I attended the Oakland Mills Complete Streets Study but managed to visit Frisco Tap House before and after the public meeting.
The Newport, Oregon brewery, Rogue, hosted the Frisco Pint Night. A couple of us stopped by Frisco for dinner before the meeting. I had my usual, the spinach and roasted beet salad. It is comprised of baby spinach, cranberries, gorgonzola, candied walnuts, raspberry vinaigrette. Paired with the very light and sweet, Rogue Honey Kolsch, the salad was scrumptious.
The Complete Streets study was held at the nearby Christ Episcopal Church on Oakland Mills Road at the Dobbin Road intersection. Howard County was represented by 2 Office of Transportation employees and 2 PDW traffic engineers. Also, a traffic engineer from Sabra and Associates attended. This is the second meeting about improvements to Oakland Mills Road. Public feedback noted that the pedestrians have trouble crossing the 4 lane road, car speed is too fast and bicyclists feel unsafe riding on travel lanes.
Two choices of road diet are proposed. Both proposals include shrinking the four lanes to 2 lanes with a center turn lane. Proposal 1 would put bike lanes outside each of the travel lanes. In Proposal 2, bidirectional bike lanes would exist on one side of a travel lane. I like Proposal 2 because it has the potential of being a protected bike lane with a curb. This proposal would encourage less experienced bicyclists who feel unsafe riding with automobile traffic to ride along Oakland Mills Rd. The sidewalk is very bumpy.
Additional crosswalks are also proposed with pedestrian refuge islands in the center lane. Both proposed road diets would reduce speeds on Oakland Mills Rd, make the roads safer for cars, bicyclists and pedestrians. It was noted that due to high speeds and only a painted line separating opposing traffic, there have been many head-on collisions on Oakland Mills Rd., resulting in injury. Traffic studies show that due to the low volume of traffic, either proposed road diet would not affect throughput and would not produce congestion. Howard County traditionally repaints lanes when roads are repaved. No repaving schedule was offered.
On a personal note, if bike lanes are added to Oakland Mills Rd., I could safely ride to Frisco Tap House, 4.2 miles in less than 20 minutes.
Back at Frisco, I met up with the Pint Night crew. We had a special visitor, Eric, all the way from St. Paul, MN. He is one of the original pint night crew here for Z’s wedding this Friday. Eric actually brought his Mug Club book, unused for 5 years. Congrats to Z for his upcoming marriage. And congrats to Eric for losing 100 lbs. through eating about 1500 calories each day and walking off 1000 calories per day. (As he notes, he is very dubious of the calories burned calculation, since he can’t imagine he has actually lived on 500 calories a day for more than a year.)
Enough rambling for one day.
Cheers!
Warren