No easy walk: Two cities’ cycling and pedestrian infrastructure

Photo by Daniel Wirtheim

by Jordan Green

Bill Petrie has suffered from various health complications related to high blood pressure since he was diagnosed in 2010. He got his blood pressure back down through medication, and once his doctor cleared him, he started riding short distances on his bicycle — no more than five miles at a time.

A Winston-Salem native, the 45-year-old Petrie moved back from Durham recently, and by that time he had started riding his bike to work. He lives out in the county at the north end of the city near SciWorks, and commutes into downtown. At first, before he built up his endurance, he would drive partway and park his car at Reynolda Village, and then finish his trip to his job at Downtown Perk on his bike.

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“It’s helped me shed about 35 to 40 pounds,” Petrie told me. “Some of it I’ve put back on, and I’m going to have to be more aggressive. It’s a family-genetic thing. With cycling, I’m not having to graduate to more powerful drugs. I’m on an entry-level drug.”

Both Winston-Salem and Greensboro are actively trying to reduce barriers to cycling and walking through investment in bike lanes, sidewalks, pedestrian signalization and other infrastructure. Outside the two cities’ densely developed downtowns and areas around some university campuses and hospitals, cyclists and pedestrians still generally encounter a hostile and even dangerous environment. The inertia of 70 years of auto-oriented sprawl is hard to overcome. Beyond college students and knowledge-based workers gravitating to Winston-Salem’s Innovation Quarter, Petrie is part of a small cohort of residents who are actively incorporating cycling and walking into their lifestyles as transportation options.

The 2015 Bicycle, Pedestrian and Greenways Master Plan Update, or BiPed Update, which is set for final approval by the Greensboro Metropolitan Planning Organization on Sept. 23, provides a stark picture of the terrain for cyclists and pedestrians in both cities.

“Like many other cities across the United States, especially in the South, the historic roadway development pattern in Greensboro since the 1940s was focused almost exclusively on easy automobile access and mobility to the exclusion of other modes,” the plan reads. “The goal clearly seems to have been to enable smooth and unobstructed motorized traffic with very little to no consideration of pedestrians, bicyclists and land-use implications. This approach created an unbalanced development pattern where alternative choices such as walking and biking became inconvenient, unattractive and dangerous.”

The bicycle and pedestrian plans for both cities emphasize to varying degrees investment in a well connected network of bicycle, pedestrian and greenway facilities to create healthy and livable communities. While Greensboro started adding bike lanes and adopted its first bi-ped plan in 2006, the city has made only halting progress due to lack of funding. Meanwhile, Winston-Salem has aggressively moved forward with plans to add bike lanes across the city with bond funds approved by voters last year that are specifically earmarked for the project.

Winston-Salem is also a step ahead of Greensboro in adopting transportation policies that put cyclists and pedestrians on equal footing with motorized vehicles. The Winston-Salem Metropolitan Planning Organization, or MPO, a local intergovernmental entity that incorporates all the municipalities in Forsyth County, has adopted a Complete Streets policy, in contrast to its counterpart in Greensboro.

The Greensboro bi-ped plan recommends that the MPO and city adopt the policy. As the plans spells out: “In contrast with automobile-focused street design, the goal of complete streets is to enable all users to access destinations safely, including pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit users.”

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Spring Garden Street, which bisects UNCG and connects the campus to student housing in the west and downtown in the east, is cited in the plan as “an example of a complete street, with sidewalks, bike lanes and transit.”

While the state of North Carolina adopted a Complete Streets policy in 2009 and released design guidelines in 2012, the state hasn’t always been a reliable partner to the cities.

“Unfortunately, this policy is more of a paper policy than a consistent implementation practice,” the Greensboro bi-ped plan states. “For example, NCDOT sometimes declines to provide sufficient space for bicycle accommodations on new bridge replacements unless the locals agree to pay for the extra width, even where such accommodations are provided for in an adopted pedestrian and bicycle plan.”

While transportation planners in Greensboro were carping about the state stinting on its obligations, voters in Winston-Salem approved a $42.4 million streets and sidewalks bond last year.

“Eight-hundred-thousand dollars of those funds was dedicated to bicycle-lane construction, mostly striping on the streets,” Matthew Burczyk, the city’s bicycle and pedestrian coordinator, said. “When we were gathering projects we looked at our bicycle master plan and we looked at the top priorities. Eight or 10 years ago that project was put together. There was a list of projects that the planners and citizens thought were priorities. About 12 bicycle-lane projects are scheduled for the next year and a half.”

The bond sets aside $10 million for sidewalk construction and repair, but the big-ticket item is street resurfacing, at a cost of $15.3 million. Street resurfacing is one infrastructure investment that benefits both motorists and cyclists.

“Street resurfacing, while it does primarily help motor vehicles, it’s also done as a service for cyclists,” Burczyk said. “If a street is bumpy it can be uncomfortable for drivers, but it can be really treacherous for cycling.”

Beyond the consideration of safety for cyclists, street resurfacing also literally lays the groundwork for significant investment in bike infrastructure. As both Burczyk and Daniel Amstutz — his counterpart with the city of Greensboro — pointed out, street resurfacing provides an opportunity to add striping for bike lanes. Cities can also add “shared lane markings,” which both encourage cycling and alert motorists to be more aware. More radical adjustments include lane reductions that make room for bike lanes while shortening the distance required for pedestrians to cross the street.

Greensboro’s bi-ped plan plainly states that the overall condition of the city’s street system is “poor.”

The plan cites a “pavement condition survey” commissioned by the city in 2012, which found that to address immediate needs by resurfacing 342.9 miles, the city would have to spend about $97.7 million.

The city’s bi-ped plan recommends construction of 268 miles of bike lanes, 20 miles of cycletrack to be segregated from motorized traffic and 41 miles of shared lane markings by 2035. The city acknowledges that implementation in the bike infrastructure plan “is held back by deferred street maintenance.” Since 2006, when the first bike lanes were painted onto Spring Garden and Florida streets, the city has added three miles per year. “It is impossible to implement all the recommended bicycle facilities within the timeframe of the plan at this rate,” the document reads. “Therefore it is critical to meeting the bicycle facility implementation targets that the city significantly increases investment in the annual resurfacing budget.”

The city’s underinvestment in sidewalk maintenance comes across as even more scandalous in the report.

“In recent years, Greensboro has cut street repair budgets, with which sidewalk maintenance has been grouped, using the savings to close citywide budget gaps, to help pay for other short-term priorities such as more police officers and projects such as the Greensboro Aquatic Center and natural Science Center expansion, and to minimize increases in local tax rates,” the report states. “Repair of sidewalk, to include retrofit of noncompliant curb ramps, has been backlogged for many years and has only recently had a concerted effort to improve the worst areas. Sidewalks in disrepair affect all users, especially those using wheelchairs, walkers and strollers.”

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The city spends $200,000 per year on sidewalk repair, which covers about three-quarters of a mile. At that rate, staff projects, it would take 82 years to bring all sidewalks rated as “poor” up to good condition, “at which point many more segments of sidewalk will deteriorate and slip into the ‘poor’ category.”

The city started retrofitting its roadways by adding sidewalks in 2003, after mandating that developers install sidewalks for all new residential and commercial construction. But it’s difficult to gauge the city’s progress in filling in the sidewalk gap because of incompatible measurement systems — streets are measured by the centerline while sidewalks are measured separately on either side of the roadway. In contrast to the fuzzy picture in Greensboro, the portion of streets in the Winston-Salem MPO that lack sidewalks has been clearly quantified: 65 percent.

Cyclists are a frequent sight in downtown Winston-Salem, particularly on West Fourth and Trade streets. The two dieted roadways have long been narrowed to two lanes, slowing motorized traffic, while wide sidewalks and on-street parking provide safety and comfort for pedestrians.

On the western periphery of the central business district, Burke Street serves cyclists as a convenient conduit between downtown and the healthcare and retail hub strung between Baptist Hospital and Thruway Shopping Center that flanks the northern rim of the Ardmore neighborhood. On-street parking and a string of thriving pedestrian-oriented businesses on Burke Street already make the corridor copacetic for cycling, and shared lane markings only enhance the comfort level. On a recent visit to the street, I counted cyclists traveling in either direction at a rate of roughly one every six minutes.

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Another example of the city’s investment in bicycle infrastructure is a section of bike lane on Northwest Boulevard from Hawthorne Road to Reynolda Road that passes Wiley Middle School and Hanes Park. Cyclists dressed in spandex share the corridor with a number of runners, emphasizing recreation and fitness over necessity or conveyance.

I briefly chatted with Don Noakes, a certified public accountant.

“For me, it’s a break from work, and it’s cardio,” he said. “I work in the house from my desk, and I get up and ride 10 or 15 miles.”

He said he generally sticks to Northwest Boulevard, although he sometimes makes detours into downtown to take in the scenery.

Daniel Wirtheim — the Triad City Beat intern and photographer for this story — and I watched a woman in a motorized wheelchair roll down the bike lane and cross the busy intersection at Reynolda Road. With the bike lane ending she rolled onto the curb ramp and continued on the sidewalk. Clearly, at least in some cases, bike lanes and sidewalks are used more for necessity than recreation.

A proposed bike expressway — or pedestrian/biking path separated from motorized traffic — along Business 40 linking Liberty Street at the eastern end of the downtown with Baptist Hospital is one of the big projects on the drawing boards. Meanwhile, a greenway flanking the new Salem Creek Connector will provide a new southeasterly pedestrian and biking connection between downtown and Winston-Salem State University. And the city is sharing costs with the Wake Forest Innovation Quarter to complete a trail along a discontinued raised rail line from Fourth Street down to both the Salem Creek Connector greenway and Business 40 pathway.

In the short term, the city has funds for resurfacing and painting bike lanes on several street segments radiating from the central business district in all directions. Burczyk easily reeled off a list of Winston-Salem streets that are slated for new bike lanes in the next year: Fifth Street, Old Greensboro Road, Waughtown Street, Cleveland Avenue, Liberty Street from Patterson to 14^th, Trade Street from Fourth Street to Glenn Avenue, Academy Street, Hawthorne Road, part of Stratford Road and a new section of Northwest Boulevard that turns into 14^th Street.

The area within a five-mile radius around the city center containing old-line neighborhoods built with sidewalks before World War II might present the best opportunities for walking and biking, Burczyk said, adding that maybe the city should focus its efforts there.

Beyond that, it’s a forbidding territory.

Bill Petrie, who commutes to his job at Downtown Perk from his home out in the county, said he maintains a healthy respect for cars. Riding on suburban thoroughfares and rural roads is dangerous, maybe even more so than when he was growing up in Winston-Salem.

“I follow the mantra of ‘no shortcuts,’” he told me. “One time I cut through a parking lot at the corner of Reynolda Road and Fairlawn Drive. They had strung up a wire across the parking lots that I couldn’t see. I’ve still go scars on my arm to prove it. It about took my head off. I was laying there in the parking lot. Nobody helped me. Ever since then, I don’t cut through parking lots or get up off the road onto the sidewalk.”

Petrie hosts the weekly Winston-Salem Community Bike Ride every Sunday evening. The rides usually start at a location near the city center and loop around 10 miles to explore a different a side of town each week. The group rides slow and no one is left behind.

“It’s not where you live; it’s how you live that’s going to determine the quality of your life,” Petrie said. “It’s not about speed; it’s about enjoying yourself and feeling safe. It’s a confidence builder: You go out into an intersection and you’re exposed on four sides. There’s nothing to protect you when you go through six lanes. That gives you a sense of confidence: I did this.

“We do ride the greenways, but that’s not always an option,” he continued. “We stick to the bike lanes and the low-traffic roads. I scout the roads the week before. I send out a newsletter. I try to give people a heads-up: This part might be hilly.”

The idea is that cycling should be accessible to people of all ages and levels of fitness. Just as Petrie embraces a philosophy of “no shortcuts,” he also follows what he calls the “kindergarten rules.”

“You need to wait in line instead of moving forward,” he said. “There are two schools of thought. Some people see a line of cars and cruise right past them. But you don’t know what the car in front is going to do — if they’re suddenly going to make a turn.”

It should come as no surprise that most of Greensboro’s cycling is concentrated in downtown and the Spring Garden Street corridor that runs westward to UNCG and beyond. The city has installed more than 100 short-term bike racks, mostly around downtown. But UNCG has truly embraced the trend, installing 866 bicycle parking facilities and four bike-repair stations, according to the Greensboro bi-ped plan.

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“They’ve got very few parking spaces, compared to the number of staff and students,” Bicycle & Pedestrian Coordinator Daniel Amstutz told me. “They’re really trying to push alternative transportation.”

The city’s marquee alternative transportation project is the Downtown Greenway, which when complete will circle downtown and form a hub for a future greenway network. Only 0.7 miles of the planned four-mile greenway is currently complete, including the southwest corner and a short segment on the north side.

Although the greenways are considered a vital part of the city’s pedestrian transportation network, the system so far has limited connectivity and tilts to the affluent northwest side of town. The Atlantic & Yadkin Greenway, named after a rail line that once connected Greensboro to a granite mine in Mount Airy, runs from Summerfield down to Markland Drive in Greensboro, hugging Battleground Avenue. The Lake Daniel Greenway carves a northwesterly arc from Cone Hospital to Wesley Long Hospital adjacent to old-line neighborhoods like Westerwood, Lake Daniel and Latham Park. And the Bicentennial Greenway cuts skirts the suburbs from Guilford Courthouse National Military Park to West Market Street near Piedmont Triad International Airport.

The completion of the Atlantic & Yadkin Greenway and the western leg of the Downtown Greenway will require the conversion of a rail spur line. One major hurdle fell away in November 2014 when Chandler Concrete, the last rail user, sold its property and terminated its service with the railroad company, according to the bi-ped plan. The eventual connection of the two greenways dovetails with developer and restaurateur Marty Kotis’ ongoing development of the area he’s dubbed “Midtown.”

The Southeast Greenway is one of the few sections of network that reaches into predominantly African-American areas of the city. Branching off the southwestern corner of the Downtown Greenway, it follows Freeman Mill Road to Sussman Street, where a crosswalk across Randleman Road connects it to the Smith Homes public housing community. The bi-ped plan characterizes the trail as supporting the city’s “goal to improve and enhance greenway connections in underserved areas.”

Although the bi-ped plan states that the greenway was completed in 2013, the asphalt looks worn with uneven edging. During a visit just before dusk on Sunday, I couldn’t find a single person on the greenway. I also found myself alone during a late-afternoon run on the same greenway a couple months ago.

On a forbidding stretch of the Southeast Greenway between Gate City Boulevard and Whitman Street, there were few features of visual interest, with the exception of a flock of geese facing down a fleet of industrial earthmovers at the construction site of a new Boys and Girls Club by the Warnersville neighborhood.

As for bike lanes, in the absence of bond funds set aside for the initiative, new investment has to piggyback on larger road projects. Amstutz said that the widening of Horse Pen Creek Road at the city’s northwest fringe will include a bike lane. And the city is considering adding a cycletrack separated from motorized traffic on a downtown section of Church Street that runs past the Central Library.

“Bike lanes are going to be a part of Lindsay Street, Yanceyville Street, and a lot of roads on the east side,” Amstutz said. “In general, there’s less congestion on the east side. English Street is another one. We want to fill in the gaps on Florida Street and Meadowview Road.”

As the Downtown Greenway is completed and more cyclists come into the center city, Amstutz said he anticipates additional demand for cycling infrastructure on downtown streets.

The city’s interest in improving connectivity for cyclists and pedestrians leads to a focus on “missing links.” For example, Amstutz said city staff has talked about adding bike lanes on Aycock Street between Walker Avenue and Benjamin Parkway to provide a link between UNCG and the Lake Daniel Greenway, but the ramps off Friendly Avenue and West Market Street pose a challenge.

Amstutz said the city plans to improve the crosswalk at Aycock Street and Walker Avenue, a chokepoint for UNCG students walking to class in the morning that is identified in the bi-ped plan as the city’s most dangerous intersection for pedestrians.

Plans to address Westover Terrace and Campus Drive, identified as the third most dangerous intersection for pedestrians, are less definite. The Westover Terrace crossing connects Grimsley High School to the Lake Daniel neighborhood.

Amstutz said staff has talked about dieting Westover Terrace from Benjamin Parkway to Wendover Avenue by reducing car lanes and adding bike lanes, and adding a median and protective refuge for pedestrians.

The project is still at the conceptual stage because of reservations by city traffic engineers, Amstutz said, adding, “It’s kind of on the upper bounds of their comfort level.” When a section of roadway carries about 20,000 vehicles a day, as Westover Terrace does, the level of traffic is generally considered too high to make it a good candidate for dieting.

“I’m not an engineer, but my opinion or understanding is that it’s more of a convenience factor” Amstutz said. “It’s more of a traffic-flow factor about getting people through the intersection. It’s hard to say it would be a safety [concern]. When you reduce the lanes you’re forcing people to go slower because the lanes are also narrower. Safety should be improve d when it comes to taking a roadway with a lot of traffic and trying to shrink it.”

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There’s no hard data on the number of people who are walking and cycling in either city. The Greensboro bi-ped plan suggests “walking for recreation is not uncommon,” adding the practice appears to be on a continual decline as a means of transportation.

Whether for recreation, health or necessity, for some it’s essential.

I encountered Michael P. Funderburk, a 31-year-old landscaper, walking home from church on Gate City Boulevard at dusk on Sunday. He said he took up walking at his girlfriend’s suggestion.

“In this day and age people my age should get out and walk instead of watching TV and playing videogames,” he told me. “It’s been encouraged by our government for decades to improve health and wellbeing.”

He had some trouble with the heat earlier this summer, so now he generally schedules his walks for the evening.

“Take a bottle of water,” he advised. “Every 15 minutes sit down and take a break. Don’t drink no soda. Gatorade’s okay, but soda actually makes you more thirsty. I have heart problems, so I easily get overheated.”

In Winston-Salem, Matthew Burczyk said he expects that downtown redevelopment and increased density will drive more biking and walking trips. But outlying neighborhoods will pose a greater challenge.

“You can put in walking trails, but when a school and a store is far away, people are going to continue to drive there,” Burczyk said.

While an overlapping network of sidewalks, bike lanes and greenways is a stated goal of the city, the city’s bicycle and pedestrian planning document acknowledges that “it will be many years before the Winston-Salem urban area has a complete network” of the three types of facilities.

“It took 60 to 70 years to get where we are now from World War II,” Burczyk said. “It’s going to take multiple years to get walkable and bike-able communities. It’s going to take time to retrofit the old streets and put in sidewalk.”

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Walking and biking, by the numbers

Percentage of streets in the Winston-Salem metro planning area that lack sidewalks: 65

Number of years it will take to bring Greensboro sidewalks rated as “poor” up to standard, at the city’s current rate of spending: 82

Number of pedestrian crashes in Winston-Salem between 2002 and 2011: 700+

Number of bicycle crashes in Winston-Salem between 2002 and 2011: 300+

Number of bicycle crashes in Greensboro between 2007 and 2012: 288

Number of pedestrian crashes involving a motorist in Greensboro between 2007 and 2012: 848

Number of pedestrian crashes at Greensboro’s most dangerous intersection, South Aycock Street and Walker Avenue, between 2007 and 2012: 7

Number of pedestrian crashes at Greensboro’s third most dangerous intersection, Campus Drive and Westover Terrace, between 2007 and 2012: 4

Amount of money earmarked for street resurfacing in Winston-Salem (in millions of dollars): 15.3

Amount of money the city of Greensboro would have to spend on street resurfacing to meet immediate needs (in millions of dollars): 97.7

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