Our current streetcar tracks are dangerous for bicyclists--and what can be done about it | Streetsblog USA

Headlines are quick hits from media outlets from Missouri and around the world. Follow the headline link for the full story. The source of this headline says:

As someone who has wiped out on streetcar tracks, I can attest that a solution is needed, or else H Street runs the risk of becoming a death trap for people on two wheels, sacrificing one form of sustainable transportation for the sake of another. Luckily, there are lots of options.

First of all, there’s no reason for cyclists to eat pavement because of abandoned streetcar tracks. Even if it’s expensive to remove the tracks, as cities usually claim, there’s no reason they can’t fill them in with cement.

Jonathan Maus at BikePortland, in search of a good solution for his city, found a German product called veloSTRAIL, a plastic insert for rail tracks designed to depress under a streetcar wheel but not a bike, but it’s designed for a different kind of rail than what they have in Portland.

Streetsblog’s own Steven Vance found an even simpler solution years ago. He advocates for rubber flanges in streetcar tracks that are depressed by the weight of a streetcar wheel but not a bike. The only place he knows of where it’s used in the U.S. is on the extremely low-traffic Cherry Avenue Bridge track in Chicago that sees no more than a few trains a month.

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Our current streetcar tracks are dangerous for bicyclists--and what can be done about it | Streetsblog USA

MoBikeFed comment: Similar to the streetcar projects outlined above, both Kansas City and St. Louis are currently in the process of installing streetcar tracks that are far more dangerous to bicyclists than they need to be--all because of federal regulations around the purchase of streetcar rails.

This situation needs to change, and the solutions that Streetsblog outlines may be good steps in the right direction.

In the meanwhile, we can only warn Missouri bicyclists to stay well away from the new streetcar tracks in St. Louis and Kansas City.

- Choose other routes if you can.

- Always cross the tracks at a 90 degree angle; never less than a 75-80 degree angle; never cross tracks that are running parallel to your direction of travel.

- If you don't have room to turn to get the proper angle to cross the tracks, you will have to stop and lift your bicycle over the tracks. Yes, the tracks are that dangerous.

- The slots in these tracks are deep enough to grab either your front OR your rear wheel and cause you to have a serious fall.