Sisters Creek Bridge Walkway 7

[bimr]

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Jacksonville family wants lights to be added to the new Sisters Creek Bridge after their loved one was killed in a bicycle accident.

Brandy Harris said Chad Herrington, her 18-year-old brother, was riding his bike on Heckscher Drive the night after Thanksgiving when he didn’t see the sidewalk ending and hit the wall near the end of the bridge.

“What he didn’t know was at the end of the sidewalk, there’s two 90 degree turns that goes down to a creek side,” Harris said. ‘And he hit that wall at 15 miles per hour and him and his bike went over and he hit his head on the sign.”

The victim was not found until a week later.

Reporting

 

[waross]

When I was of bike riding age, it was required by law to have a headlight on a bicycle when riding at night.
What happened?
Was the law repealed as an infringement on personal liberty?
Can I drive my old pickup with the busted headlight in Florida?
Sorry.
I don't see any engineering failure here.


Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

 

[BrianPetersen]

While the design can perhaps be criticised due to lack of signage and the like, it doesn't excuse the bicyclist from riding beyond the limits of his (nonexistent) lighting.

Also ... In my part of the world, bicyclists are supposed to be on the road or in a designated bicycle lane ... not on the sidewalk, which is strictly reserved for pedestrians unless signed otherwise.

I see a breakdown lane that would serve as a perfectly good bicycle lane.

Bicyclist would have been travelling in the wrong direction, too. Supposed to be same direction as traffic.

Not an engineering failure.

 

[JohnRBaker]

They could have at least put-up some reflective warning 'tape' or something. from the photos it would appear that the wall could easily be missed particularly at night, even if the rider had a headlight.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[moon161]

Oof. I grew up and rode thousands of miles in an area that at least as far as the US goes was friendly to cyclists, still hit four times, at least 3 only bent wheels, the other one was I suppose not too many inches from dead. Buffalo NY sure isn't that place. I've been threatened and hasselled for holding a lane or splitting a lane, or riding on the paved shoulder. The look on the face of a guy at a bus stop who thought he was gonna see me die kept me from making the turn that I signalled and had right of way to do. Don't tell me to stay off the sidewalk as needed, I don't tell my sons to.

Bad thing about the dark, you get invisible fast on a bike, if it's clear the sunset can be like switching a light off. I'd miss the guy if I knew him, feel bad for the family. Funny thing, except for main roads, walkers stay off the sidewalks in my neighborhood.

 

[dik]

Still a failure in design... should have mitigated it, and for bikes, because you are off the ground, maybe higher guardrails...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[waross]

Will this do it?

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

 

[ACtrafficengr]

I don't know about Florida, but in NY, it's legal to ride on a sidewalk, but you have to yield to pedestrians. Individual municipalities can pass ordinances prohibiting it, but there is no state law against it.

Yes, legally, lights are required at night, but even then there is no minimum brightness requirement. Many lights are running lights, not head lights. They are meant so drivers can see you, not so you can see.

Maybe this doesn't ride to "engineering failure" but in the absence of a law or ordinance prohibiting riding on the walkway, I'd at least call it bad design.

My glass has a v/c ratio of 0.5

Maybe the tyranny of Murphy is the penalty for hubris. -

http://xkcd.com/319/

 

[BrianPetersen]

I would go along with bad design; the possibility that someone may have been riding a bicycle without lights at night there wasn't foreseen. But if you want to get into that, there are plenty of very common roadway features that are death to one type of road user or another, probably because the risk was never considered, or perhaps it was, but the vulnerable road users were left to fend for themselves.

 

[moon161]

No it wouldn't, Bill. Making misuse explicitly negligent wouldn't deter people from using it out of perceived necessity. Which is to say, if the street is poorly/unlit, if the traffic is faster than 25-30 mph, more than 2 lanes, hard to cross intersections on a bike or crosswalk, these things will all tend to push people onto sidewalks. One thing I don't like about the bridge a half mile from my house, besides having all these features, is that theres no escape from a bad driver, just jersey wall, not even a curb.

 

[itsmoked]

Definitely an engineering failure. Acres of concrete in a concrete desert needs some warnings for alerting people to changes in the pathway. That's electric wheel chair people, runners, skate boarders, hover boarders, e-boarders, bike riders, e-bike riders, whatever. Could be just some stripes on the wall or some lighting, but something.

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[jhardy1]

Hmmm ... a 1-metre breakdown lane on a highway with no lighting, no warning signage, and no bicycle lane markings, or a cycleway / footpath behind a concrete barrier? I know which side of the barrier I would choose if I was riding a bicycle along that road!

That would be the case if they were riding on the roadway, but in most parts of the world, pedestrians and bicycles etc aren't restricted to only use the pathway on the same side of the road as the vehicular traffic. (Is Florida different in this regard?) Follow signage and line marking (if any), and keep right (keep left in some countries) when passing on a 2-way path, are the normal rules.

Yes, the cyclist should have carried lights and worn a helmet. (It's not clear whether he was, but a bike helmet may not have been much use in this situation.) However, designers / builders of public infrastructure have a duty of care to be aware or obvious hazards and provide mitigation - signage, lighting, barriers, etc. (There aren't many main roads that I can think of that have hard hairpin bends without warning signs, reflectors, barriers, etc - especially any built recently.)

http://julianh72.blogspot.com

 

[BrianPetersen]

However, designers / builders of public infrastructure have a duty of care to be aware or obvious hazards and provide mitigation - signage, lighting, barriers, etc.

Around here, they don't do a good job of it ...

Utility poles directly adjacent to the roadway (sorry, the google maps photo vehicle only went on the other side of the road, it's only bad westbound)

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.5565...8goeWyQyg-b34Osb8OqQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

Utility poles (and trees) directly adjacent to the roadway (and they just reconstructed this roadway a couple of years ago)

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.5439...0SJ9Slor42e5dxyKZOVA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

Utility poles directly adjacent to the roadway, and rigid, unyielding concrete structures in the central reservation ... this situation was created because they built a transit lane in the central reservation and had to make it look pretty with concrete ...

https://www.google.ca/maps/@44.0565...epmBgJ-SiOUDus8wp4GA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en

Cable-stayed "guide rails" - these are death to motorcyclists, and I know someone who died that way (RIP Piero) and it was in this area:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.2863...ujVAvf_ZpUwht4C_tyXg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

 

[jhardy1]

Yeah - we have the same issues in Australia - as does most of the world. However, to build new public infrastructure with scant regard to obvious hazards is a bit hard to excuse.

Actually, the evidence doesn't really support that assertion. Impact with roadside barriers of all types comprises well under 10% of all motorcycle fatalities in Australia - it's impact with the road and other vehicles that you really need to be most worried about. W-beam steel barriers ("Armco rail") are over-represented in fatal motorcycle crashes into roadside barriers; they appear to be particularly hazardous to motorcycle riders. Wire-rope barriers have actually shown a significant benefit to reducing vehicle related crash fatalities in Europe and the USA - including motorcycle fatalities. A key aspect is that impact with a rigid post is one of the biggest injury factors for motorcycle riders, and the support posts on wire-rope barriers are deliberately much more frangible than the posts that are needed to support W-beam guardrail etc.

http://casr.adelaide.edu.au/rsr/RSR2009/RS094029.pdf

Motorcycles are a bit of a "problem-child" when it comes to impact barrier design - there's no one solution which is clearly "the best". If you're about to come off at 80 km/hr or more, which wowuld you rather hit: a rigid concrete barrier, a steel W-Beam, twisted cables, or just fly off the road and take your chances with whatever's over the edge?

http://julianh72.blogspot.com

 

[waross]

If you're about to come off at 80 km/hr or more, which would you rather hit: a rigid concrete barrier, a steel W-Beam, twisted cables, or just fly off the road and take your chances with whatever's over the edge?

I drove in the Pacific Coast mountains for many years.
" whatever's over the edge?" Is a big; It Depends.

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

 

[bacon4life]

There was a significant slope leading down to the u-turn wall, so the I am surprised the cyclist was only going 15 MPH.

The location is at

https://www.google.com/maps/@30.397...4!1sgWVR0bQbOsdHv9TDRo_75g!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

 

[JohnRBaker]

Even more reasons for cyclist safety should have been an important criteria in the design and execution of the this bridge construction.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[jhardy1]

https://www.google.com/maps/@30.3973536,-81.46454,...[/URL]]

So if you follow the roads around to the bottom of the ramp you end up here:

https://www.google.com/maps/@30.397...4!1sfVbfdXink1qGrrxLP3ljEQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

There is no signage of any kind, and no lighting - no direction indicators, nothing indicating whether the ramp is mixed use (pedestrians and bicycles) or pedestrians only. (There isn't even a sign indicating that there IS a ramp - if approaching from the lower pathway, you might miss it altogether.)

The little stub wings on the elevated roadway look like they are intended to be to mount future light poles - but it's a pretty poor installation in its current condition. (To be fair - there's no lighting, and not much signage on the road intersection either.)

http://julianh72.blogspot.com

 

[dik]

...or the poor sod in a wheelchair.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[dik]

My Uncle Dennis, who was a geotekkie on the Portage Mountain Damsite had a large aircraft landing light mounted on his front bumper... it lit up the world, so it would seem... when he travelled the backroads, there were occasional 'boulders' on the roadway... it helped him numerous times. 24 volts running off batteries in the trunk, charging from his alternator... I don't know what the circuit was... but thought it was kinda clever...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik