Letter: Encroaching Vegetation Makes Some Town Bike Lanes Unsafe
On the way to Wildwood School. Bike to school day in Amherst, October 4, 2023. Photo: Toni Cunningham
On August 12, Amherst relaunches its “Valley Bike” program. The idea of making e-bikes readily available is great. I say this despite being a strictly pedal-powered bike enthusiast who rides a couple thousand miles a year, who is repeatedly chagrinned as I try to “chase down” a rider in front of me, only to get gapped on hills and realizing, “Oh, wait! That’s an e-bike!”.
All humor aside, something needs to be done to enhance the safety of bicycling around Amherst, especially if the town is encouraging more people to commute by, or simply enjoy riding, bikes. The town’s pot-holed roads are becoming infamous among area drivers and cyclists, electric and not, and this, coupled with a proposed decrease (!!) in the Town Manager’s road budget, no one really expects much improvement. (Potholes, surprisingly, are easier to dodge on a bike than in a car, but it takes a lot of potholes to do in a car’s suspension, but just one to seriously injure a cyclist). True, hazards like downed trees that actually obstruct vehicular traffic are cleared in a timely fashion. But this does not extend to keeping bike lanes free of vegetation overgrowth. There are numerous streets and roads where Amherst riders face a choice between getting raked by knotweed, bittersweet, pasture roses, poison ivy, etc., or pulling into the traffic lanes and risk getting hit.
Solving this problem does not require gobs of cash. Someone with a weed whacker and a day or two could trim back the jungle encroaching on stretches of Amherst roads. If the Superintendent of Public Works is too busy to take a car ride, or better still, toodle around on a bike, and spot where work needs to be done, the police or DPW staff could be asked to note the hazards. If DPW can truly not afford to pay someone for a day or two of trimming and a gallon of gas for a brush cutter, why could it not organize a day (like a quiet Sunday morning) when volunteers could take to the roads and clear away problem plants?
Painted lines paralleling the sides of roads are not the only thing that makes a bike lane. They must be swept free of debris that can trigger flats or falls, holes and especially long deep cracks must be patched, and they must not make a rider choose between lacerations and allergic reactions or being hit. If the town is promoting biking without maintaining its bike lanes, it is being negligent, and we can only hope people don’t get hurt and lawyers are not kept busy.
John Varner
John Varner is a resident of Amherst’s District 3
Roadside Vegetation Management
Federal Highway Administration website pdf
https://highways.dot.gov/safety/other/vegetation-control-safety#traffic
I can’t decide what’s worse, vegetation in the summer, uncleared snow in the winter, potholes on the side of the road all year or the once in a lifetime opportunity lost by not using physically separated (not painted) bike lanes in road redesigns. MassDOT provides guidance on here: https://www.mass.gov/lists/separated-bike-lane-planning-design-guide
I am not a bicycle rider, but I am a serious walker (completed the Camino de Santiago twice in the last 5 years) and have the same issue with overgrown vegetation and trash bins (full and otherwise) along sidewalks. I believe that it is the responsibility of property owners to keep sidewalks that run adjacent to their yards and driveways clear of their yard vegetation* and trash bins.
*Low hanging tree limbs and those reaching out from overgrown shrubs also create a challenge for walkers over a certain height, like me and mine.