Fremont Roads And Cyclists: Do Those Green Poles Save Lives?

FREMONT, CA — Fremont’s right-hand turns have gotten tighter, thanks to construction intended to protect bicyclists. The city has been placing barriers between car and bike lanes in an effort to reduce traffic collisions.

The barriers are one part of Fremont’s Vision Zero policy, adopted in September 2015, which set the goal for zero fatal and life-altering injuries by 2025.

After approving the Vision Zero policy, the City Council redirected $2.5 million in city funding to implement 13 steps to achieve the zero-tolerance traffic safety goal. Among those 13 steps: tame high-speed arterial streets and build better bikeways.

Designing bike-friendly streets in Fremont means getting into the mind of a local cyclist.

“Separated bike lanes are about designing for a different type of cyclist than engineers in the U.S. have typically designed for,” said Senior Transportation Engineer Matthew Bomberg. “Rather than a facility oriented towards 'strong and fearless' cyclists, they are designed to make bicycling accessible to individuals who are 'interested but concerned' — those who want to travel by bicycle but are not comfortable riding in traffic.”

Hence, the green poles residents have noticed peppering an increasing number of Fremont streets.

Some streets will also have protected intersections, which place an island off the corner, between turning cars and bikes. Because the sharpness of the turn is increased at a protected intersection, cars are forced to slow, and any bikers continuing straight will be in the driver’s front view, instead of the blind spot on the side.

FREMONT BIKE PLANS

As part of Vision Zero, the city has charted goals for bike safety in its Bicycle Master Plan. The plan calls for 105 miles of bikeways, including 32 miles of separated bike lanes, which include those separated by raised posts or by the sidewalk. So far, Fremont has 18 miles of separated bike lanes, according to Bomberg.

This year, Fremont released a report detailing the results of Vision Zero so far.

According to the report, the past three years have seen a 45% reduction in major traffic crashes involving a fatality or severe injury, compared to the three years prior to implementing Vision Zero.

For bicyclists in particular, major crashes decreased 23%, from 4.3 per year in the three years from 2013 to 2015 to 3.3 per year in 2018 to 2021.

From 2015 to the report’s release in May, Fremont had 11 major crashes involving a cyclist. Eight of those crashes occurred on roads without a separated bikeway.

Fremont also earned silver-level recognition as a Bike-Friendly Community from the League of American Cyclists, partially because of the protected bike lanes.

In 2021, the city has had eight traffic fatalities so far, one of which involved a cyclist. Released in late July, the number of 2021 traffic fatalities is the same as the year-end number of traffic fatalities Fremont had in 2019 and 2018, according to City-Data.

“Although this recent surge of serious collisions is of concern, it should be noted that since Vision Zero began, the City of Fremont has been rated as one of the safest cities in the State and Nation,” Fremont Police wrote in a release about the fatalities.

COMMUTE CHOICES

Cyclists represent 17% of all crashes, but less than 1 percent of trips, the Fremont Vision Zero report says.

According to Bay Area Metro, using U.S. Census Bureau data, just 0.3 percent of Fremont residents commute by bike to work, while 0.4% of those who work in Fremont bike to work -- the lowest share of transit choices among the survey options.

Most residents — 71.7 percent — drive alone to work, while 9.6 percent carpool. 78.1 percent of Fremont workers drive alone to work, while 10.9 percent carpool.

Bomberg did say bike counts appeared to go up last year. 2020 was an atypical year, with less overall travel, but bike counts increased by 1 percent, even while Bay Area toll bridge volumes decreased by up to 45 percent and BART ridership decreased 88 percent.

SAFER SPEEDS

While the extent to which Vision Zero encourages more cycling, it has had a measurable dampening effect on the speed of Fremont’s streets.

The city conducted speed surveys on approximately 100 street segments in 2019, Bomberg said, many of which included buffered or separated bike lanes. The surveys found that speeds were reduced on 27 miles of roadways, with the most common reduction being from 40 to 35 mph.

Slower streets are an intended effect of Vision Zero — Bomberg called them “safer speeds.” Before Vision Zero, many of Fremont’s roads had 12 to 14-foot-wide lanes, which cause drivers to feel comfortable going fast — behavior the city is hoping to curb by trimming up wide lanes on city streets and giving the space to cyclists.

Crashes are more likely at higher speeds, he said, since it’s harder to react in time and the car takes longer to brake. With faster speeds, more energy is transferred, so crashes tend to be more severe. A pedestrian struck at 20 mph has a 90 percent chance of survival whereas one struck at 40 mph has a 20 percent chance of survival, Bomberg said.

Slower speeds are also the result of protected intersections; because the island sticks out from the curb, the turn is sharper and vehicles must slow down to make the turn. As a result, drivers have a greater chance of seeing pedestrians or cyclists moving straight through and stopping in time.

TRAFFIC TRADEOFF

These traffic-slowing techniques are according to Vision Zero’s plan, but they come with a tradeoff that has haunted Bay Area drivers for years: congestion.

The protected intersections at Fremont Boulevard and Mowry Avenue or Fremont and Stevenson Boulevard, slated to complete construction this fall, also remove the right turn lane, which means cars passing through slow as they wait for cars to turn right.

According to Bomberg, traffic congestion is less of a road design problem and more of a housing and jobs problem. Explosive job growth in the South Bay and Peninsula accompanied with housing added in the Tri Valley and Central Valley has caused Fremont to become a bottleneck for traffic.

“Traffic congestion is a much bigger issue than local roadway design or safety initiatives, and is best solved through regional land use policy and regional transportation investments,” Bomberg said.

Bomberg said there might be a marginal delay in commute for Fremont drivers, as a result of removing right-turn lanes.

“It's not something that we expect to be substantial,” he said, estimating. “For most people, it should be in the second to minutes of delay.”

Bomberg said the city recognizes the impact on commute times, and has implemented measures like upgraded traffic lights to improve the flow of traffic at intersections. He also pointed back to Vision Zero’s overall focus: safety.

“This is part of an overall change in philosophy and approach that the city has been implementing for more than five years now where safety is our highest priority,” Bomberg said. “That means small increases in delay to make an intersection overall more safe, that's what our guiding policy is now.”

Your neighbors have been discussing Vision Zero! Check out this neighbor post about the traffic safety infrastructure changes. Get in on the conversation by leaving a comment or making your own post.