Streetcar rush puts Omaha Bike Network on slippery slope

This report is a collaboration between the  Social Science Data Lab at Creighton University  and  Mode Shift Omaha .

The Streetcar Authority's  Alignment Recomendation Executive Summary  published Sept. 8 acknowledges that "[o]perating the streetcar on Harney near a cycle track would have potential conflicts between modes. A cycle track could be explored on another route, but there are not many alternative options for crossing Interstate 480." However, in contrast to the systematic consideration of impacts to vehicular traffic and pedestrian crossing conflicts, there is no consideration of how the route will interact with  city's current official bike network  beyond the Harney cycle track pilot. Yet, there are well over a dozen additional points of intersection and potential mode conflict. The map below shows these points of potential conflict. Bike infrastructure is illustrated in purple with a dotted line indicating the wayfinding for Omaha Bike Network and solid lines indicating painted bikelanes and the cycle track. Green traces the proposed streetcar route. Brighter teal zones indicate higher average daily bike trips according to the Streetlight data.

Bikes ideally cross tracks at a 90 degree angle, and research suggests any shallower than 60 degrees increases the risk of accident (Chiccino et al 2020; Ling, Cherry, Dhakal 2017). The tour of intersections below illustrates a number of complex crossings of the proposed route with the Omaha Bike Network.

At Turner and 14th Street along Harney visualizations of actual bike traffic pathways detected by Numina sensors installed as part of a grant in May through June provide an indication of relative challenges in avoiding shallow angle encounters.

In addition to the Streetcar Authority's warning of conflict between modes on Harney, Omaha community members have also raised  examples of problems encountered by other cities  in safely designing streetcar infrastructure in relation to cycling.

However, the original 2011 vision for the cycle track is very similar to Vision Zero best practices, while an artist rendering  released by the Omaha Chamber  and HDR depicts what safety research indicates are worst practices (street parking and a shared lane with tracks) (Chiccino et al 2020, Teschke et al 2016).

"On major streets with no bike infrastructure... those without parked cars had less than half the odds of track-involved crashes. ... Protected intersections [ that direct two-stage left turns ], cycle tracks and designated rail rights of way all follow the Swedish “Vision Zero” transport safety principle: acknowledging the inevitability of human error and providing route designs that minimize its consequences...They would prevent most of the track-involved injury scenarios observed in this study." (Teschke et al 2016, p.8-9).

While Teschke et al emphasize infrastructure predictors of crashes over rider characteristics, it is worth noting their findings also suggest that users of rentable bikes and scooters would be at significantly higher risk as less experienced or informed about the dangers of the tracks.  Although many documents referenced on the  official Streetcar Authority page  are not made available, none of those available indicate systematic consideration of integration with bike infrastructure in the same way pedestrian crossings are being considered.

Designing a streetcar system based on Vision Zero principles the City has committed to for both pedestrians and cyclists should be financed as part of the cost of the project overseen by the Authority from the beginning, not left to be addressed after the fact by the City or philanthropy. City council has experienced difficulties in convincing the Mayor's office to allocate city budget resources toward these priorities in the past.

The rush for the library property/streetcar deal has already had  severe consequences on the Omaha Public Library system . City council can use it's authority to help ensure the "total mobility system" doesn't suffer the same fate.