A State Highway Administration interim report on the bike lanes on Old Georgetown Road showed that none of the 35 crashes that occurred from October 1, 2022 to March 15 involved pedestrians or bicyclists.
Before the resurfacing and lane allocations for bicyclists took place, there were 40 crashes between Jan. 1, 2022 to Oct. 1, 2022 of which six were pedestrian or bicylist related.
The bike lanes and buffers installed along a two-mile stretch of Old Georgetown in the area of Tilden Lane to Ryland Drive have been praised by many cyclists and condemned by drivers who say the loss of lanes have increased their driving time.
Delegate Marc Korman told MCM, “I think the bike lanes are acting as a buffer from the sidewalk, which was important and necessary becomes most of Old Georgetown Road has no buffer – not even a grass strip – between the road and sidewalk.”
As far as the study is concerned, Korman said that “any data on bike usage is only anecdotal but State Highway has agreed to actually collect data on this for the post-installation study this summer.”
He also noted, “The crash data is not using comparable periods so we need more clarity on that to do a true comparison.”
According to the interim study, the length of time of a traffic cycle at most intersections increased from 150 to 180 seconds, except for the I270 ramp terminal signals, whose cycle length was reduced to 120 seconds.
Travel time “increased significantly following the installation of the bike lanes, it reduced to levels comparable to before conditions over time,” according to the report.
That report details volumes at morning and evening rush hours at specific intersections, with some showing a decrease in volume while others remained constant. Altogether, travel time increased about 7%, according to the interim report.
Interim Analysis on the Old Georgetown Road/MD-187 bike lanes was released by @MDSHA Their report is here: https://t.co/c97a4IRW4M
Below is a cover email I used to send this out to constituents who had expressed an interest. pic.twitter.com/jGQT8N1F0K
— Marc Korman (@mkorman) April 3, 2023
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