Did the new trolley tracks claim their first life?
It sure looks like it. Dennis McKinney, 47, was killed just prior to the intersection of Congress and the 4th Avenue tunnel yesterday morning. He was riding a motorized bicycle. The police have reported that witnesses saw him lose control of his bike and “run into another vehicle.”
Hopefully the official police report will be available today and I will have more information, but judging from the location of the paint markings on Congress, it seems that Mr. McKinney probably hit the tracks and went down. A photo indicates his rear wheel was struck. Did he go down and then get run over?
This is probably the most dangerous intersection in Tucson for bicyclists, or at least the most dangerous one that is commonly used. I am curious to know where Mr. McKinney was going and where he was coming from. Had he just made the turn from Eastbound Broadway, and was he trying to navigate traffic to get across the tracks and proceed through the tunnel? I do that frequently and even with an abundance of caution and many years of experience riding over tracks, it is still unnerving and dangerous.
It’s made worse by the confusion experienced by drivers who are trying to figure out what lane they need to be in to go west on Toole, as well as still other drivers who are turning onto Congress from the eastern Toole entrance, who may be needing to merge quickly across two lanes to proceed down Congress. It’s a mess.
Hopefully we will know more soon.
My deep condolences to Mr. McKinney’s family and friends.
–Erik Ryberg
July 6th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
I rode that through spot on Sunday morning (July 4th) at about 5:30 a.m. and without any traffic. I rode west on Broadway, through the tunnel and then to westbound Congress. There’s a bike lane through the tunnel that disappears after you get through it, leaving one right at the tracks running parallel to the direction of one’s travel. It was pretty scary with no traffic. I resolved then to avoid that route, especially if a there’s any traffic present.
July 6th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
The signage is as confusing as it can
be. The BIG left-pointing road arrows
indicate, “Merge left!”
Signs say, “4th Ave., right:
Toole (NB) straight”
Straight from the right lane?
So people go to the center lane
thinking the right lane ends and
it’s straight onto Toole…WRONG.
Those three lanes need to be
distinctly indicated by solid lines
because the illusion is there are
only two. Driver’s behavior clearly
tells you that.
We all know the tracks are there:
it’s trying to do a normal maneuver
or being forced onto them by traffic
that will swallow you up.
July 6th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
I posted this comment on Tucson Velo’s facebook page;
http://www.fox11az.com/news/local/Bicyclist-Dies-in-Downtown-Crash-97803264.html has a picture showing where bike lie. it shows that it happened near the crosswalk where you walk from parking lot to sidewalk leading to bridge over the underpass to maynard. You know the fork one continue to congress and one continue to 4th ave north, just before that.
http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/region_central_southern_az/tucson/bike-rider-killed-in-downtown-tucson
it says cyclist hit a vehicle traveling in middle lane on congress st and toole ave.
There’s a bike lane for those coming from broadway but end at intersection where broadway become toole. Then bike lane resume on 4th ave going underpass.
July 6th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
Also, there’s not enough enforcement of law on this area of intersection. There are no cameras anywhere monitoring the intersection. They may have seen differently than what witness saw.
July 6th, 2010 at 9:55 pm
Crossing the tracks is scary. Hoping that no one makes a right turn on top of me as I try to go to Toole (straight) is scary. Doing both at the same time is perilous.
The first block of 4th Avenue north of the underpass is really bad mostly because the asphalt is in such bad shape. It would be great to have a bike lane on 4th though.
July 6th, 2010 at 11:03 pm
I am so very sorry for those who knew and loved this man, Dennis.
The City of Tucson has little regard for safety and/or common sense on its roads (lip-service is rampant, of course), especially as concerns the design of the disastrous new 4th Ave. underpass. It just amazes me to what lengths people will go to try to explain away this nightmarish waste of money and lives.
A TDOT big-shot admitted to me months ago that parts of the design were, uh, not very good, and that there was more work to come to make it better. Right. Why didn’t they design and build it right to begin with (how many millions over budget was it?!), and when are they going to fix it?
And please, no advocating for bike lanes on 4th Ave. Bike lanes would make it that much worse. Just take the damn lane. Cars in a hurry have no business driving amidst all the peds and bikes on 4th Ave., anyway.
(Motor vehicles, with few exceptions, have no business on 4th, period, but then that’s… well, that’s impossible to hope for, apparently, in this absurd land.)
Again, my condolences to Dennis’s family and friends. Maybe others will be spared if this terrible death causes some changes. Tucson is NOT bike-friendly, except compared to even more regressive places.
July 7th, 2010 at 7:08 am
[...] Ryberg, who is also an attorney representing Tucson cyclists, wrote in a recent blog entry that from the markings on the street it appears the tracks contributed to the [...]
July 7th, 2010 at 7:26 am
I’ve added some photos and video to my post.
http://tucsonvelo.com/news/trolley-tracks-may-have-contributed-to-death-of-bike-rider/
July 7th, 2010 at 8:26 am
Also: Drivers come speeding out of the Broadway underpass and suddenly find themselves in a curve, with cyclists, trolley tracks, pedestrians, merging traffic, and a stop light. For drivers, it’s a sudden transition from a driving environment that looks and feels like an interstate highway to a driving environment that looks and feels like a village.
I don’t think the city will start enforcing traffic laws there until after the first collision between a car and the Modern Streetcar. So we have a bit of a wait.
July 7th, 2010 at 11:51 am
The underpass baffles me. There’s such a nice wide bike lane under it that leads to a nearly impossible bike intersection. I often go under it on the way to Armory park. This means jumping in front of 2 lanes of traffic while navigating tracks to make the left turn to go around the block to Broadway. I see many other bikes going straight across the traffic to the sidewalk and riding the sidewalk around to 4th and riding through the HAWK to get to the South end of 4th into Armory park. All which is illegal and can earn a ticket.
I’ve also heard that TPD has stationed motorcycle cops at the North end of the underpass on a few occasions to ticket bikes that don’t come to a complete stop at the sign. How bike unfriendly is the city trying to make this?
I also often am going East on Tool and want to turn up 4th. I’ve seen other bikes do this by going the wrong way through the intersection. A very dangerous thing to do. I usually ride over the pedestrian bridge to the other side, which is out of the way and probably not legal either.
The tracks are hazardous. During the start of the Urban Assault ride bikes were dropping like flies turning into the underpass. I know that not much can be done to make them safer, but I wonder if there would have been a way to design a bike route through this intersection to keep bikes away from them, or at least not have to ride parallel to them and cross them at dangerous angles.
I agree with Leo, there shouldn’t be bike lanes on 4th. I ride on 4th often and wouldn’t want to be forced into the door zone by a bike lane. I feel safer mixing with cars on this stretch.
July 7th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
B.J.: the thing baffles me, too. But mostly I am baffled by what to do with it now that we have it. I don’t want it to claim more lives, but I am fairly certain it will. Every year we have a new group of college students who will increasingly be using bicycles and who will approach that intersection for the first time. I cringe thinking about it. Hopefully the Tuesday Night Bike Ride will continue to go through it both ways to give people a feel for it in a relatively safe (from cars) environment.
There doesn’t seem to be a single thing about the design that is any good. Anyone want to make a stab at retrofitting it? What can be done with it?
EBR
July 7th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
That intersection was built for the
street car and everything else be damned.
It’s no good for pedestrians, cars,
bikes or anything that happens to
wander into it. The engineers should
be made to publicly apologize for
giving the taxpayer such a horrible
piece of work.
I was watching this afternoon and in
the space of 30 minutes there were
upwards to two dozen lane errors.
After nearly a year, people still are
going to Toole from the center lane
and Congress from the right lane.
The right lane should end with the turn
to the underpass. That’s the standard way
when the pavement arrows merge traffic
left at right-turn-only lanes.
Eliminate the little (right) lane
section from 4th to Toole.
Let what is now the center lane become
a Congress OR Toole ‘Y’ split lane.
Shave off a foot or two of the island
going into the underpass to make the lane
wide enough for a proper bike lane and mark
it with some of that green stuff.
All that might help to bring some
order to that mess, but people will
still die on the tracks. The only
thought on that would be to re-route
the tracks down Euclid to Broadway
and into downtown.
July 7th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
I’m willing to wait as long as we waited for the new underpass, while something safer is retrofitted. Two years is a long time but it would be worth it.
Oh, and I love the photos of all of us, and I love how the fountain design unintentionally invited us to play with the steel and the landscape rocks to make ephemeral grid-based text and pictures!
signed,
the love child of Pollyanna and Fred Rogers
July 7th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Coghauler, I like those ideas! I almost got creamed by a limo once that went to Toole from the middle lane, right-hooking me as I attempted to stay to the right of the middle lane and proceed up Congress.
I think another “fix” would be a sign on Broadway coming under the tracks or perhaps a bit later that announces that bicycles may take the full lane. This because a bicyclist coming west on Broadway hoping to take Congress will have to merge across to the middle lane with cars on both sides AND have to do this while negotiating the tracks, two lights, and motorists who are most likely confused not just by the traffic controls but by the cyclist’s intentions.
If there is any place in Tucson that needs that sign, it’s right there.
EBR
July 7th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
Worst frickin’ intersection in town and as dangerous for bikers AND pedestrians AND vehicles as anything I’ve ever seen! Perfect storm of bad design. Whoever put the tracks, turnabouts, curves, land markers and lights in that configuration must’ve been smokin’ some really good stuff! Now we get to pay for it in lives lost. – Steph
July 9th, 2010 at 9:51 am
I agree that the lane assignments are very confusing. I think one solution would be to eliminate all right turns onto Toole. All westbound Broadway traffic should either turn north up 4th or continue west on Congress. And agree that signs and pavement markings showing bikes to take the lane for Congress.
Erik – will the City DOT be hesitant to make any retrofits now that we’ve had a fatality for fear that doing so would be admitting there is a design flaw (i.e. financial culpability)?
July 9th, 2010 at 12:55 pm
Hi Colby–
No, under our Rules of Evidence it is not permissible to use evidence of subsequent repairs against a defendant. We have this rule for precisely the reason you bring up — we want people to fix things when they pose a danger, and not have to worry about having to explain themselves later in court
EBR.
July 9th, 2010 at 5:05 pm
I got the police report and it confirms that the trolley tracks were the reason McKinney went down.
It also says the city’s risk financial risk management department was notified when they figured out the tracks might be involved.
http://bit.ly/djzDnI
July 10th, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Hello Erik,
I was just having a discussion about cycling safety with my wife. This is a point of contention between us, we are having a baby girl in October.
She believes that it is extremely dangerous to ride the kid in a trailer, while I believe this risk is low, and the benefits of us riding out-way the risk. She is also an avid cyclist (40-80 miles a week before she was pregnant). Recently she has seen 3 or 4 cycling accidents on Golf Links.
We are both scientists, so I would like to see studies on the following :
1a. Bicycle death statistics vs car death statistics (these must be per miles or per hours to be valid)
1b. The above specifically for Tucson (does the police department keep track of annual cyclist and motorist related deaths?)
2. Safe routes from Golf Links and Pantano to the start of the Aviation Bikeway. Are there any? Golf Links is a fast ride, but pretty unsafe (people barely, barely give 2-3 feet when passing).
3. General cycling statistics specifically for Tucson (number of riders, number of miles ridden, age brackets, etc.)
Thanks
July 10th, 2010 at 8:52 pm
Comparing the incidence of fatal accidents based on miles traveled wouldn’t be that useful. Generally speaking, cars cover more ground, faster.
July 11th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
So inevitably when the city gets sued for causing this man’s death, will there be anything left in the bike budget for actually improving the conditions in the city? Is the city any less liable if someone gets run down from behind going down Speedway in the bike lane? What I’m getting at, is if Tucson was a less-cycling centric city, would it be considered “your own fault” for riding a bike in a city with no infrastructure?
July 12th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
City of Tucson should ban bicycles, motorized or not, from public roadways that have trolley tracks…
July 12th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
OOPS! and so sorry — to be technically correct we frame the issue:
Resolved: City of Tucson should ban bicycles, motorized or not, from public roadways that have trolley tracks…
Have at it, if you wish…there’s so much that can be brought in.
July 13th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
P.S.
Actually, miles traveled is relevant for most urban commuters, and not for highway miles. Highway accidents are much less likely and less fatal than normal accidents anyway. So yes, you have a point, only non-highway/freeway motorist miles should be compared with cycling miles.
I can ride my bike 10 miles each way from my house to UA or drive the car. Either way, it is the same number of miles traveled.
July 25th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
I was driving home from the burial of my brother Saturday, thinking what a tragic loss it was going to be for all of our family and friends. Dennis was a bright but sometimes troubled man, but he certainly had a great deal to live for. He was trying to get his life completly in order, when this accident happened. He will no longer be able to laugh and smile with his family, no longer will he be able to tell his children that he loves them, no longer will he be able to help those that he surrounded himself with.
I don’t have the answers to how this happened, I’m not sure that anyone will. But I do feel the loss, and I hope there is never another one that happens this way.
For those who have expressed condolences, on behalf of the family, thank you.
This week, when I hand the flag given to me on Saturday to deliver to his children, I will think of all of the good things that he has done in his life, and be thankful for the time that we had with him.
A loving brother.
August 3rd, 2010 at 6:29 pm
As the oldest of Dennis kids, I can only hope that mote lives are not lost needlessly. How do we make Tucsan take notice? How Mich is a life worth? Does someone else have to die for the city to correct the problem?
August 9th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
And… thanks Leo. My dads name was Dennis. He was loved