Making a Small City Smaller: Saving Lives through Better Infrastructure

Dave Tamulonis

Reflecting on the recent death of a cyclist, Dave Tamulonis advocates for safer infrastructure for all road users and hopes that a recent influx of funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Safe Streets and Roads for All initiative will translate into a Vision Zero plan for Erie.

In December, a 66-year-old cyclist was struck by a car on Eighth and Liberty streets and later died as a result of his injuries. The driver fled the scene and police are still looking to identify them through security footage. My wife and I drove by the scene shortly after it happened and were rerouted around the flood of emergency lights on our way to our home five blocks away that evening. Cyclist and pedestrian deaths and injuries are far more common in our community than most people realize. In September, a 46-year-old cyclist was killed in an accident on Peach Street. In November, three pedestrians were struck by a vehicle on State Street and sent to the hospital. A man was hit by a vehicle at 38th and Bayfront back in July. It may be even more surprising for readers to learn that there are similarly sized cities that routinely record zero pedestrian and cyclist deaths each year like Hoboken, New Jersey and Berkley, California.

The main difference between Erie and the cities with the lowest rates of pedestrian deaths should surprise no one: planning and proper infrastructure. Through aggressive Vision Zero strategies like street redesigns, lower speed limits, and increased visibility at intersections, cities have been able to nearly eliminate the threat of accidental pedestrian and cyclist deaths by vehicle. Vision Zero is a global road safety strategy that aims to eliminate traffic fatalities by acknowledging human error and designing safer transportation systems for everyone. Originating in Sweden, it's a multi-disciplinary approach involving engineering, education, enforcement, and policy – prioritizing vulnerable users and treating traffic safety as a public health issue.

The idea behind Vision Zero is simple: design our cities around those who are most vulnerable because they are at the highest risk of suffering traffic-related injury and death. The benefits made to our city will then benefit everyone. Drivers also benefit from high visibility crosswalks and protected bike lanes because being able to see cyclists and pedestrians makes it easier to avoid accidents. Having designated and protected spaces for this traffic reduces bicycle and foot traffic on the road, making it safer for vehicles. Increased lighting reduces the risk of crime, vehicular accidents, and pedestrian deaths. Lower speed limits on residential and commercial corridors reduce the amount of damage when crashing a car into another (accidents do still happen) and make it safer for children to play on the sidewalks in our neighborhoods.

Luckily and conveniently, the City of Erie was just recently awarded a $20 million federal grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Safe Streets and Roads for All initiative in late December, specifically to fund a Vision Zero Plan to reduce fatal crashes through multiple infrastructure improvements. I look forward to seeing these developments take place over the next year, but it still doesn't address the social issue in Erie: why do people often oppose developments like this?

The number one reason I see in comment sections is taxes. "I don't bike. My taxes should pay for the roads. I drive a car!" This argument of course is grounded in selfishness and a lack of knowledge, but that's the great thing about federal grants: an infinitesimally small amount of your taxes are involved. Grants like this actually save your tax dollars. They're specifically granted for a single purpose so that a proportionally larger share of your city tax burden doesn't have to be used for that funding purpose. It frees up the city to make improvements without raising your taxes or taking away from other necessary city services like education, fire, and police. These types of grants from both the commonwealth and the federal government are (sadly) usually the only way very specific quality of life improvements like this can happen for smaller municipalities. I will gladly volunteer to personally pay you back the $0.0001 of your federal tax burden (that you already paid) that made this possible for our community.

Other public comments often center around the thought that "this money should be used for X instead." Again, this is why grants are important. This money exists and has already been collected, appropriated, and awarded for one specific purpose: to fix our streets. If we didn't get this money, some other city or municipality would. This money cannot be used for housing support, education, food pantries, community centers or otherwise (even though we also desperately need funding for those things). This is money that will either help us or not be sent to Erie at all. Isn't it better that we are the ones who have been awarded this money?

Finally, and this is the most cynical and selfish: "I don't want any of this on my street." This NIMBY ("Not In My Backyard") complaint was seen often during the city's battle to install bike lanes on Greengarden Boulevard. In the Facebook comments of the JET 24 article about the city's bike lanes on Greengarden one gentleman wrote, "Why do you need to bike on Greengarden? Go to Presque Isle to bike."

I'm going to be generous and suggest that it may not have even occurred to this man that some people are riding bicycles not just for leisure, but because they must. Maybe they can't afford a car and a bicycle offers them a much more efficient way to get from Point A to Point B than simply walking. And maybe, just maybe, that person needs a way to safely traverse Greengarden Boulevard to get to their destination. A more likely assessment of this comment and the overall sentiment from the residents on Greengarden that unsuccessfully fought the bike lanes is that they are knowingly trying to prevent lower income people from using their street.

Fighting the installation of bike lanes is akin to waging class warfare against the people that would benefit the most from using them. Greengarden Boulevard is in the city and city living requires compromise. These residents benefit from all the things a city offers you: reliable utilities, reliable police and fire response, free education for your children, clean water, proximity to amenities and resources, relatively well-kept roads that lead to said amenities and resources, and in return you occasionally have to acknowledge that your non-vehicle-owning neighbors deserve a safe way to get to those amenities and resources as well.

Healthy and safe cities have abundant pedestrian and cycling infrastructure. Lanes legitimize and concentrate bike traffic in one spot to achieve both safety in numbers and increased vehicular awareness. Bike lanes are not just for cyclists, they are also helpful for vehicle users' awareness of cyclists. I would guess the new bike lanes on 10th Street have increased the amount of folks biking on that street already. If there is a safe way to use a bicycle on a street, people will use it. Additionally, bike lanes democratize a street. A bike lane is a compromise; take a little bit of the vehicular lane to make space for those who don't have a car to safely use that street to go somewhere. And look! We don't even have to raise your taxes to do it.

And the kicker is that all of this is so that people don't die. Not just that people are comfortable, safe, or otherwise placated, but that people literally won't be killed by cars. People living in your community, your neighbors, are dying completely avoidable deaths that can be designed away at a negligible expense to you. This is a public health and safety issue.

Congratulations to the outgoing administration of the City of Erie for securing this money and best wishes to the incoming administration as they look to implement these changes. The road to progress may be bumpy, but at least it will have some high visibility crosswalks.

David Tamulonis is a musician and educator who works at Erie Downtown Partnership managing community events and activities in Downtown Erie. He can be reached at davidtamulonis@gmail.com.