Please contact CT DOT about this!

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This is a sketch of how an on-road bike lane should intersect with a railroad track crossing the road at a severe angle, as is the case on the proposed route of the multi-use trail at East Main St. (CT Rte. 372) here in Plainville. Such a feature allows the cyclist to cross the tracks at, or nearly at, a right angle with two important benefits:
  • prevents the cyclist from having to swerve into the travel lane to make the crossing.
  • prevents the possibility of getting a front wheel caught between the rail and the pavement if riding straight across and being thrown from the bicycle (this happened to me a few years ago, fortunately when the road was not very busy, because I wound up in the travel portion where cars would normally be on a busy day).
This sketch has been shared with the Town Engineering staff, but they have no jurisdiction over a State road, so it was suggested that this be brought to the attention of CT Department of Transportation (CTDOT). I did this recently and received a reply that "someone would look into it." Perhaps, if you were to add your comments to mine, someone will eventually get the message that this is important to cyclists. You can do that here (click on the "Report an Unsafe Biking Condition" and then submit. For further detail, the tracks are owned by PanAm/Southern Railroad. When you get a reply, please share it with us here via a post or by adding a comment to this post.
Thanks.


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