Bike Accident Could Lead To Changes In Road Striping

CHATHAM – Jim Dowd is an avid bicyclist, riding at least five days a week, mostly on the Old Colony Rail Trail.

 In early June, while riding along the recently repaved section of the bike trail near Chatham Airport, he struck the six-inch curb between the raised path and the road, tumbling over the handlebars.

 “I landed on my head,” he recalled. A good-quality bike helmet saved him from a serious head injury, but he suffered cuts and bruises on his legs and road rash on his arm. 

 He attributed the accident to the optics of the line striping between the road — a white stripe — and the top of the raised curb, marked by a yellow stripe. Riding, the two stripes appear to converge and seem to be on the same plane, he said.

 “It looked like they were on the same level,” he said.

 He wondered if the accident was just that, a fluke, until his brother told him that the exact same thing happened to him, in the same spot, just a few days later.

 “I wonder how many times it’s happened and not been reported,” Dowd said.

 He contacted Public Works Director Rob Faley and explained what had happened. 

 The raised curb is designed to protect bicyclists on the bike path, said Faley in a phone interview. It’s not possible to eliminate it, but “creative line striping” might help fix the issue of differentiating between the street and the bike path, he said. He was researching possibilities and said additional striping could be in place as soon as this week.

 Other than Dowd and his brother, Faley said he has had no other reports of cyclists hitting the curb.

 The issue seems relegated to about a 200-foot section of the path roughly from the airport parking area along George Ryder Road to the crosswalk near the terminal building. 

 Improvements to the bike trail between the airport and George Ryder Road were completed earlier this year. The project was designed to provide a connection for bikers between the trail and the West Chatham village center and to upgrade both the roadway and the section of the path along the street. Safety was a major impetus for the work. George Ryder Road can be busy, especially in the summer, and Faley said bicyclists sharing the road with vehicles for a segment of the path was not the best situation. He’s since heard from people who feel much safer now. 

 The total project cost about $880,000, with more than $700,000 coming from state trail grants.

 “We really did it for safety,” Faley said.

 Dowd, a homeowner in town since 1989 and retired from Wall Street since 1999, said he is concerned that another accident could happen to someone not wearing a helmet. While it won’t keep him off the bike path, he said he looks forward to seeing Faley’s solution and hopes the town doesn’t find itself in a lawsuit should the same thing happen again.