Light rail and train tracks are street hazards for people riding bikes. And problems happen more often than we think.
Thanks to co-author Kay Teschke for the link to this study from Ryerson and UBC.
Most such crashes occur when a bike’s front wheel gets caught in the “flangeway” present on all rails. Suddenly, the wheel is going a different direction from the rest of the bike. Wham! Or when the rails are simply slippery from rain, frost, fog and so on. The best advice is to cross the tracks with your front tire perpendicular to the track — or as near as possible to 90 degrees. This can be difficult if, as on Granville Island, the tracks are in the same place as busy motor vehicle and bike traffic.
Conclusions: In a city with an extensive streetcar system, one-third of bicycling crashes directly involved streetcar or train tracks. Certain demographics were more likely to have track-involved crashes, suggesting that increased knowledge about how to avoid them might be helpful. However, such advice is long-standing and common in Toronto, yet the injury toll is very high, underscoring the need for other solutions. Tires wider than streetcar or train flangeways (~50 mm in the Toronto system) are another individual-based approach, but population-based measures are likely to provide the optimal solution. Our results showed that route infrastructure makes a difference to the odds of track-involved injuries. Dedicated rail rights of way, cycle tracks, and protected intersections that direct two-stage left turns are policy measures concordant with a Vision Zero standard. They would prevent most of the track-involved injury scenarios observed in this study.
In metro Vancouver, such tracks are more rare than in active streetcar cities (like Toronto, where this data was gathered). But hazardous tracks persist on Granville Island, and elsewhere. It is remotely possible that Surrey will sprout a light-rail network one day.
I was kinda happy when they removed the track crossing near the Starbucks at Granville Island … all it took was one cold dark rainy night to take me out … and thats with me being an everyday cyclist who’s raced bikes for 13+ years, so sometimes I think they are more lottery than skill.
They can certainly be protected however, I’ve seen rubber patches used either side of the tracks which sink the metal down so it isn’t so deadly, not useful in Toronto where the tracks are everywhere, but would be useful here where the tracks only need to be protected at certain intersections/crossings that aren’t at 90deg.
Granville Island really needs to remove the unused tracks. A lot of people are getting hurt by those.
Or better yet – use them and remove the cars.
As much as tracks may cause 1/3 of cycling crashes (in Toronto) cars still cause more. Certainly we’ve seen study after study that show it’s much safer to ride a bike in Europe where streetcars are common. They’ve done more to tame the car – not removed trams.
The gaps & raised sections in the unused tracks on Granville Island could also be filled in, but this would require regular maintenance. That is, the safety of people riding bicycles would have to be a priority for management.
I agree. All the tracks on Granville Island are now merely decorative and could be replaced by bricks or some other treatment as a reminder of the past.
It’s not just when people are cycling that they’re slippy, it’s also when they’re walking. I’ve seen people slip on them on when walking. (But really Granville Island needs a complete rethink on many levels. Many things are no longer working there.)
Another advantage of Vancouver’s underappreciated electric trolley buses. No rails to create a cycling hazard.
Leaving aside the tracks that may still be in use, there are lots of examples along bike routes where tracks have been abandoned. The first two are on Kent Ave, and the last two on 77th Ave which connects the Kent Ave bikeway to Hudson (to join the new Arbutus Greenway).
http://i349.photobucket.com/albums/q367/jcleigh/Posts/IMG_3521_zpsgnye1ne2.jpg
http://i349.photobucket.com/albums/q367/jcleigh/Posts/IMG_3533_zpsb3gwefcm.jpg
http://i349.photobucket.com/albums/q367/jcleigh/Posts/IMG_3504_zpsavg5hzm5.jpg
http://i349.photobucket.com/albums/q367/jcleigh/Posts/IMG_3505_zpsow2kiisa.jpg
The streetcar track-bicycle issues in Toronto are particularly severe since most of the streetcar routes are on 4-lane streets with on-street parking. This means that cyclists often have to ride closely parallel to the streetcar track, especially if avoiding parking cars and the danger of being doored. Same for Portland’s gutter running streetcar (not LRT) routes. Such a condition would not exist for most typical new LRT systems where the tracks are in their own reservation with other traffic, including cyclists, crossing perpendicularly, rather than travelling parallel and on the tracks.
Notwithstanding the above, there are technical solutions to narrow flange ways and use compressible material so they present a flush surface for cyclists and pedestrians at key locations where they may be crossing the tracks, such as where the tracks turn in an intersection.
I’ve been surprised with how common cycling along tram tracks in Europe is – a few images here: https://flickr.com/photos/44152183@N07/sets/72157632031580421
I once wiped out on a rail track – don’t recall which city. It’s instantaneous. Boom.
Rail tracks are scary. They are a proven hazard. Couldn’t someone sue a city for damages for permitting this known danger to continue.
[Ed: comment edited for violation of comment policy]
Because cyclists don’t get cancer?
Rail is federally regulated. Unless it’s a street car track, then the city has nothing to do with it.
While I understand that rail is federally regulated, I think there is something the City can do. It requires political will, and discussions with the rail operator. If it is an operating rail line, then I think it takes the form of a request. When the pedestrian/bike access at the north end of the Canada Line bridge was being improved, a railway team was out improving the crossing, at the foot of Ash. I spoke to them, and they said their objective was to make it as smooth as possible, given the number of bikes crossing it daily. That track is still in use. If it is not an operating rail line, the railway has little or no incentive to come back and take out old tracks, and the City seems to defer to the railways. The photos above show abandoned spur lines that used to run to buildings that in many cases are not there any longer. The rails are not connected at either end, and simply can’t be used. There are no right of ways or easements involved, looking at VanMap. It is simply a City street, with abandoned steel in it. There should be a campaign to take these abandoned rails out where there is any significant bicycle volume, such as along the Kent Ave bikeway.
That one there doesn’t look like it would be much of a problem to cyclists or motorcycles (which everyone here seems to forget). It’s not parallel or subparallel to the direction of travel. That’s the biggest issue for weather or not there could be an issue.
Those also appear to be mostly filled in, so it’s also mostly mitigated already.
A friend of mine very recently had a bad fall while riding over the tracks on Kent Ave after being momentarily distracted. These 45 deg. crossings are very dangerous, especially on a narrow and busy street since a person riding a bike needs to take a lane width in order to properly cross the tracks at a right angle. Since they are not used they should be removed. Ditto for Granville Island and any other unused tracks which cross city streets at weird angles. How long would it take to fix up a trench on a street which is wide enough to catch car wheels?
In Vancouver? Maybe a decade…
All four crossings in the photos I attached are at oblique angles. Right angles don’t present the same danger.
Are cyclists in this region so careless & well … stupid, that they need diagrams and notices on how NOT to steer into a track? That is akin to disseminating brochures & signs for pedestrians on how to step up over curbs. Seriously, some kids are over-coddled.
What a strange comment. With any of these tracks at oblique angles, the correct procedure is to cross them at 90 degrees. That means signaling, and turning into the traffic lane. You just have to hope that this or a similar truck isn’t coming by at that moment (photo is on Kent Ave).
http://i349.photobucket.com/albums/q367/jcleigh/Posts/IMG_3524_zps87ytfgvz.jpg
We can spend taxpayer’s money fixing the problems, and avoiding the resulting crashes, or we can pay out the same or more in liability claims. Seems stupid to me to injure people and then pay more in claims than to avoid the situation in the first place, particularly for tracks that serve no purpose other than to cause crashes.
Jeff,
Your words: “Seems stupid to me to injure people and then pay more in claims than to avoid the situation in the first place” — yet, you advocate the Phase 2 construction of an extra-wide “inland seawall” sidewalk on Point Grey road that abuts driveway edges, leaving no visibility to prevent impacts with exiting cars and pedestrians, and has been declared “unsafe” and “likely to cause casualties” by indepedent traffic engineers. Hypocrisy at its finest.
Mary/susan: Your so called “independent traffic engineer” is not recognized, as you have never made avaialable the report you claim to have commissioned. Professional traffic engineers have disputed the findings you claim, and do describe their approach. I replicated the sightline calculations myself.
If you are so concerned about your neighbour’s inability to exit their driveways and cross a sidewalk, with clear sight lines, then perhaps you should spend more time advocating for driver education.
Two years ago I came off my bike after hitting a partially buried disused rail line (also an oblique angle situation) on the gravel bike track just east of Hwy 91 in Delta, resulting in 3 cracked ribs. I saw the rail but because it appeared to be level with what seemed to be a compacted surface I didn’t give it as much attention as it deserved.
Being a longtime cyclist I felt pretty stupid, but called Delta a few days later to let them know about the incident. I made it really clear to reception I had no intention of suing anyone, only to suggest they remove the rail or completely bury it.
No one in authority ever called me back, even after two messages. You could smell the fear :-).
at least to caveats in this study:
1/ The study is based based on a cohort recruited in emergency rooms of 3 downtown Toronto hospital (where all the streetcar track are concentrated, but also where downtown traffic is different of the city at large..), extrapolating the result of it city wide, is like extrapolating an opinion poll done in the Olivia Chow riding city wide…and still it seems it is what the paper does
2/ The study has just a quantitative and not a qualitative approach (i.e. it doesn’t try to qualify the severity of crashes)…
By this logic, Europe should scraps all its round-abouts: they generate more crashes than traffic light controlled intersections…the caveat is that the later usually involve much more severe crashes…
So the study, beside be sure to make headline, is too superficial to be helpful.
If one wants to achieve vision zero, it needs to concentrate on severe crashes, not “near miss” or superficial ones (*) (Let’s talk Granville Island again?)
On another topic raised in the comment:
thought 90degre is an ideal angle to cross a rail track (or an expansion joint on a bridge, such as the tracheous one on Granville bridge), any angle greater than 30 degre is deemed OK by the Fub (french “Federation of Bser of Bicycle! ), and the below doesn’t call safety questions:
http://transports.blog.lemonde.fr/files/2015/02/P1020165-1024×768.jpg
.At the end, I find it spicy but not that much surprising that the editor use this study to construe his opposition to LRT…
As noticed by Ian Fisher, modern European trams (as would be the Surrey LRT) don’t share their ROW, but they use a narrower ROW (typically 6m) than a busway could (typically 7m), so allowing more room for a sperate bike track…(as well some compressible material can be used to smooth the intersection with a rail flanegeway)
(*) furthermore, the “theory of the bruised knees” states that minor injuries are good, since they teach “limits” preventing much more catastrophic event.