Kicked to the curb?

Residents of French Hill are up in arms over the construction of bike lanes they say are dangerous, especially for those with mobility issues.

By BARRY DAVIS
bus and parked vehicle 521 (photo credit: Courtesy)
bus and parked vehicle 521
(photo credit: Courtesy)
As any trip down Route 1 will reveal, when it comes to providing the city’s cyclists with a safe and convenient way of getting to work, school, the supermarket and elsewhere, Jerusalem is way behind Tel Aviv. By comparison, the capital is still in the Dark Ages and the thoroughfares dedicated to cycling in this fair capital of ours can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Mind you, things appear to be looking up. Besides the veteran cycling route that snakes its way through Sacher Park and alongside Herzog Street as far as Pat Junction, a charming bike path was recently completed along Harakevet Street in Baka, between Pierre Koenig Street in Talpiot and Beit Lehem Road near Liberty Bell Park. It’s not a long route but, as any cyclist will tell you, every meter of pedaling free of motorized vehicles is a boon.
There also appears to be a lot of municipality activity on bike lanes going on in the environs of French Hill. For the last couple of months construction work on cycle routes has been moving along rapidly on Hahagana Street, Lehi Street, Ha’etzel Street and Churchill Boulevard, and some of the lanes are already in use. Also, earlier this year work began on a bicycle lane along Sheshet Hayamim Street in nearby Givat Hamivtar. So it would seem that things are looking up for Jerusalemite bikers. Or are they?
There are problems, and it would appear that the municipality and the local residents, the people for whom the work is ostensibly being performed, are not quite on the same page on this. To say that the residents’ meeting at the French Hill Community Center just over a week ago was heated would be the understatement of the year. Around 100 locals had gathered in the spacious hall to address the issue of the construction of new bicycle lanes in the area, and many were plainly up in arms over the whole affair.
One of the main speakers at the meeting was Steve Pfann, Jr., who is one of the driving forces behind the North Jerusalem Residents for Safety and Quality of Life association, which was established to do battle with the municipality over the local bike lane project. He noted that, in fact, work on the Sheshet Hayamim Street bike lane was halted after the residents met with the municipality’s manager of Transportation and Infrastructure Development Division, Kobi Bartov, and convinced him that the lane on the long winding street would be a liability. The situation in French Hill smacks of déjà vu.
A letter the association recently sent to Bartov expresses the residents’ bewilderment at the way things have been handled by the municipality. “We were astonished to discover on Sunday morning [September 11] that a section of Lehi Street had been marked and blocked off for the purpose of carrying out work for the construction of bicycle paths,” it reads. “We were even more astonished to discover that this morning [Thursday, September 15] the construction had already begun, despite the fact that the neighborhood community center had been told that this would only be done next week. We view with great severity and voice our objection to this expansion of the project.”
The letter goes on to list the reasons for the local residents’ opposition to the bike lane project, claiming, for starters, that “the bicycle lane project is being implemented without legal authorization.”
The association says that the work “is being implemented without the necessary changes to the Town Planning Scheme and without a building permit that would be given based on an approved Town Planning Scheme.”
“They have tried to get around that by basing the work on the ‘traffic arrangement’ category,” says Pfann Jr., “but the conditions that would allow construction of bike lanes through this category, intended as ‘a quick fix,’ are not met here.”
Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Municipality spokesman says that all is above board and legally kosher.
“Implementation of the bicycle paths is in accordance with the guidelines for bicycle paths of the Transport Ministry,” he declares. “These guidelines include a requisite degree of separation between cyclists, pedestrians and vehicles, junctions, signposts etc…. [The work] was approved by the safety consultant, the accessibility consultant and the various municipality officials and the Transportation Ministry traffic supervisor.”
Steve Pfann Sr., a member of the residents’ association who lives on Lehi Street, says he is appalled by the hazards the new lanes pose for people with mobility difficulties.
“I think it is very much a matter of from the frying pan into the fire for the handicapped people in Israeli society,” says Dr. Pfann, whose family name means “frying pan” in German. “Having to navigate the lanes doesn’t make life any easier for them.”
Indeed, the residents’ meeting included an impassioned address by a woman who said her elderly mother sustained a serious head injury while trying to cross the bicycle lane on Hahagana Street several weeks ago.
“French Hill is an elderly community, it’s not about young people on their bicycles here,” notes association member Dr. Judith Besserman. “The lanes are extremely dangerous. Elderly people have been hurt, partly because the curb there is very high.”
The latter is also a feature of the bike lanes in the area that were constructed prior to the current project, and in August the president of the Hebrew University, Prof. Menachem Ben Sasson, an experienced cyclist, was injured when one of his pedals lodged against the partition between the bike lane and the road. The association says that the partitions and the curbs are too high – around 20 to 25 cm. – whereas Transportation Ministry guidelines recommend a height of 5 cm. as is the case in bike-friendly cities around the world, such as Amsterdam. The residents say there are other dangers and shortcomings of the bike lane project.
“If a cab stops on Hahagana Street and opens a door and a bicycle is coming, the door goes right into the bicycle lane,” says Besserman. “Another problem is that Hahagana Street [because of the addition of the bicycle lane] is a very narrow two-way street now, and when a cyclist comes to the end of the bike lane at the circle, you come right into traffic. That is not safe at all.”
Pfann Sr. is also concerned about the loss of parking space due to the bike lanes.
“We have already lost about 50 parking places on our street, and eventually there will be about 30 to 40 percent fewer parking spaces in the area because the bicycle lanes,” he says.
The reduction of freedom of maneuver on Lehi Street was apparent a few days ago when I met New York-born Gavriel Friedman, who lives in French Hill and cycles through the area on a daily basis.
“Look at the buses,” he says as one bus stops to pick up passengers and another coming from the opposition direction just manages to squeeze by. “This is ridiculous,” he continues. “The road was much wider before they put this bike lane in. I think it would be much better if there were no bike lanes at all here. They got rid of the one on Sheshet Hayamim Street because of this problem.”
Naturally, Cycle Jerusalem representative Doron Greenfeld is concerned about the difficulties entailed in the municipality’s work in French Hill but feels that corrections should be made rather than dismissing the whole idea of the lanes as a bad move.
“If the curbs are too high, the level of the bike lanes should be raised,” he says. “The lanes are being built as feeder lanes for the light rail system. The idea is to cycle to the light rail from home, take your folding bike on and continue on to, say, the university by bike. But the situation in French Hill is problematic. A bike lane is very important there, so we have to make it work for everyone. I know the residents in French Hill are very much against the lanes and we [Cycle Jerusalem representatives] were on the receiving end of some pretty strong language from them over this issue, but we have to be positive about this and make it work.”