Approximately 120 people attended two workshops in January to share ideas for the improvement of Columbia’s pathway system. The events were organized as part of the Columbia Association (CA)’s Connecting Columbia Active Transportation Action Agenda, which is expected to dovetail with a future Howard County Bicycling Master Plan.
According to Jane Dembner, CA’s director of community planning, the goal of Connecting Columbia is to develop an agenda focused on infrastructure and a document that can be implemented in short order. The ultimate goal, she said, will be to develop a more interconnected bicycling and walking circulation system for health, recreation and transportation purposes.
“You might say pathways [are] not the only answer, and you’re right,” Dembner said. “We have sidewalks that need to be improved and expanded, and we also have roadways that have some capacity for bicycling.”
In October, CA awarded a contract for the action agenda project to Toole Design Group of Hyattsville, a nationally-recognized planning and engineering firm that specializes in bicycle and pedestrian planning and design. A 16-member citizens’ task force also has been formed to provide guidance to CA and its consultants on the action agenda project, which is anticipated to be completed by June 2012.
Increased Usage
Dan Biggs, a Toole Design Group landscape architect who is serving as project manager for Connecting Columbia, said the first objective is to increase the number of pathway users, while the second objective is to improve safety.
“Navigation is another concern because you have a lot of small spurs and different connections, so it’s confusing sometimes to get to [a destination],” he said. “We can’t see this as just a pathway network for transportation and recreation; it’s really how this interconnects with the county’s transportation system.”
Toole Design Group President Jennifer Toole, who lives in Columbia and uses its pathways daily, presented a snapshot of pathway trends throughout the nation to help inform the discussion.
“What we’re seeing over the past 20 years is increasing numbers of people biking and walking,” she said. “Part of that is because more money has been invested in the past 20 years in biking and pedestrian facilities.”
Although health and fitness are among the primary reasons people cite for using these pathways, “one basic fact is that a third of our population does not drive cars,” Toole said, be it for environmental reasons, affordability issues or the simple fact that some people are too young or too old to drive.
Filling Gaps
Toole used an aerial map of Columbia to illustrate the suitability of pathways there as an alternative to driving and even mass transit. “The truth is, there’s hardly a single point in Columbia that’s not three miles distance from the mall in the center,” she said. “That’s significant, because three miles is a 15-minute bike ride,” which could make a meaningful health difference to someone who leads a sedentary lifestyle.
With 93.5 miles of pathways equating to 1 mile of path for every 1,000 residents, Columbia is already much better off than many larger communities. By way of comparison, Toole said, Washington, D.C., has only 50 miles of pathways, or one mile for every 12,000 residents.
But the system does have some inherent problems to overcome.
“Our paths are not always continuous,” Toole said. “They were built in stream corridors … which don’t always lead where you want to go. It leaves gaps in the system … and the entries to those stream valleys are very steep.”
More to the point, many street crossings were not addressed when the system was first developed because standards had not yet been developed.
At the public workshops, participants visited a series of stations to complete surveys, talk about their usage of the existing system, identify problem areas and make suggestions for new connections and destinations.
They also viewed a presentation on the project and got a chance to ask questions.
Joel Broida of Columbia suggested that CA expand the scope of the project to allow better access for more people using electric-powered conveyances, particularly the elderly and disabled.
“I think there will be some limitations to what we can do in that respect,” Toole said, “but motorized and electric assist bicycles are becoming more popular, so I think it’s an issue we should talk about in this study.”
Other suggestions included a downloadable map application for smartphones and the need for a signage system to encourage trail etiquette.
Cooperation Needed
According to Dembner, CA has completed an official assessment of pathways to identify areas where curb cuts are needed. “That is one of the things we need to coordinate,” she said. “We could do the work, but that’s not our property, so we’re hoping there could be some joint effort [with the county].”
She added that CA has applied to the county for a state funding grant to assess whether Columbia could operate a bike share program.
David Cookson, a transportation planner with the county’s department of planning and zoning, acknowledged that the department has initiated the first steps in beginning its Bicycling Master Plan process.
“We’re looking to get a consultant under contract in March,” he said, with an eye to launching the public input process as early as April. “It should take us about a year to work through to the final master plan.”
CA will be cooperating with the county on that process and has agreed to a joint work team for both projects.
“We are focusing on the pathways, they’re going to be focusing mainly on roadways and also have off-road facilities that they want to pursue,” Dembner said. “We’ll be out of the gate first.
“In a way that’s good for us,” she said, “because we’ll have a lot of things we would like to talk to the county about that will come out of this study that are not on CA property and that the county will need to implement.”
