Along with possible boardwalk enhancements and progress on a scaled-down Streetscape plan for Garfield Parkway, Bethany Beach Town Council members on Monday discussed projects that could help make the town safer for pedestrians and bicyclists.
“If there was a death or a severe injury, there would be much discussion of this after the fact,” Council Member Tracy Mulligan said at the outset of Feb. 11’s discussion. He recommended the town begin to take some steps to prevent such a thing from happening.
Council members reviewed a summary of previously considered improvements from the town’s earlier transportation circulation study, some of which were recommended and some of which had been rejected by citizens and town officials.
“There has been a lot done. There has been a lot of comment,” Town Manager Cliff Graviet said, leading to the list of recommendations provided. He added that moving forward from the list to action would next focus on a cost for various options, leading up to discussion of possible projects at a future council workshop.
Graviet pointed out that some of the potential projects are low-cost ones that the town could easily pursue. Those include, he said, rehabilitation of sidewalks on Atlantic Avenue south of Garfield Parkway; clearing of the town’s right-of-way on Kent Avenue, where some residents have placed trash bin containers; and revamping Wellington Parkway with a pedestrian pathway.
Already completed are signage improvements, with the town still hoping the state will provide countdown clocks for major crosswalks. While textured crosswalks were recommended and desired, the state provided new painted crosswalks in recent paving renovations.
Graviet said council should look at providing recommended pedestrian facilities (sidewalks or pedestrian paths) along the south side of a number of streets: 5th Street, 3rd Street, 2nd Street, Oakwood Street and Ashwood Street. There, they would take the place of permit parking, which is likely to be controversial for some in the town.
Vice-Mayor Tony McClenny commented that after years of frustration with pedestrians walking many abreast down east-west streets with vehicular traffic forced to wait behind them, he’d finally just come to accept that the practice was “OK,” even though it is against the law.
Council members focused much of their attention in the discussion Monday on Collins Avenue, which has been cited by many as an area of major safety problems for pedestrians and cyclists.
Improvements there could include widening Collins between Kent Avenue and Half Moon Drive; creating a pedestrian facility on the east side of Kent Avenue between Route 26 and Wellington Parkway; and providing an east-west crosswalk at Collins and Kent.
All three items were recommended for the town, but the town would strictly be responsible only for the widening of Collins. Graviet said, though, that he did not hold out much hope for enhancement funding from the state for work on Kent Avenue, particularly with state transportation funding shortfalls.
Despite that, council members were of a consensus that something must be done to improve safety at Collins Avenue.
“Collins is an accident waiting to happen,” said Council Member Jerry Dorfman.
“Collins also provides a thoroughfare to take some of the traffic off Route 26,” Mayor Carol Olmstead noted.
McClenny named the area as his top safety concern, while resident Phil Boesch said his major concern was pedestrians forcing cyclists into traffic by walking with traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue. Olmstead said she also had concerns about the area of Pennsylvania Avenue, Atlantic Avenue and the boardwalk, while Council Member Bob Parsons said he was most concerned about cyclists riding on Route 26 and Kent Avenue between 10 p.m. and midnight.
The latter concern is something Bethany Beach officials and police have been attempting to address for several years, with an educational campaign and the handing out of helmets and bicycle lights – primarily to foreign workers, who are not necessarily aware of the area’s rules and regulations for cyclists, as well as to children younger than 16, since they are required to wear helmets when cycling.
Graviet said the effectiveness of the campaign has been limited by the turnover of workers and visitors, with a new set coming each year and needing to be educated. Stepped-up enforcement efforts, he said, merely served to make the town seem overly strict to visitors and foreign workers. Olmstead said the idea was to “gently remind them.”
Also recommended for consideration on Monday were improvements to street-lighting on Route 1. Graviet said he felt the improvements could be accomplished “at reasonable cost,” but that the council would have to decide how much it wanted to do. That would include whether to use basic pole lighting, decorative lights placed outside the right-of-way or overhanging lights placed on existing utility poles, as well as how to light the area without creating a “runway” look.
Graviet asked council members to review the full list of recommendations for their own input, with the subject to be placed on the council’s April workshop agenda.