Washtenaw County road conditions, patience affect bicycle safety

“The roads I bike on are bicycle friendly,” Hillson said. “I don’t bike on Huron and if I do, I bike on the sidewalk because it’s not wide enough and there is too much traffic. I usually take alternative routes."

Many local bicyclists have stories about near run-ins with cars.

Peter Marshall, a member of the Ann Arbor Bicycle Tour Society, said he’s seen people get hurt because of road conditions.

On Sunday, Marshall was riding behind a woman who wiped out on Huron Drive and was taken away in an ambulance, he said.

“Parts of the road there are just very, very dangerous,” he said.

Rains this year have washed a larger amount of gravel onto pavement surfaces than normal, which pose an additional hazard when dodging rough patches in the road, said Joel Hakkan, owner of Midwest Bike & Tandem in Ann Arbor. 

"If you catch a rut in one of the cracks, you're going down," Hakkan said. But, he said, there likely isn't much money to fix those kinds of hazards.

That's exactly the issue, said to Roy Townsend, county highway engineer for the Washtenaw County Road Commission, who said the county does not have enough money to fix every problematic road right now.

Roads are funded with a gas tax, which has stayed at 19 cents per gallon in Michigan since 1997. Townsend said the combination of the unchanged gas tax, people driving less, and drivers using more efficient cars has made funding road projects difficult.

“Funding is not keeping up with the need,” he said. “It’s a nationwide problem.”

There are plans to fix Huron Drive from Zeeb Road to Tubbs Road, which will happen either late this summer or early spring 2010. Townsend said the Road Commission is waiting for money from the federal government’s stimulus package for that project.

The commission adds a paved shoulder to every road that is reconstructed, Townsend said. 

A little patience, defensive driving and cooperation between bikes and cars would go a long way toward improving bike safety, Hakkan said, particularly around rush hour when many drivers become competitive for road space.

Hakkan serves on the board of the Michigan League of Bicyclists and said there needs to be more awareness that cars and bikes share equal rights under the law.

"When you're in a car passing someone, you're usually sure to give extra space. But for some reason, with a bicyclist, a lot of autos try to zip right past," Hakkan said. That leads to a lot of close calls, he said.

At the same time, bicyclists also need to follow the law - even when it's easy to pedal around vehicles in congested traffic, he said. They also need to be considerate to motorists, he said.

"Do bicycles have the right to ride three abreast and block traffic? Legally, yes. But ethically, no, they do not."

Tina Reed of AnnArbor.com contributed to this story.