New Sandy Springs TSPLOST, the danger of kids riding electric motorcycles, and lack of safe alternatives in Sandy Springs

Sandy Springs voters will decide in November whether to renew the Transportation Special Local Option Sales Tax (TSPLOST). $ 44,600,000, nearly half of the Tier One total, will go mostly towards widening Hammond which will have a multiuse path but mostly enable more car traffic by people from outside of Sandy Springs. The city council should reevaluate priorities toward safety, whether that means reallocating money or finding more revenue.

I have seen children riding devices which may be marketed as ebikes but are closer to mopeds or motorcyles because they can get up to 30+mph without pedaling. I've seen them riding in the road and on sidewalks along Roswell Rd, which is owned by GDOT and is the most dangerous surface street in Sandy Springs. This could be involved in more tragedy. Roswell, and other streets in the city, will only become more dangerous if GDOT goes through with their expensive plan to build a larger higher volume interchange at Roswell and 285.

But I also understand why those riders might take those risks given the choices they face. Drivers and city planners have made the public spaces of Sandy Springs unsafe for children, thereby limiting their recreational opportunities and mobility. It is a major burden for anybody to be unable to go out without somebody else to drive them. It is dangerous for children to drive cars that weigh multiple tons and have hundreds of horsepower. New mobility devices allow for some trips that weren't previously possible, so the reality is they will be used.

These e-motorcycles can be safer around cars than normal bikes or ebikes exactly because their higher speed reduces the risk of drivers hitting them from behind, both by reducing the frequency of passes and the speed difference when a pass is performed. 

I've seen adult biking enthusiasts going as fast as they reasonably could with pure pedal power, and drivers pass them dangerously close rather than slowing down and waiting until there is more space to pass safely. In Georgia "[t]he minimum legal space for a motorist to pass a bicyclist is 3 feet", but drivers in Sandy Springs routinely ignore this as well as their obligation to stop for pedestrians generally, including in unmarked crosswalks. For reference, here is a picture of my bicycle with a lit bar that extends 3 feet. "LaneSaber" per the designer's sense of humor, it can also rotate up to be vertical. I'm not sure if drivers here will actually slow down or move further away to pass due to it, but it gets the point across: in our streets there is not room to stay within a lane and squeeze past a bike while also maintaining that distance, but drivers pass anyway.


More enforcement of traffic laws would be good, particularly to protect people outside of cars but also car occupants. Stopping and slowing down for cyclists and pedestrians, speed limits, red lights, phone ban, etc. Realistically enforcement is not enough. Biking in high speed mixed traffic (around motor vehicles) is inherently dangerous so we should build protected bike paths. 

Real protection is concrete barriers and metal bollards. Our new Police Department building rightfully has concrete to protect it from drivers, and people on bikes should too. With concrete protection from drivers coming from behind, it would be much safer for people to ride bikes at lower speeds around Sandy Springs. Then we could encourage children to use them safely. These protected pathways would also be good for strollers, wheelchairs, etc., where our sidewalks are inadequate. 

Sandy Springs should reprioritize TSPLOST for sidewalks and bikepaths on city streets to give kids safer alternatives. There should also be more modal filters, that allow people but not cars to pass, to connect these paths into a larger network. Such as, e.g., the footpath between Belle Isle and Highbrook. In the south east corner of the city, building bike paths on Windsor, High Point, and Northland would enable a lot of kids to reach each other and the otherwise hard to access Path 400 connection at Windsor. I'm sure similar networks could be built across the city.

Just this morning I was driving on Windsor with my infant in the backseat and a sports car heading the other way came into our lane to pass another vehicle at high speed. Despite the painted figure of a bicycle on the roadway, this is obviously not a safe environment at the moment.