Ernest Durbin III is a dedicated bicyclist.  And I mean dedicated.

“In September of last year, I decided to cycle outdoors, every day, for a year. I’m 20 days away of 365 days straight outside,” he said.

That means he’s cycled in sunshine, rain and snow around Cleveland Heights, where he lives and works. But his biggest challenge isn’t inclement weather. It’s cars.

Durbin was hit by one at the juncture of Lee and E. Overlook roads, a busy intersection near a popular supermarket, Zagara’s Marketplace.

“I was coming down Lee Road here and I got into the turn lane and I was waiting for traffic to clear so I could turn in here,” he said, gesturing toward the street.

“Right as traffic cleared a woman doing the same thing from E. Overlook jumped that stop sign and turned out and hit me as she was trying to turn left.”

Durbin was lucky.  He suffered minor injuries. 

“My knee was damaged. I couldn’t really, like, run as much as I’d like to for a few months until it recovered,” he said.

An analysis by ideastream of police crash reports shows Durbin was one of 11 cyclists and 11 pedestrians hit by cars in Cleveland Heights last year.

The crashes were scattered throughout the city, but a map of their locations, created by Cleveland Heights officials, show some hot spots. They include the Cedar-Lee commercial district, a multi-block stretch of restaurants, shops, bars and a movie theater on Lee Road south of Cedar Road, and Coventry Village, another business and entertainment district on Coventry Road between Mayfield Road and Euclid Heights Boulevard.

Nationally, 2018 was a grim year for cyclists and pedestrians.  Recent statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) show that while overall traffic fatalities fell 2.7% from 2017, pedestrian deaths rose more than 3%, to 6,283. Bicycle fatalities increased more than 6%, to 857.

Both figures are the highest since 1990, according to the NHTSA.

The trend over the last 10 years is especially alarming.

Pedestrian deaths have ballooned 69% in urban areas from 2009 to 2018, while cyclist deaths have jumped 48%. The increases far outpace population growth in those areas; the report, citing U.S. Census Bureau figures, notes population grew 13% in urban areas from 2008 to 2017.

In Cleveland Heights, cyclist crashes had fallen to less than five by 2011, but rose sharply to 13 in 2014. Cars have hit, on average, 11 cyclists a year since.

Ernest Durbin said biking around Cleveland Heights can be “pretty hairy at times.”

“People tend to be impatient at intersections,” he said, “and that leads to cars doing things that might not seem reasonable to try to get the light or swerve around somebody who’s stopped to turn.”

Heather Zaccaro said the coalition changed its grading standards out of a sense of frustration over the continuing rise in pedestrian and cyclist deaths. A study by the coalition found older adults, people of color and people in low-income communities bear a higher share of this harm, especially in the South. She said that this year, the coalition started putting a stronger emphasis on equity and implementation.

“We have realized, over 10 years of doing this work, that in order for a policy to be successful there has to be real clarity not only on what needs to change but who needs to play a role in changing it. When does that change need to happen? How does that change need to happen?” she said.

She said there were elements in Cleveland Heights’ plan that other candidates for the coalition’s recognition didn’t do, like a provision requiring safe accommodations for people walking or biking during construction.

“Often you’ll see, walking down the street when there’s a massive construction project, even if the street has a nice, wide sidewalk or protected space for cyclists, during construction, that’s often taken over,” said Zaccaro. “There are missing connections, people are having to cross in dangerous places or go around. It’s one of the concerns about construction that nobody’s thought about before and it’s something that Cleveland Heights put in its policy that nobody else did.”

Zaccaro praised Cleveland Heights for spelling out its goals and its action steps in unequivocal terms, something many earlier policies had lacked.

“You know, I think [in] early iterations of Complete Streets, you may have a lot of that prevarication around, ‘We’ll get to this if we can,’” said Marc Lefkowitz, a citizen-member of Cleveland Heights’ Transportation Advisory Committee, which helped shape the policy.

“‘Musts’ and ‘shalls’ are what get you an A grade and it’s what got Cleveland Heights an A grade.”

Edgehill and Overlook roads: Before and After Complete Streets Changes

At Overlook and Edgehill roads, Cleveland Heights’ Planning Director Richard Wong and I watched as construction workers reshaped the intersection to make it safer and, as Wong put it, more comfortable.

“It must be cool to see it becoming reality,” I told him.

“Yeah, and when it’s done, watching people use it,” he answered. “That’s the key: Are we helping somebody?”

As if on cue, a bicyclist zipped past us.

Wong gave a little cheer and added under his breath, “Making it better for you!”