PORT TOWNSEND — A bone-breaking collision between a bicyclist and a pedestrian has left some city residents saying that the City Council should add another requirement to a proposed bicycling ordinance: Slow down.
“I know he was going really fast,” said Tim Sheffel, whose leg was broken when he was hit by a 17-year-old on a mountain bike as the 61-year-old Port Townsend musician walked home from a grocery store on a trail near Kah Tai Lagoon on Aug. 9.
“If he hadn’t hit me, he would have hit the other people on the trail.”
The Port Townsend City Council on Monday approved the first reading of an ordinance prohibiting bicycles on the sidewalks of certain downtown streets.
The ordinance can be changed before the council votes on the second reading on Sept. 2, when it meets at 6:30 p.m. in council chambers at City Hall, 250 Madison St.
But the trail where Sheffel was hurt is designated for multiple uses.
“You can’t ban [bicycles] from those [multi-use] trails,” said Pat Teal, a member of both the Port Townsend Non-Motorized Transportation Advisory Board and Disability Awareness Starts Here.
“So the only way this ordinance would affect the multi-use trails would be to require a reasonable speed near pedestrians city-wide.”
Teal said she has suggested to both the City Council and to other members of the city advisory board that the ordinance include language requiring those on non-motorized vehicles to slow near pedestrians.
“My point at the City Council meeting [on Monday] was, when overtaking a pedestrian, that [bicyclists] slow to walking speed,” Teal said.
