Here are the remarks I made at the rumble strip rally on Route 100.

Welcome to all the cyclists who came out in today’s wet weather to protest the state Department of Transportation’s installation of rumble strips on Route 100, which used to be one of the region’s safest state roads to ride upon.
The installation of rumble strips on Route 100, between routes 118 and 100 in Yorktown and Somers, has created a public safety hazard for cyclists in the region. For many years, this four-mile stretch of road has been a destination for cyclists, who enjoy the gentle terrain, wide shoulders, and spectacular vistas by the Croton Reservoir. At least three cyclists have gone down on the rumble strips, and it seems certain that a cyclist will be seriously injured from this highway “safety” project, which has actually made the road more dangerous.
I want to thank all who helped with the rally – Kevan Full, who helped conceive it; Robert Olsson who designed the t-shirts, ride leaders James Rather, John Coppinger, Harvey Loeb, Tom Viola and Jeff Gitlin; Katie Marshall who made signs, and Lauren Press who helped with the shirts, and the entire Westchestr Cycle Board, who supported the venture. Also thanks to Sen. Vinnie Leibell who has been an ally for us in this fight. He was with us from the start, sending a letter to the DOT on April 2 asking for a response to our concerns. County Legislator Mike Kaplowitz has called on the state to consider repaving the road. And Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano spoke on Friday to Joan Dupont, director of DOT’s Region Eight office in Poughkeepsie, expressing his concerns for the safety of cyclists on Route 100, where the county’s Muscoot Farm welcomes hundreds of visitors each week.
There is something that stinks about this project. Not only has it created a dangerous situation for cyclists, which I predict will lead to serious injury. But this project was conceived with scant planning and poor professional judgment. Meanwhile the state Department of Transportation has continue to stonewall in our attempt to figure out exactly how, and why, our government squandered $41,000 of our money on this travesty of a public works project.
A Westchester Cycle Club investigation has found that the state installed the strips – at the cost of $41,000 – in contravention of DOT policy. The policy states the rumble strips, which are intended to awaken drowsy drivers and prevent what’s called drift-off-road accidents, should be installed on limited-access highways, like parkways or interstates, during construction or reconstruction.
The policy warns of the dangers of installing the strips on two-lane roads frequented by cyclists. It states the DOT could consider rumble strips on “limited stretches of highway or specific locations with a proven history of drift-off-road accidents, in advance of bridges where the shoulder substantially narrows, at gore areas (triangular intersections), and as short warning strips on the outside of curves that follow long tangents.”
Accident data shows there just seven such accidents caused by fatigued or drowsy drivers in six years, hardly a proven record. That’s not the kind of “proven history” to justify the extraordinary measure of installing rumble strips on a two-lane road.
If that is the state DOT’s standard for installing rumble strips, then New York state cyclists should brace themselves for a bumpy ride over the next several years.
The accident data provided by DOT showed that this four-mile stretch of Route 100 in Yorktown and Somers is safe, and getting considerably safer. From 2001 to 2004, there were 1.02 accidents per million miles traveled. From 2004 to 2007, there were 0.6 accidents per million miles traveled, a 42 percent drop. The statewide average on two-lane roads is 1.45 accidents per million miles traveled.
So the most recent data available to the state DOT show that Route 100, between Route 118 and Route 35, is more than twice as safe as the average road in New York. The data here should not have driven the state DOT officials to install rumble strips on Route 100.
When I shared these facts with DOT regional director Joan Dupont, and her assistant, Mike Cotton, Cotton said the DOT didn’t base its decision upon accident data but on a sense that there was a conflict between motorists, cyclists, and the fishermen who have shared the road quite well for years. There is no evidence of any such conflict. Over six years, there was one collision between a cyclists and a motorist.
Heavily redacted emails from DOT regional engineer Michael J. McBride revealed that the strips were installed after McBride, and two of his employees, were rear-ended on Route 100 as they turned into the DOT regional facility. The emails were only released after I was forced to appeal to the DOT’s general counsel in Albany under the state Freedom of Information Law. I knew the emails existed. But the regional office declined to release them originally under a request.
What did the regional office want to keep secret? The emails show that McBride ordered 700 feet of rumble strips around the DOT facility entrance. But the state contractor installed 43,000 feet of rumble strips, and was paid about $41,000 for the job. The state said there was no documentation indicating who authorized roughly 42,000 feet of rumble strips.
If these accidents had happened at a private residence or a private business, the state might have put up a No Left Turn sign there because turning left at the DOT facility was dangerous. Or they might have figured out how to squeeze in a left turn lane if they were insistent on turning left there. But they wouldn’t have installed rumble strips.
Now cyclists are getting injured and I fear there will be a serious injury soon. Christine Dasa of Mount Kisco went down on Aug. 12 when she rode over the rumble strips to avoid a car legally parked on the shoulder. She lost control of her bike and went down in the travel lane, where cars and trucks speed by at 55 miles an hour.
Christine was lucky that she wasn’t knocked out and ended up laying there in the travel lane. But I guarantee you that someone will suffer a serious injury if something isn’t done soon.
The breaks in the rumble strips, which were a concession to cyclists, aren’t much help. They were installed every tenth-of-a-mile to give cyclists a rumble-free way to avoid parked cars. But using the breaks with traffic is very dangerous. They are short, so you have to make turn into the traffic lane to use them. Creating a situation in which you have cyclists turning into the travel lane, with cars and trucks traveling 55 miles an hour, creates a dangerous situation.
The rumble strips have already begun to deteriorate, and potholes are developing among the rumble strips, even before the winter freeze-thaw cycle opened up more craters on the once-smoothly paved road. The DOT has yet to attend to the potholes. And it will be interesting to see if they bring the rumble strip machine back to put ruts in the pothole-repairs.
I know it will be expensive to pave over the rumble strips. It will cost more than the $41,000 already wasted by the state on the hastily conceived plan this spring. But the alternative promises to be even costlier for the state’s taxpayers if a cyclist is seriously injured on Route 100. WCC member and attorney Michael Allen, of Shapiro Forman Allen & Sava of Manhattan, put the state on notice on June 25 that the DOT has created an “extremely hazardous situation” along Route 100 in Yorktown and Somers.
“The cost of restoring the road surface is minor compared to the danger than the DOT has created, not to mention the cost of potential lawsuits should someone be seriously hurt as a result of the DOT’s actions,” warned Allen, a Westchester Cycle Club member, in a June 25 letter to DOT Region 8 Regional Director Joan DuPont. “The potential cost to the DOT could increase exponentially if it is in fact the case that the installation of the rumble strips was done in violations of the DOT’s own rules and regulations.”