The Baltimore City Fire Department is really mad about bike lanes

June 30, 2018 12:39 PM

So the BCFD made a home movie demonstrating - with a multi-million dollar fire truck that is too big to fit in the firehouse, and on the same block where the executive director of cycling-advocacy nonprofit Bikemore lives - that bike lanes make it too hard to fight fires.
posted by misskaz (37 comments total)

Am I dumb or like - how the hell does a bike lane affect this. It looks more like you have a stupid ass big truck that's too big for your roads, and there's CARS in the parking lane, NOT a bikelane (which shoudln't have cars).

If anything a bikelane should make it EASIER.

What am I missing?
posted by symbioid at 12:54 PM on June 30, 2018 [19 favorites]

Wow, I guess the Netherlands must be burned to a crisp with all our bikelanes...

Looks outside...

Nope.
posted by Pendragon at 12:57 PM on June 30, 2018 [26 favorites]

Well, I mean, ignoring for the moment that the article suggests the fire department rigged the video, it seems like they could easily solve the problem by banning the cars. (I'm not terribly serious about that.)

@symbiod, it's a protected bike line, so I think it goes building>sidewalk>bike lane>parked cars> traffic, instead of the more common building>sidewalk>parked cars>bike lane>traffic.
posted by surlyben at 12:58 PM on June 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

Jeez they really showed their asses.
posted by nikaspark at 1:25 PM on June 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

This sounds like a The Wire episode that was scrapped by David Simon for being too unrealistic.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 2:01 PM on June 30, 2018 [15 favorites]

You mean Simon's failed spin off series The Fire?
posted by Karaage at 2:09 PM on June 30, 2018 [4 favorites]

Mod note: A bunch of comments deleted. Let's not go off into a very general "all firefighters bad" or "what does everyone think about cops" thing; seems like a recipe for an unhelpful fight. If you don't want to talk about this specific Baltimore/ bike lanes thing, that's fine, just go do something else.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 2:23 PM on June 30, 2018 [4 favorites]

I bike on urban streets all the time, for my whole life, and really appreciate the improvements and signage but boy jeepers to both sides have folks that radicalize to a silly intensity. And some of the trials of bike lanes are a bit silly, I'm really more nervous about cross streets and pedestrians needing to move in unpredictable patterns. Retrofitting archaic urban streets is a tricky problem and will be for a few more years, Wyamo to the rescue!
posted by sammyo at 2:37 PM on June 30, 2018

Clearly, the solution is fire zeppelins!
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:38 PM on June 30, 2018 [21 favorites]

And since one fights fire with fire, make sure the zeppelins use hydrogen!
posted by Celsius1414 at 2:53 PM on June 30, 2018 [5 favorites]

Bike lanes are such a weird trigger for some people. Our mayor can't make a Facebook or Twitter post about any subject without some yahoo yelling at him about bike lanes.
posted by octothorpe at 2:55 PM on June 30, 2018 [14 favorites]

As I see it, American fire departments (especially urban ones!) just need to modernize by employing the smaller, more nimble trucks that (as usual) other countries’ cities have long beat us to. (another link)
posted by mosst at 3:44 PM on June 30, 2018 [21 favorites]

@surlyben, yeah, that's the setup. Except the bike lanes are "double wide" (the same width as a normal car lane).

They put one in a block over from my old apartment, and the street becomes almost unpassable at times, as it's down to one lane for about a mile.
posted by promptcurry at 3:50 PM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

Bike lanes are such a weird trigger for some people. Our mayor can't make a Facebook or Twitter post about any subject without some yahoo yelling at him about bike lanes.

I assumed we live in the same city - apparently it's a common trigger.

This really reflects poorly on the BCFD, however. The public can sometimes be confused about what services municipalities provide and this just appears divisive instead of cohesive. It makes it look like the fire department and the transportation department are at odds.
posted by Calzephyr at 3:57 PM on June 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

The fire department is at odds with reality.
posted by Celsius1414 at 4:03 PM on June 30, 2018 [4 favorites]

Maybe this is too radical, but might it be possible for certain areas where cars are parked to be designated as not available for parking? This wouldn't have to be along the entire length of the street, just at intervals regular enough for a fire truck to get access.

These areas could be designated "fire strips" or "no parking lanes" or some easy-to-remember phraseology like that.

Maybe demarcate them with a different color of paint? Would red work?

Just spitballing here.
posted by pykrete jungle at 4:23 PM on June 30, 2018 [17 favorites]

I wouldn't really trust an FD that bought a truck too big to fit into a garage. That's some serious size-queenery going on, and this whole demonstration smacks of the public services equivalent of man-spreading.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:57 PM on June 30, 2018 [17 favorites]

The goal of a fire department should be to save lives and prevent property damage. Unfortunately, fire departments generally seem (and not just in Baltimore) to be run with the goal of putting out fires as quickly as possible. (To be generous -- the small politics behind City Hall means every department is to some degree run to maintain and increase funding and influence.)

This sounds like it's the same as saving lives, but it's not -- fire departments are one of the strongest groups behind the scenes influencing road design standards. Since they interpret their goal as putting out fires quickly, they believe that any road you cannot drive down in the largest fire truck as quickly as possible is a road that is less safe. In fact, all the research and experience we have shows that those roads are, directly in terms of car crashes and indirectly in terms of public health, the most dangerous roads we can build.

But fire departments don't give a shit; because they misinterpret their goal, they would gladly trade 10 lives of cyclists or pedestrians or motorists killed in collisions to save one life in a fire. And they are generally thought of as representing a voice of safety, and held in high esteem because they do dangerous jobs (for which they are well compensated), and they make it very difficult for us to actually build safer cities.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 4:58 PM on June 30, 2018 [45 favorites]

As I see it, American fire departments (especially urban ones!) just need to modernize by employing the smaller, more nimble trucks that (as usual) other countries’ cities have long beat us to

The authors of the book Suburban Nation mention that firetruck access is often used to nix proposals for narrowing streets, or building new narrow streets that are more walkable and all around comfortable for pedestrians and accommodate higher density residential development.

They also suggest that there are few significant advantages to having a huge firetruck, and that truck size is just a virtual dick-measuring contest between different fire departments. I don't know how true that is but of course there are fire trucks that operate in Manhattan and other places with narrow streets.
posted by mcmile at 8:41 PM on June 30, 2018 [6 favorites]

I’m seeing a lot of misinformation in the commentary for this post. I’m a career fire captain; I have a Me Book that’s rather thick, and have been in emergency services for quite some time. American fire trucks are bigger because we carry a heck of a lot of water with big pumps for our hoselines or to supplement building suppression systems; those things like sprinklers and standpipes the protect and save lives. Not only are we firefighters, but we're also EMS professionals, so to the person who suggested that we would kill multiple people to save one person, Well I can’t speak to you like I may address one of my rookies, but I will tell you that you’re wrong. Period. I entered into this profession because it was and is a calling, and, surprise! I give a damn about people who have tried to hurt or spit on or literally shit on or cursed out me and my crews. And I’ve helped them get the care that they need. We teach young children and all ages of adults about fire safety, bicycle safety, cooking safety, fall prevention, water safety, the list goes on. When someone calls 911, you know who they’re most likely going to have show up? Not the cops. Not the medics. Firemen. Because we’re the helpers.

I respect recreational pursuits. But please understand there are a lot of blind spots around fire apparatus and we can’t just stop them on a dime; they’re very heavy. We can’t react like a normal vehicle, especially larger tenders or aerials. I have my engineers watch out for bicyclists and runners and other vehicles; I watch from my side of the rig too.

As far as rigs too big for the station, well the manufacturers are making larger rigs. I miss the old Macks and Firecats and ALFs just like anyone else, but those apparatus can’t do what we need them to do now. A lot of areas have a water system that may be in need of major refurbishment, or may not have a water system at all.

We put water on fire fast because that *does* save lives. That’s why we push sprinkler systems, but you can blame your contractors and developers and builders for continually shooting down a federal requirement for sprinklers in commercial structures. Buildings burn faster and hotter with way more toxic gasses than fires 15, 25, 35+ years ago. Used to be you had half an hour or so before a house got to rockin; now that shit flashes in less than 10 minutes. Hope you got working smoke detectors. Oh that’s right; who makes sure your apartment complex has working warning systems and proper exits? The fire department! Who installs smoke detectors for low-income and people with disabilities and elderly? The fire department!

I’m sorry that politics and admin is bullshit. But don’t hate the boots on the ground because the 5-horn and the mayor got into a pissing contest. We probably don’t like either one of them ourselves.

I’m sorry you think so poorly of my brothers and sisters and me. Just like I tell my people - I have an open door policy. You’re welcome to step into my office and have a conversation at any time.

But when you need help, we’re still going to show up, and pretty damn fast.
posted by sara is disenchanted at 9:27 PM on June 30, 2018 [55 favorites]

Hm, I didn't know it was a pattern but where I live yeah, the fire department has been gung-ho against "walkable streets" neighborhood designs pretty heavily in the past. Even though the older parts of town are even tighter for access, and often historically preserved areas, so it's something they're going to have to be prepared to deal with forever anyway.

I'm pretty strident in my support for cyclist rights, having been a full-time bike commuter for about 20 years now as of this summer. Bike lanes aren't always what I think we really need, but I'd love to be able to reliably use some properly engineered Dutch-style infrastructure. I'm just so over having to deal with interactions with cars, every single day at least one does something dumb that risks my life. A big ol' physical barrier between me and them sounds like heaven.
posted by traveler_ at 9:28 PM on June 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

I respect recreational pursuits.

Speaking of which, there's a big button of mine you just pushed. I think most the cyclists I see who're adults are riding for transport, not recreation.
posted by traveler_ at 9:39 PM on June 30, 2018 [46 favorites]

sara is disenchanted, I respect your knowledge and experience, but I think that you're missing or misinterpreting a couple of things here. First, I really don't think that anyone here is criticizing the rank and file. "The fire department" is shorthand for the people who make the purchasing decisions and lobby for wider, less-safe streets, not to mention the ones who thought of this video that's the subject of the FPP. Some of those people may count as "boots on the ground", but I'm guessing that those circles don't have a big intersection on the Venn diagram.

And I'm not seeing anything in your comment that contradicts two of the main points against wider roads: that a lot less of FDs' work involves fighting fires these days, and that wider roads are deadlier. I don't know the minutiae of fighting a fire in a modern building or whether FDs buy bigger trucks because that's all that's available, or that's all that's available because that's what FDs want to buy. (The fact that, per one of the links above, smaller fire trucks are available for smaller streets in Europe tends to suggest the latter.) I have had experience riding my bike on streets that should have been safe, slow-traffic residential streets, but were treated like freeways, and I wasn't riding for "recreational pursuits." (I do ride recreationally, but usually on multiuse paths and roads with dedicated bike lanes, when available.) Bikes are safer than cars and make their riders healther; I hope that you'd appreciated that, with all the work that you do helping people who have been in accidents or have sedentary-lifestyle-related health problems.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:04 PM on June 30, 2018 [19 favorites]

I apologize for not thinking more of folks who use bicycles for transport; that’s my own shortsightedness. The community I live in has some bike paths and greenways, but I actually sold my road bike because it’s a little too dangerous to ride unless you drive out to one of the more rural counties and then get on your bike. This area is not only car-centric, but transport wasn’t planned well even for vehicles.

Europe has a very different set of tactics than we do in the US. Their building construction is also quite dissimilar.

I’ll digress and leave this thread alone, but I do need to shift my perspective about multiple uses of bicycles, so thanks for that.
posted by sara is disenchanted at 4:15 AM on July 1, 2018 [17 favorites]

Increasingly gigantic firetrucks as a self sufficient solution to crumbling water supply infrastructure might just be the most American thing I’ve ever heard of.
posted by Artw at 5:18 AM on July 1, 2018 [29 favorites]

The more there are folks who feel safe riding bikes or walking as transportation thanks to livable streets with bike lanes, the fewer cars there will be on the roads creating traffic that slow emergency vehicles.

One of the comments on the original article claims that a large majority of Baltimore streets (most without bike lanes ) already don't meet the fire code because the city allows parking on both sides of the street. I don't know how accurate that is, but even their own video shows the parked cars are just as much part of the problem as the bike lane. Yet the FD isn't up in arms about parking, only bike lanes.
posted by misskaz at 6:04 AM on July 1, 2018 [3 favorites]

If the bike lanes get me off the sidewalk; and safely so; then great. If they mean some ignored two feet wide strip of near death - Nope.

Not sure where a solution is. A lot of cities have sidewalks that might have maybe one person per block. I feel no pain going slowly and respectfully on that sidewalk; and I rarely have a pedestrian bother at all about bikes going slow on the sidewalks.

Getting crushed by a dump truck; while properly riding in a narrow bike lane; not on my to do list.
posted by Afghan Stan at 6:22 AM on July 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

After years of fighting with non-drivers, SFFD decided (November 2017) to roll with the flow and has started using shorter, more agile fire trucks that still do the job. Baltimore is often cited in articles about the SF trucks, so here’s one and there are definitely more.
posted by crysflame at 6:39 AM on July 1, 2018 [9 favorites]

Given that ramming vehicles into crowds has been a thing lately and the profusion of bollards and barriers as a response I’d worry that a vehicle that can’t deal with bike lanes is going to have a really hard time with them.
posted by Artw at 7:20 AM on July 1, 2018

but I actually sold my road bike because it’s a little too dangerous to ride unless you drive out to one of the more rural counties and then get on your bike.

I mean... this... I don't think this is a phenomenon unrelated to the discussions and attitudes being shown by Balmer firefighters/mgmt here...
posted by phearlez at 9:11 AM on July 1, 2018 [9 favorites]

Buses where I live need a 10.5' wide traffic lane, and you'd think that if planners are proposing such lane widths for most streets that fire trucks should be sized appropriately for that lane width. I mean we do have 12' lanes here and there, but it seems like traffic engineers are starting to feel that width is unsafe. Is there good data on how fire truck size impacts fatalities from fire and medical emergency?

Safety aside, mode shift to cycling has a proven impact on public health, public health spending and longevity. Factors that may offset an increased risk of fire deaths (or not).

I do bike advocacy and commuting though, and know nothing about fire safety and EMS, so I clearly only have a tiny piece of the picture. I will say that it would be understandable for a fire department to make choices that kept them from having to run into burning buildings as often even if it made life a little more difficult for pedestrians and cyclists. I mean, I'm willing to risk sharing a car lane somewhere that the traffic is going 40MPH+ but I'm probably not brave enough to run into a burning building for a stranger's life.

I personally prefer bike lanes that aren't surrounded by physical barriers and are buffered on the side of parked cars rather than traffic (bike lanes in door zones, oh yay). Such lanes would not be an impediment for a fire truck unless cyclists failed to move out of the way. That said, not everyone rides like me, and I'm for infrastructure that increases mode share, because I think that's the best bang for your buck from a public health and transportation perspective.
posted by BrotherCaine at 10:01 PM on July 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

"emergency vehicles being slowed down" has been a huge talking point for people who hate the not-perfect-but-very-nice protected bike lanes on Venice Blvd in the Mar Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles.
posted by flaterik at 1:54 AM on July 2, 2018

"emergency vehicles being slowed down" has been a huge talking point for people who hate the not-perfect-but-very-nice protected bike lanes on Venice Blvd in the Mar Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Those people are a well-funded astroturf group that's being doing a bunch of bad faith kicking and screaming about traffic calming and safety improvements. They're not interested in emergency vehicles' speed - they're interested in protecting automobile entitlement.
posted by entropone at 10:31 AM on July 2, 2018 [3 favorites]

I'm not in the LEAST surprised to hear that
posted by flaterik at 3:14 PM on July 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

They also suggest that there are few significant advantages to having a huge firetruck, and that truck size is just a virtual dick-measuring contest between different fire departments.

When trucks are enormous because they have extra large water tanks, there is in fact a benefit to the larger truck. Thing is, they're only really useful in areas where road diets don't really make sense because population density (and traffic) is already low enough that the design of the road doesn't matter a whit to pedestrian and driver safety.

In a city, where these issues are actually issues, there's a hydrant on every block, making large trucks unnecessary and the wrong tool for the job. You just need a few hundred gallons at most to get started while someone hooks up a line and opens the valve.

Where I do agree with fire departments in their effort to influence road design is their opposition to speed bumps and tables. Those do actually have a measurable effect on response times in addition to all their other downsides and their ostensible purpose is far better served by other means that don't impact the provision of emergency services.
posted by wierdo at 3:25 PM on July 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

Baltimore City Council is investigating allegations that fire department employees and officials are bullying and intimidating bike activists, the Baltimore Sun reports.
posted by entropicamericana at 9:13 AM on July 9, 2018 [3 favorites]

In a city, where these issues are actually issues, there's a hydrant on every block, making large trucks unnecessary and the wrong tool for the job.

I don't know that this is the condition in Baltimore, and I would think it would have come up if it was. But about ten years ago it was a big issue in D.C. just how many hydrants were non-functional and, possibly more importantly, how the working status of any given hydrant wasn't known. I would be willing to believe that hydrants in cities are yet another example of our failing and neglected infrastructure.

Personally I think this is wayyyyyy less likely in these discussions than sub-beltbuckle compensating and hostility towards cycles. But it could be something that is an issue that provides a small legitimate explanation for this phenomenon.
posted by phearlez at 1:19 PM on July 9, 2018