One of our readers reported the following to a traffic engineer at DPW over the weekend:
I wanted to bring a situation to your attention that the City needs to fix asap, as it’s quite dangerous along River Road for bicyclists, runners, and walkers.
Yesterday I was bike riding with my son through Blackstone Park, along River Road near the red bridge. My son had a near-miss with a street runoff grate where one of the metal bars across the grate (sorry, don’t know the exact terminology) is actually broken, leaving a wide gap, large enough to swallow up a small bike wheel, someone’s entire leg, etc. The situation is across from “hockey pond.”
One other thing, the grates are parallel to the road and I doubt that these metal grates break very often but even if not, with narrow tires of some bikes they are a hazard, and have noticed this is an issue throughout the City. I wonder if DPW can make switching these grates to be perpendicular to the road something that happens with all future road repairs?
We will follow up with an update if there is any response. As to his last point, I’ve asked this very same question in the past. The grates are aligned in such a way as to maximize drainage from the road and, yes, this often means they are running parallel to the road and more dangerous for cyclists. The good news is there are more recent designs for storm grates, that are just as effective at capturing water, but far safer for cyclists. We should all be encouraging DPW and RIDOT to install better grates when they come up for replacement.