Let’s talk about blender zones (and why Salt Lake City should stop making them).
This is one of many examples of a blender zone in Salt Lake City. The bike lane disappears as the city makes way for six lanes of vehicle traffic on the low traffic, city-owned Main Street next to the Challenger School.
You’re riding a bike in Salt Lake City and headed for an intersection when the bike lane you’re riding in disappears. Suddenly, you’re riding in front of a vehicle that’s going three times faster than you are.
You’re hoping the driver in the two-ton car or truck behind you isn’t distracted or angry and slows down to match your slower speed. It’s stressful, but you make it through the intersection, where the bike lane continues until the same thing happens again at the next intersection.
What just happened?
Welcome to the blender zone.
Blender zones (also called mixing zones) are areas of the street where bike lanes are eliminated before intersections — the most dangerous places on Salt Lake City streets for all users — and continued at some point after.
Blender zones can be stressful for everyone involved, as they cause confusion among drivers who might not know how to properly yield to the slower-moving person now in front of them.
Addressing these blender zones is important, as they’ve been created all over the city.
Take a ride Downtown on Main Street and you’ll encounter blender zones at every intersection along the way. Ride south on 500 East next to Liberty Park and you’ll be tossed into traffic just shy of 1300 South. There are examples all over the city, as transportation officials have for years put the needs of the most vulnerable road users behind those of motorists at intersections.
Make no mistake: a blender zone, like every other aspect of a street, is a design choice. Put simply, when creating blender zones the city is choosing to prioritize higher vehicle speeds over the safety of people traveling by bike or people walking through intersections. And it’s a choice that should end today.
Blender zones represent a flawed choice made by engineers within the Transportation Division who are opting for the movement of vehicles over the safety of all road users.
They are broken links in the bike network that discourage people from choosing to travel by bike in Salt Lake City.
It doesn’t take an expert to know that these are uncomfortable places to ride a bike for even the most confident rider. They are considered by many to be off-limits for less confident or younger riders.
The good news for city officials is that there is plenty of guidance for making important (even inexpensive) changes.
Many cities are already adopting guidance from the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) on how to protect all street users at intersections, where everyone is most at risk for injury or death. This guidance includes:
Reduce vehicle turn speed (which also protects people walking through intersections).
Make bikes visible so that drivers are aware of people on bikes, in wheelchairs or on foot at intersections.
Give bikes the right of way.
“Intersections are the place where the most vehicle-bike conflicts occur. In 2017, 43% of urban bicyclist fatalities occurred at intersections.”
200 West 300 South is one of Salt Lake City’s few complete intersections. It protects people riding bikes as well as pedestrians through design elements that slow driver speeds, open up sight lines and add layers of cement.
These important changes don’t have to cost the city a lot of money. All that’s needed is for engineers and the city’s Transportation Division to make different choices when designing and operating intersections.
One of Salt Lake City’s best (and only) examples of a complete intersection can be found at 300 South 200 West. Here, cement barriers and clearly marked lanes create an impeccably safe intersection for everyone. The city’s crash data show no serious crashes at this intersection since the treatments were added.
The city also showed it could quickly, inexpensively and, unfortunately, temporarily improve safety and beauty at an intersection with a pop-up installment at 300 East 700 South. Here, the city used paint, planters and wave delineators to alter the flow through the intersection.
These elements changed the radius of the intersection, making it more likely that drivers would see people crossing the street and yielding.
We’d like to see more of this type of innovation at more intersections. But more importantly, we’d like the city to show its commitment to keeping people safe by eliminating blender zones.
