This sort of design looks like a bad idea. Bike lanes should be dedicated sections to avoid the slippery slope that tends to happen where they exist with constant increasing encroachment. Next is...
This sort of design looks like a bad idea. Bike lanes should be dedicated sections to avoid the slippery slope that tends to happen where they exist with constant increasing encroachment.
Next is the opposing traffic. This will bring up the amount of crashes, or lead to people dodging each other into the bike lanes, which may result in more hits.
Make nice wide three-foot bike lanes with narrow (6-foot?) opposing car lanes to ensure everybody knows their place. When you add confounding variables to this you create a situation that is more frustrating and dangerous for all participants, which will lead to it being rolled back. If you want to keep the bikes safe, put up a barrier to keep cars out of the lane. That'll get in the way of the parking, but you won't be creating situations where panicked inattentive drivers will hit cyclists.
This is a cheap incomplete solution that doesn't make anything safer. If you want people to slow down in my described layout, put down speedbumps. People hate them, but they'll take them.
The counter is this. Streets (as opposed to roads) that appear safe to motorists are actually dangerous because they lead motorists to drive too fast. Anything that makes motorists think their...
The counter is this. Streets (as opposed to roads) that appear safe to motorists are actually dangerous because they lead motorists to drive too fast. Anything that makes motorists think their claim on a lane is tentative will cause them to be more careful.
In the above case, a car-cycle conflict starts with a car-car conflict (e.g. the motorist is already mad at another motorist.) My main fear is that this replaces the accident that the cyclist is afraid of (being overtaken) with one that they aren't afraid of (rear ending a car that cuts them off.)
I just see a lot of blind-spot cyclist sideswipes happening because oncoming drivers coming out to see the preserve have a mild moment of confusion and make a move without checking thoroughly....
I just see a lot of blind-spot cyclist sideswipes happening because oncoming drivers coming out to see the preserve have a mild moment of confusion and make a move without checking thoroughly. Most of the dumbest stuff I've pulled driving came from moments like this, and I'd say I'm a roughly average, if new driver. Aggression and confusion will definitely contribute to these.
On the other hand, a defensive cyclist could see the oncoming car and the passing car and then handle accordingly to avoid being sideswiped. I ride pretty fast/aggressive but with enough foresight...
On the other hand, a defensive cyclist could see the oncoming car and the passing car and then handle accordingly to avoid being sideswiped. I ride pretty fast/aggressive but with enough foresight to have always managed to avoid others' mistakesm
The main problem I see here, is that these types of cycle lanes may make the journey vaguely more pleasant for sports cyclists and dedicated commuters, but it's not suitable for kids/families, uncertain or beginner cyclists, or the elderly and only slightly suitable for leisure cycling. Thus, it wouldn't actually significantly contribute to decreasing car journeys.
I agree with you on the first part. I live in a city that has constrained neighborhood streets that, due to street parking, do not leave the lanes wide enough for two opposing autos to easily pass...
I agree with you on the first part. I live in a city that has constrained neighborhood streets that, due to street parking, do not leave the lanes wide enough for two opposing autos to easily pass abreast one another. Traffic is very slow when more than one vehicle is present and cars will often either pull into a gap in the parking to allow one another to pass or just pass by each other very slowly.
However, I don't think this design helps. It's very convoluted and will fail easily when a driver is in a hurry or their attention is somehow diminished. Even in the article they mention witnessing a dangerous situation developing between a driver and a cyclist. Looking at this desing, I can only conclude, from my own anecdotal evidence as both a driver and a cyclist, that it's trying to straddle a problem and is therefore creaing more problems. The road either needs to be much more narrow so that cars must use great care to pass a cyclist and which would be impossible with opposing traffic or wide enough that independent bike lanes (preferably either with a physical barrier or on a seperate grade) can exist. Either extreme makes mixed use much safer, I feel like this way just leaves too much gray area that a lot of drivers are just not equipped to handle
Bicycle lanes are the way to go. The problem with barriers is that in snowy states (I live in Wisconsin), you need to consider snow removal and salting icy surfaces. It's been an active debate for...
Bicycle lanes are the way to go. The problem with barriers is that in snowy states (I live in Wisconsin), you need to consider snow removal and salting icy surfaces. It's been an active debate for some time now in both Milwaukee and Madison where there are a good number of commuters. Either way, we need to fix it somehow.
In Detroit they made bike lanes on Michigan Ave that were separated from the car traffic with cone like devices that are anchored into the road. As soon as the first snow hit, the plow took out...
In Detroit they made bike lanes on Michigan Ave that were separated from the car traffic with cone like devices that are anchored into the road. As soon as the first snow hit, the plow took out all of those cones.
I always forget that part because it doesn't snow at all where I live. Even those plastic springy pylons could work, or a seasonal barrier. The problem is there's not an easy solution, but I find...
I always forget that part because it doesn't snow at all where I live. Even those plastic springy pylons could work, or a seasonal barrier.
The problem is there's not an easy solution, but I find infrastructure planners don't think about how people will act six months ahead, possibly because they also haven't been riding bicycles around cars for an extended period of time.
Someone noted in the comments that these are common in DC and work well, but the caveat is that they're mostly only seen on roads with very low speed limits (like 20 mph).
Someone noted in the comments that these are common in DC and work well, but the caveat is that they're mostly only seen on roads with very low speed limits (like 20 mph).
They did this in San Diego and drivers through such a big fit that they reverted the road layout in a week and the mayor publicly apologized. I hope it gets a real chance in Michigan though
They did this in San Diego and drivers through such a big fit that they reverted the road layout in a week and the mayor publicly apologized.
Isn't this just bad for everyone, including the bikes? Imagine two speeding cars and bikes passing each other. You know who loses. Or is there something I'm not understanding/seeing?
Isn't this just bad for everyone, including the bikes? Imagine two speeding cars and bikes passing each other. You know who loses.
Or is there something I'm not understanding/seeing?
It’s just a way to formalize with markings that the bikes have the right to most of the road by default. The car 1 and 2 will have to slow down to the bicycle’s speed and wait for one of the cars...
It’s just a way to formalize with markings that the bikes have the right to most of the road by default. The car 1 and 2 will have to slow down to the bicycle’s speed and wait for one of the cars to pass with the center lane before the other is allowed to pass.
It also clearly marks how much space the cars need to give bikes when they pass.
This type of driving style isn’t a weird as you may think. I’ve been in older neighborhoods in the US with narrow streets that can only fit one car and two sides of street parking. People drive slower and when two cars are heading towards each other, one of them pulls off at the nearest gap in parking or the gaps where there are driveways. Just replace the street parking with bike lane and you can get an idea of how it should work.
Currently, bikes can feel like guests on roads that have to make way for cars. These types of markings make bikes the dominant users and cars have to work around their behavior instead.
These are actually pretty common in Germany - called Schutzstreifen - and work decently well on infrequently travelled roads. You'll see them on Landstraßen (i.e. rural roads) pretty often. I...
These are actually pretty common in Germany - called Schutzstreifen - and work decently well on infrequently travelled roads. You'll see them on Landstraßen (i.e. rural roads) pretty often.
I think it does help to have cars keep a safe passing distance and formalize that bikes are allowed/encouraged on that stretch of road, which means less honking and an overall more pleasant experience.
If the road is frequently travelled by cars however, it can be pretty tedious and dangerous. In that case, they should get rid of the parking and figure out why people want to park there in the first place. Not to mention, parking directly next to a bike lane is incredibly dangerous as most people open their doors without checking for oncoming cyclists and cars tend to be tinted so dark in the US that there's no chance to see inside.
In my corner of the US, in a southern California suburb, I've found massive attitude adjustments on roads that have sharrows, which are basically bike symbols and chevrons (>>) indicating that...
In my corner of the US, in a southern California suburb, I've found massive attitude adjustments on roads that have sharrows, which are basically bike symbols and chevrons (>>) indicating that bikes may use the full lane. This ignores the fact that in California for a standard-width lane if there is insufficient room for a three-foot pass, the bicycle can lose the entire lane, making sharrows basically repeating state law. Just having this indicator seems to increase driver compliance with the law and, in my experience, increase safety. Jerks will still be jerks, however.
The attitude I express above actually made a fellow cyclist mad when I participated in a road survey around here, but we were going through areas where adding bike lanes would've made cycling worse, as the road simply couldn't be expanded, and it interacted with massive amounts of tourists that would likely cause problems when they're focused on the destination, not the path.
The issue with the posted issue is it's a nature preserve I assume people can walk in, so they need to figure out a better parking solution that doesn't encroach on the preserve.
I'm not sure who thought this idea would improve road safety for anyone, let alone fragile bicyclists! Just a note, but Michigan historically has allowed something like this on older three- or...
I'm not sure who thought this idea would improve road safety for anyone, let alone fragile bicyclists!
Just a note, but Michigan historically has allowed something like this on older three- or five-lane roads with a center left turn lane. The turn lane is shared by drivers traveling in opposite directions. Even on 25 m.p.h. streets, intentionally steering towards potentially oncoming cars is nerve-wracking. One of my coworkers is still undergoing surgeries to repair injuries from a 45 m.p.h. near head-on collision with someone who didn't see his car in the turn lane during a winter storm.
The shared center lane has proven dangerous enough that newer/more heavily trafficked roads use the "Michigan Left".
As to the specific scenario in the article, create dedicated off-road parking and make a properly separated bike lane out of the on-road parking spaces.
Interesting. Based on the description it sounds like a bad idea. But in practice this is how many of us drive around bikes in my town. We are a very bike-able town with many recreational and sport...
Interesting. Based on the description it sounds like a bad idea. But in practice this is how many of us drive around bikes in my town. We are a very bike-able town with many recreational and sport cyclists. On my weekend drives in the mountains I regularly see more cyclists that cars.
The generally accepted practice is that the car behind the bike slows to the cyclist's speed until traffic has passed, then uses half the oncoming lane to give the cyclist most of the lane + shoulder. It works well but these are not busy roads.
If they are trying to get drivers to obey traffic laws by making the roads even more dangerous to use, they better have some money put aside to help the families of the people who are absolutely...
The prime goal was to create a traffic-calming effect to encourage drivers to stick to the 25 mph speed limit.
If they are trying to get drivers to obey traffic laws by making the roads even more dangerous to use, they better have some money put aside to help the families of the people who are absolutely going to get hurt or die from this terrible design. This design is basically exactly the same as suburban unmarked streets. Why on earth would they do something this stupid?
The other goal was to create parking spaces for a nearby reserve.
Stupid does not even begin to describe how boneheaded this is.
See https://usa.streetsblog.org/2015/05/27/compelling-evidence-that-wider-lanes-make-city-streets-more-dangerous One take is that when drivers feel safe they go too fast, when cyclists don’t feel...
I mean, there's dangerous, and there's "dangerous." This particular instance is pretty dumb, but the idea of making streets more crowded to slow down traffic is not.
I mean, there's dangerous, and there's "dangerous." This particular instance is pretty dumb, but the idea of making streets more crowded to slow down traffic is not.
This sort of design looks like a bad idea. Bike lanes should be dedicated sections to avoid the slippery slope that tends to happen where they exist with constant increasing encroachment.
Next is the opposing traffic. This will bring up the amount of crashes, or lead to people dodging each other into the bike lanes, which may result in more hits.
Make nice wide three-foot bike lanes with narrow (6-foot?) opposing car lanes to ensure everybody knows their place. When you add confounding variables to this you create a situation that is more frustrating and dangerous for all participants, which will lead to it being rolled back. If you want to keep the bikes safe, put up a barrier to keep cars out of the lane. That'll get in the way of the parking, but you won't be creating situations where panicked inattentive drivers will hit cyclists.
This is a cheap incomplete solution that doesn't make anything safer. If you want people to slow down in my described layout, put down speedbumps. People hate them, but they'll take them.
The counter is this. Streets (as opposed to roads) that appear safe to motorists are actually dangerous because they lead motorists to drive too fast. Anything that makes motorists think their claim on a lane is tentative will cause them to be more careful.
In the above case, a car-cycle conflict starts with a car-car conflict (e.g. the motorist is already mad at another motorist.) My main fear is that this replaces the accident that the cyclist is afraid of (being overtaken) with one that they aren't afraid of (rear ending a car that cuts them off.)
I just see a lot of blind-spot cyclist sideswipes happening because oncoming drivers coming out to see the preserve have a mild moment of confusion and make a move without checking thoroughly. Most of the dumbest stuff I've pulled driving came from moments like this, and I'd say I'm a roughly average, if new driver. Aggression and confusion will definitely contribute to these.
On the other hand, a defensive cyclist could see the oncoming car and the passing car and then handle accordingly to avoid being sideswiped. I ride pretty fast/aggressive but with enough foresight to have always managed to avoid others' mistakesm
The main problem I see here, is that these types of cycle lanes may make the journey vaguely more pleasant for sports cyclists and dedicated commuters, but it's not suitable for kids/families, uncertain or beginner cyclists, or the elderly and only slightly suitable for leisure cycling. Thus, it wouldn't actually significantly contribute to decreasing car journeys.
I agree with you on the first part. I live in a city that has constrained neighborhood streets that, due to street parking, do not leave the lanes wide enough for two opposing autos to easily pass abreast one another. Traffic is very slow when more than one vehicle is present and cars will often either pull into a gap in the parking to allow one another to pass or just pass by each other very slowly.
However, I don't think this design helps. It's very convoluted and will fail easily when a driver is in a hurry or their attention is somehow diminished. Even in the article they mention witnessing a dangerous situation developing between a driver and a cyclist. Looking at this desing, I can only conclude, from my own anecdotal evidence as both a driver and a cyclist, that it's trying to straddle a problem and is therefore creaing more problems. The road either needs to be much more narrow so that cars must use great care to pass a cyclist and which would be impossible with opposing traffic or wide enough that independent bike lanes (preferably either with a physical barrier or on a seperate grade) can exist. Either extreme makes mixed use much safer, I feel like this way just leaves too much gray area that a lot of drivers are just not equipped to handle
Bicycle lanes are the way to go. The problem with barriers is that in snowy states (I live in Wisconsin), you need to consider snow removal and salting icy surfaces. It's been an active debate for some time now in both Milwaukee and Madison where there are a good number of commuters. Either way, we need to fix it somehow.
In Detroit they made bike lanes on Michigan Ave that were separated from the car traffic with cone like devices that are anchored into the road. As soon as the first snow hit, the plow took out all of those cones.
I always forget that part because it doesn't snow at all where I live. Even those plastic springy pylons could work, or a seasonal barrier.
The problem is there's not an easy solution, but I find infrastructure planners don't think about how people will act six months ahead, possibly because they also haven't been riding bicycles around cars for an extended period of time.
Someone noted in the comments that these are common in DC and work well, but the caveat is that they're mostly only seen on roads with very low speed limits (like 20 mph).
They did this in San Diego and drivers through such a big fit that they reverted the road layout in a week and the mayor publicly apologized.
I hope it gets a real chance in Michigan though
Isn't this just bad for everyone, including the bikes? Imagine two speeding cars and bikes passing each other. You know who loses.
Or is there something I'm not understanding/seeing?
It’s just a way to formalize with markings that the bikes have the right to most of the road by default. The car 1 and 2 will have to slow down to the bicycle’s speed and wait for one of the cars to pass with the center lane before the other is allowed to pass.
It also clearly marks how much space the cars need to give bikes when they pass.
This type of driving style isn’t a weird as you may think. I’ve been in older neighborhoods in the US with narrow streets that can only fit one car and two sides of street parking. People drive slower and when two cars are heading towards each other, one of them pulls off at the nearest gap in parking or the gaps where there are driveways. Just replace the street parking with bike lane and you can get an idea of how it should work.
Currently, bikes can feel like guests on roads that have to make way for cars. These types of markings make bikes the dominant users and cars have to work around their behavior instead.
These are actually pretty common in Germany - called Schutzstreifen - and work decently well on infrequently travelled roads. You'll see them on Landstraßen (i.e. rural roads) pretty often.
I think it does help to have cars keep a safe passing distance and formalize that bikes are allowed/encouraged on that stretch of road, which means less honking and an overall more pleasant experience.
If the road is frequently travelled by cars however, it can be pretty tedious and dangerous. In that case, they should get rid of the parking and figure out why people want to park there in the first place. Not to mention, parking directly next to a bike lane is incredibly dangerous as most people open their doors without checking for oncoming cyclists and cars tend to be tinted so dark in the US that there's no chance to see inside.
In my corner of the US, in a southern California suburb, I've found massive attitude adjustments on roads that have sharrows, which are basically bike symbols and chevrons (>>) indicating that bikes may use the full lane. This ignores the fact that in California for a standard-width lane if there is insufficient room for a three-foot pass, the bicycle can lose the entire lane, making sharrows basically repeating state law. Just having this indicator seems to increase driver compliance with the law and, in my experience, increase safety. Jerks will still be jerks, however.
The attitude I express above actually made a fellow cyclist mad when I participated in a road survey around here, but we were going through areas where adding bike lanes would've made cycling worse, as the road simply couldn't be expanded, and it interacted with massive amounts of tourists that would likely cause problems when they're focused on the destination, not the path.
The issue with the posted issue is it's a nature preserve I assume people can walk in, so they need to figure out a better parking solution that doesn't encroach on the preserve.
I'm not sure who thought this idea would improve road safety for anyone, let alone fragile bicyclists!
Just a note, but Michigan historically has allowed something like this on older three- or five-lane roads with a center left turn lane. The turn lane is shared by drivers traveling in opposite directions. Even on 25 m.p.h. streets, intentionally steering towards potentially oncoming cars is nerve-wracking. One of my coworkers is still undergoing surgeries to repair injuries from a 45 m.p.h. near head-on collision with someone who didn't see his car in the turn lane during a winter storm.
The shared center lane has proven dangerous enough that newer/more heavily trafficked roads use the "Michigan Left".
As to the specific scenario in the article, create dedicated off-road parking and make a properly separated bike lane out of the on-road parking spaces.
Interesting. Based on the description it sounds like a bad idea. But in practice this is how many of us drive around bikes in my town. We are a very bike-able town with many recreational and sport cyclists. On my weekend drives in the mountains I regularly see more cyclists that cars.
The generally accepted practice is that the car behind the bike slows to the cyclist's speed until traffic has passed, then uses half the oncoming lane to give the cyclist most of the lane + shoulder. It works well but these are not busy roads.
If they are trying to get drivers to obey traffic laws by making the roads even more dangerous to use, they better have some money put aside to help the families of the people who are absolutely going to get hurt or die from this terrible design. This design is basically exactly the same as suburban unmarked streets. Why on earth would they do something this stupid?
Stupid does not even begin to describe how boneheaded this is.
See https://usa.streetsblog.org/2015/05/27/compelling-evidence-that-wider-lanes-make-city-streets-more-dangerous
One take is that when drivers feel safe they go too fast, when cyclists don’t feel safe they don’t cycle.
I mean, there's dangerous, and there's "dangerous." This particular instance is pretty dumb, but the idea of making streets more crowded to slow down traffic is not.