Bike lanes in MA, dangerous bike lanes and a possible news story

Recently I engaged in a conversation over at ne.transport regarding
some inadequate bike lanes in the Newburyport, MA area. Shortly after
posting my reply, I got an email from a Boston area reporter. I don't
want to copy-paste the exact email in the interest of privacy, but the
gist was basically that she read my post and she's "heard other
cyclists complain of useless/dangerous bike lanes". She wanted to
know if there were any others that stand out as particularly
dangerous, stating that it may make a good news story for them if
so.

This seems like a good chance to try to get some public awareness, so
I figured I'd bounce the concept off of some other cyclists before
replying to her.

Link to the thread: http://tinyurl.com/2bw4od
Non-tiny link:
http://groups.google.com/group/ne.tr...37a72c21e4603e

" writes:

Recently I engaged in a conversation over at ne.transport regarding
some inadequate bike lanes in the Newburyport, MA area. Shortly after
posting my reply, I got an email from a Boston area reporter. I don't
want to copy-paste the exact email in the interest of privacy, but the
gist was basically that she read my post and she's "heard other
cyclists complain of useless/dangerous bike lanes". She wanted to
know if there were any others that stand out as particularly
dangerous, stating that it may make a good news story for them if
so.

This seems like a good chance to try to get some public awareness, so
I figured I'd bounce the concept off of some other cyclists before
replying to her.

We've had a few dangerous lanes, but these were installed many years
before the current design standards were developed. The main issue
was a lane that was too narrow to safely pass a parked car - an
opening door could completely block the lane.

One lane was installed about 10 years ago by mistake (someone messed
up the design) - it put the lane stripe too close to the gutter pan,
and as the pavement deteriorates over time, you end up with a crack
parallel to the direction of travel, so you need enough clearance from
that so that a cyclist can ride in the lane while not getting too
close to the gutter pan. That lane was removed and is now back after
some major road improvements that eliminated the problem. A few
people complained about the bike lane being removed, but removing it
was the only reasonable decision, given the liability risk of having
a substandard design.

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

On 15 Aug 2007 09:20:11 -0700, (Bill Z.)
wrote:


One lane was installed about 10 years ago by mistake (someone messed
up the design) - it put the lane stripe too close to the gutter pan,
and as the pavement deteriorates over time, you end up with a crack
parallel to the direction of travel, so you need enough clearance from
that so that a cyclist can ride in the lane while not getting too
close to the gutter pan.

What is a gutter pan?
--
JT
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Remove "remove" to reply
Visit http://www.jt10000.com
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On Wed, 15 Aug 2007 19:35:54 -0400, John Forrest Tomlinson
wrote:

On 15 Aug 2007 09:20:11 -0700, (Bill Z.)
wrote:


One lane was installed about 10 years ago by mistake (someone messed
up the design) - it put the lane stripe too close to the gutter pan,
and as the pavement deteriorates over time, you end up with a crack
parallel to the direction of travel, so you need enough clearance from
that so that a cyclist can ride in the lane while not getting too
close to the gutter pan.

What is a gutter pan?

Dear John,

http://motorman.org/wp-content/gutterpan_02.jpg

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

(Bill Z.) wrote:
One lane was installed about 10 years ago by mistake (someone messed
up the design) - it put the lane stripe too close to the gutter pan,
and as the pavement deteriorates over time, you end up with a crack
parallel to the direction of travel, so you need enough clearance from
that so that a cyclist can ride in the lane while not getting too
close to the gutter pan.

John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:
What is a gutter pan?

wrote:
http://motorman.org/wp-content/gutterpan_02.jpg

The dippy condescending white paint logo makes it 'desirable', right?
We'd never willingly ride over that crap otherwise. With the logo we're
supposed to persevere and be grateful for the indulgence of the Powers
That Be deigning to give us Our Own Lane with our own tax dollars??
--
Andrew Muzi, who rode on a Bike Path . . . once.
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

Just got the latest issue of "American Bicyclist," published by the
League of [same], and it contains a photo of a line of helmeted
cyclists carefully riding single file...in the door zone adjacent to a
line of parked cars.

Nice.

--Karen D.
life member, not ready to resign so I stay out of bike lanes

A Muzi wrote:
(Bill Z.) wrote:
One lane was installed about 10 years ago by mistake (someone
messed up the design) - it put the lane stripe too close to the
gutter pan, and as the pavement deteriorates over time, you end up
with a crack parallel to the direction of travel, so you need
enough clearance from that so that a cyclist can ride in the lane
while not getting too close to the gutter pan.

John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:
What is a gutter pan?

wrote:
http://motorman.org/wp-content/gutterpan_02.jpg

The dippy condescending white paint logo makes it 'desirable', right?
We'd never willingly ride over that crap otherwise. With the logo
we're supposed to persevere and be grateful for the indulgence of the
Powers That Be deigning to give us Our Own Lane with our own tax
dollars??

JFTR I've never seen a bike lane like that around my area. (I think there
might be a few cases that used to be and have been fixed quite nicely,
however.)

A Muzi writes:

(Bill Z.) wrote:
One lane was installed about 10 years ago by mistake (someone messed
up the design) - it put the lane stripe too close to the gutter pan,
and as the pavement deteriorates over time, you end up with a crack
parallel to the direction of travel, so you need enough clearance from
that so that a cyclist can ride in the lane while not getting too
close to the gutter pan.

John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:
What is a gutter pan?

wrote:
http://motorman.org/wp-content/gutterpan_02.jpg

The dippy condescending white paint logo makes it 'desirable', right?
We'd never willingly ride over that crap otherwise. With the logo
we're supposed to persevere and be grateful for the indulgence of the
Powers That Be deigning to give us Our Own Lane with our own tax
dollars??

This is fundamentally a silly statment - the picture shows a bike lane
stripe to the left of a gutter pan. From the picture, I can't tell
the width of the asphault in the bike lane - to meet standards, it
should be 3 feet in width or more. The logo is a standard symbol that
is required every so often. It is not to impress bicyclists - drivers
are supposed to stay out of bike lanes unless turning across them
(in which case they must be within 200 feet of their turn before
merging into the lane, yielding to any bicycles already in the lane).
Similarly there are rules governing bicyclists. So the logo is
there so that you don't have guess what kind of lane it is by
being able to tell a 3 inch shoulder stripe from a 5 inch bike lane
stripe (both solid white stripes) reliably.

There is no requirement that the logo has to be totally on the
asphault.

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

aka Carl Fogel wrote:
...
http://motorman.org/wp-content/gutterpan_02.jpg

A true bicycle farcility (sic).

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

On Aug 15, 7:42 pm, wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2007 19:35:54 -0400, John Forrest Tomlinson

wrote:
On 15 Aug 2007 09:20:11 -0700, (Bill Z.)
wrote:

One lane was installed about 10 years ago by mistake (someone messed
up the design) - it put the lane stripe too close to the gutter pan,
and as the pavement deteriorates over time, you end up with a crack
parallel to the direction of travel, so you need enough clearance from
that so that a cyclist can ride in the lane while not getting too
close to the gutter pan.

What is a gutter pan?

Dear John,

http://motorman.org/wp-content/gutterpan_02.jpg

Cheers,

Carl Fog

Only high skilled cyclists can ride on this kind lane.