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

Wayne Pein wrote:
...It shows you [Bill Zaumen] to be a bike lane apologist....

In other breaking news...

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia

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

Andrew Muzi wrote:
On Aug 15, 9:50 am, " wrote:
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..._thread/thread...


wrote:
You can scroll back through monthly pictures with captions of
exquisite British bicycle road and path mis-design he
http://www.warringtoncyclecampaign.c...August2007.htm


That's precious!
Hadn't noticed the archive on my earlier visit.

One of my all time favorites is the two-way "bike path" on the south
side of University Avenue [1], since it puts cyclists right in the path
of left-turning motor vehicles.

[1] Just a couple of blocks from Andrew's shop.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
BEER IS FOOD

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

landotter wrote:
On Aug 15, 1:04 pm, wrote:
Dear Dan,

You can scroll back through monthly pictures with captions of
exquisite British bicycle road and path mis-design he

http://www.warringtoncyclecampaign.c...e-month/August...


The Coventry Velodrome

http://www.warringtoncyclecampaign.c...August2007.htm

That's spectacular!

At UIUC, on of the "bicycle paths" has knee height concrete ventilation
boxes in the middle of the path. Needless to say, I always used the streets.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
BEER IS FOOD

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

"Tom \"Johnny Sunset\" Sherman" writes:


wrote:
You can scroll back through monthly pictures with captions of
exquisite British bicycle road and path mis-design he
http://www.warringtoncyclecampaign.c...August2007.htm
That's precious!
Hadn't noticed the archive on my earlier visit.

One of my all time favorites is the two-way "bike path" on the south
side of University Avenue [1], since it puts cyclists right in the
path of left-turning motor vehicles.


The URL shows a bike path, not a bike lane, so exactly why do you
think it is relevant. Aside from a bollard (can't tell if it is
easy to get by it safely from the picture), it looks like you have
a bike-only path that terminates at a dead-end street (dead end for
cars) and ingress and egress are aligned with the normal traffic
lanes.

The bollards in the bike-path entrance and exits might be necessary
to keep drivers out of it. Hopefully they left enough room so you
can clear the bollard without tripping on a curb.

You'd have to go past the bollards fairly slowly for safety, but
that might be preferable to a detour - the closure could be there
to control traffic, and they just tried to mitigate the impact on
bicycles. That's done around here sometimes - a road is closed to
prevent cut-through traffic and there are slots to let bicycles
through, so bikes get a direct route.

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

Bill Z. wrote:

Michael Press writes:


Even incompetent people can be malicious.


With respect to bike lanes? Get real.


Anyone putting in bike lanes would have to refer to published
guidelines. They're not hard to understand. Yet, there are ubiquitous
examples of ridiculously placed bike lanes all over the country. Likely,
the people putting them in knew they were doing it wrong but didn't
care, the overarching principle being to install bike lanes no matter
what. That's malicious.

There are numberous examples of substandard, dangerous, and otherwise
poorly placed bike lanes in "Bicycle Friendly" Carrboro, NC and adjacent
bicycle friendly wannabe Chapel Hill.

Wayne

On Aug 16, 9:32 pm, (Bill Z.) wrote:
writes:

[Bike lane proponents pretend that ] if atrocious designs are somehow built by mistake, they will be
speedily corrected by the same dedicated civil servants that designed
and oversaw the mistakes, once those mistakes are gently pointed out.

Odd. I know of a couple of cases in town where a bike lane was
installed so as to be substandard and they were quickly fixed.
In one case the lane was removed after what I believe was a
design error. In the other, some pavement work was done and
there was an existing, very old lane where the distance from
the lane stripe to the gutter pan was too small. The contractor
who did the striping just followed the old lane. He had
screwed up and had to replace it and bring the new section up
to the current design standards.

And our bike club has battled for ten years to have a grossly mis-
designed set of bike lanes revised. These are in a large metropolitan
park in our area. The designer has absolutely no knowledge of
bicycling, and refuses to even look at the AASTO standards (or any
other documentation). The park is using the excuse that pedestrians
also walk in those lanes, and that therefore "they are a multi-user
facility, not a bicycle facility, and they don't have to meet the
standards for bicycle facilities." The park administration is backing
him up.

Again, Bill refuses to believe anyone else has problems with bike
lanes, no matter how many bad examples he's told about.

- Frank Krygowski

writes:

On Aug 16, 9:32 pm, (Bill Z.) wrote:
writes:

[Bike lane proponents pretend that ] if atrocious designs are somehow built by mistake, they will be
speedily corrected by the same dedicated civil servants that designed
and oversaw the mistakes, once those mistakes are gently pointed out.

Odd. I know of a couple of cases in town where a bike lane was
installed so as to be substandard and they were quickly fixed.
In one case the lane was removed after what I believe was a
design error. In the other, some pavement work was done and
there was an existing, very old lane where the distance from
the lane stripe to the gutter pan was too small. The contractor
who did the striping just followed the old lane. He had
screwed up and had to replace it and bring the new section up
to the current design standards.

And our bike club has battled for ten years to have a grossly mis-
designed set of bike lanes revised. These are in a large metropolitan
park in our area. The designer has absolutely no knowledge of
bicycling, and refuses to even look at the AASTO standards (or any
other documentation). The park is using the excuse that pedestrians
also walk in those lanes, and that therefore "they are a multi-user
facility, not a bicycle facility, and they don't have to meet the
standards for bicycle facilities." The park administration is backing
him up.

Krygowski is obviously dissembling - if it is a "park" and a "multi-user
facility", whatever this facility is, it is not a bike lane, and not
being claimed to be a bike lane. It sounds more like a bike path.

In California, the only roads that bicycles can be restricted from using
are freeways and toll bridges. You do not have to use a path or sidewalk,
and a "multi-user" facility is obviously either an off-road path or a
sidewalk, but is not a bike lane.

Also in Califonria, if a jurisdiction refuses to follow the Caltrans
bike lane standards (basically the AASTO ones), a bicyclist is under
no legal obligation to use it - the bike lane rules in the CVC
specifically state that they apply only to lanes installed in
conformance to state standards.

If Krygowski's state has differnet rules, instead of whining on
usenet (and for some reason, blaming me as he always does), his
efforts would be better spent getting the laws changed, and using
what we do here as a model (it is easier to get changes to the laws
if you can point to another state where what you want has been
shown to work).

Again, Bill refuses to believe anyone else has problems with bike
lanes, no matter how many bad examples he's told about.

Proving once again that Krygowski is a liar - I simply reported the
facts regarding the town I live in.


--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

Wayne Pein wrote:
Bill Z. wrote:

Michael Press writes:


Even incompetent people can be malicious.


With respect to bike lanes? Get real.


Anyone putting in bike lanes would have to refer to published
guidelines. They're not hard to understand. Yet, there are ubiquitous
examples of ridiculously placed bike lanes all over the country.
Likely, the people putting them in knew they were doing it wrong but
didn't care, the overarching principle being to install bike lanes no
matter what. That's malicious.

There are numberous examples of substandard, dangerous, and otherwise
poorly placed bike lanes in "Bicycle Friendly" Carrboro, NC and
adjacent bicycle friendly wannabe Chapel Hill.

Implicit in your comment is that proper, well designed bike lanes are good
things (or, at least in Pein's World, not too terribly objectional).

I declare progress! LOL

Bill Sornson wrote:

Wayne Pein wrote:
Anyone putting in bike lanes would have to refer to published
guidelines. They're not hard to understand. Yet, there are ubiquitous
examples of ridiculously placed bike lanes all over the country.
Likely, the people putting them in knew they were doing it wrong but
didn't care, the overarching principle being to install bike lanes no
matter what. That's malicious.

There are numberous examples of substandard, dangerous, and otherwise
poorly placed bike lanes in "Bicycle Friendly" Carrboro, NC and
adjacent bicycle friendly wannabe Chapel Hill.



Implicit in your comment is that proper, well designed bike lanes are good
things (or, at least in Pein's World, not too terribly objectional).

I declare progress! LOL

Bike lanes are appropriate on freeways. Period. Elsewhere, they're
objectional to varying degrees.

Peace.

Wayne

Bill Z. wrote:

writes:

And our bike club has battled for ten years to have a grossly mis-
designed set of bike lanes revised. These are in a large metropolitan
park in our area. The designer has absolutely no knowledge of
bicycling, and refuses to even look at the AASTO standards (or any
other documentation). The park is using the excuse that pedestrians
also walk in those lanes, and that therefore "they are a multi-user
facility, not a bicycle facility, and they don't have to meet the
standards for bicycle facilities." The park administration is backing
him up.


Krygowski is obviously dissembling - if it is a "park" and a "multi-user
facility", whatever this facility is, it is not a bike lane, and not
being claimed to be a bike lane. It sounds more like a bike path.

Zauman is obviously projecting. From behind his computer in CA he thinks
he knows more about a facility in OH than Frank who lives and rides there.

Wayne