Bike paths in the news.

Mark Hickey wrote:
Wayne Pein wrote:


No, we don't agree, unless your 45 mph roads are freeways. Freeways are
where bike lanes may be useful. Other high speed roads I believe are
better with wide outside lanes.


There is a mile between (most) lights, and the speed limit is 45mph.
There are four to six lanes. What in the world difference does it
make if the road is a "freeway" or a surface street with precisely the
same characteristics and features?

Freeways have no intersections, driveways, turning movements. They are
fundamentally different than normal streets. Note that some "normal"
streets approach freeway design, but mere traffic speed is not a
sufficient indicator.







Again, you are comparing normal width lanes on the non-bike lane road
with bike lane roads. This is not a fair comparison. Bicyclist don't
stack up cars in wide outside lanes. Get your comparisons straight.

Let me again assist. Take a bike lane road and remove the bike lane. The
SPACE is the same, there just isn't a confining stripe.


It all depends on whether you view that "confining stripe" as
"confining you" or "confining the cars". They've got plenty of room,
they don't need mine, and I've got plenty of room so I don't need
theirs.

What's wrong with that?

What's wrong with giving black people their own seats in the back of the
bus? Separate but equal is not equal.




Widening "normal" lanes either by widening the lane or by adding a bike
lane allows motorists to overtake easier and makes some/many bicyclists
feel more comfortable. It is my experience that in most cases a wide
lane is better than the same space partioned into a "car" lane and a
bike lane.

Most of the area "neighborhood" roads with bike lanes are so wide that
they'd be perfectly fine with or without a bike lane. The main
"bicycle arterial" road through my neighborhood has a nice, wide
parking lane (wide enough for SUVs to keep the doors inside the
parking lane), and THEN a six plus foot bike lane, and THEN a "wide"
auto lane (haven't measured it, but I'd guess 12' or more.

A gigantic waste of space.


So you have a problem with wide roads, after all that talk about how
widening lanes is the answer????


Why do you believe that there needs to be so much space on neighborhood
streets?

My position is that wide lanes or bike lanes are first a benefit to
motorists in that they allow them to more easily pass bicyclists. But
there is no operational advantage to bicyclists. We are 2 ft wide and
fit on any road. Busier streets with such widening makes bicyclists feel
better, but widening of low speed low traffic streets is a waste of
space and has the deleterious effects of possible higher motorist speed,
increased impervious surface, and increased heat sink.

Wayne

Dennis Ferguson wrote:
wrote:


... if there's that much room, you don't need the stripe!

But the stripe doesn't cost much to paint, compared to the cost of
the rest of the road, so it is still mysterious what advantage one
would gain by not painting it even though you don't strictly "need"
it. The reason identifying that advantage is interesting to me is
that, in my personal experience, there seem to sometimes be some
advantages to having the stripe:

- Without the stripe the separation distance between the cyclist and
passing cars, which for the cyclist's comfort needs to increase as
the speed differential increases, is entirely the choice of each
individual driver of each passing car. With the stripe the cyclist
has a mechanism for expressing an opinion on what an appropriate
separation distance might be. This is obviously imperfect, since
nothing prevents cars from crossing the line, but car drivers are
likely to better understand lane discipline, which also keeps them
from running into other cars, than they are to understand what
separation distances are comfortable for the cyclist in a shared lane.

That _is_ imperfect. Sounds like you're giving permission for the car
drivers to crowd right to the line. What happens if (as one bike lane
near here currently has) the bike lane becomes filled with acorns from
an overhead oak tree? (I'm not making this up! But substitute the
broken glass, fallen-off mufffler or pothole of your choice.)

The issues of road debris and pavement quality are the number one
problem I have with bike lanes. Others talk about wonderful sweeping
and paving programs, but IME they don't work nearly as well as having
car tires brushing the roadway clean. I need _absolutely_ clear
permission to leave the lane for any obstruction.

I saw the best example of this on tour, riding into the Portland OR
metro area from the east. We were doing fine until we hit the streets
with bike lanes; then we were yelling "Glass!" more than every quarter
mile. Eventually we abandoned the streets with bike lanes and rode
some main drag that went due west into the city center. All glass
problems disappeared, and we had no problems with motorists.

The other oft-mentioned problems are the bike lanes that are
dangerously laid out - like, running the bike lane to the right of RTO
lanes. I know that people say "Oh, but everyone knows that's bad."
Yet the newest bike lane I know of, about one year old and five miles
from here, does exactly that.

- If you are riding with a friend in a nice, wide bicycle lane, you can
ride side-by-side and chat without car drivers getting their shorts in
a knot over the fact that you are using more of the shared lane than
is strictly necessary.

As with most pro-bikelane arguments, that situation is not changed by
the stripe. If there's so much room on the road that you can ride
side-by-side in the bike lane, then there's room to ride side-by-side
without the bike lane and not obstruct traffic.

- If car traffic is backed up and moving very slowly, the stripe helps
maintain a clear lane to ride past them on the bicycle by keeping
(most of) the cars from crowding the curb to prevent you from doing
that...

This may be an advantage to bike lanes, perhaps. Personally, I'm quite
wary of passing cars on the right in that (or any other) circumstance.
I've seen riders nearly hit when a car driver suddenly decided "Oh
heck, I'll just pull into that store's parking lot on the right " in
that situation. If traffic is moving slowly, I take my place in line.
If traffic is stopped, I'll keep my place in line unless it's clear it
wil cause me to miss a green cycle, and that's a rare occurrence. But
when traffic is stopped, I've always been able to get around, if
necessary, without a bike lane.

- Frank Krygowski

Dennis Ferguson wrote:


But the stripe doesn't cost much to paint, compared to the cost of
the rest of the road, so it is still mysterious what advantage one
would gain by not painting it even though you don't strictly "need"
it. The reason identifying that advantage is interesting to me is
that, in my personal experience, there seem to sometimes be some
advantages to having the stripe:

- Without the stripe the separation distance between the cyclist and
passing cars, which for the cyclist's comfort needs to increase as
the speed differential increases, is entirely the choice of each
individual driver of each passing car. With the stripe the cyclist
has a mechanism for expressing an opinion on what an appropriate
separation distance might be.

Huh? The exact opposite is true. Without the stripe, bicyclists use as
much space as the situation warrants, and their lateral position greatly
influences motorist overtaking behavior. With the stripe, the motorist
perceives no need to adjust speed or trajectory because the bicyclist is
on the other side of a stripe.

This is obviously imperfect, since
nothing prevents cars from crossing the line, but car drivers are
likely to better understand lane discipline, which also keeps them
from running into other cars, than they are to understand what
separation distances are comfortable for the cyclist in a shared lane.

Some motorists may indeed pass closer in a shared lane, but most will
pass further.




- If you are riding with a friend in a nice, wide bicycle lane, you can
ride side-by-side and chat without car drivers getting their shorts in
a knot over the fact that you are using more of the shared lane than
is strictly necessary.

So? Heaven forbid bicycle drivers should upset motorists!





- If car traffic is backed up and moving very slowly, the stripe helps
maintain a clear lane to ride past them on the bicycle by keeping
(most of) the cars from crowding the curb to prevent you from doing
that (so you won't be in their way when they make a right turn at
the traffic light 300 yards away, even though it will take them 2
light cycles and 3.5 minutes to get to the corner while it will take
you 20 seconds to cover the same distance and clear the intersection
if you can proceed unimpeded).

This advantage is dubious. Passing on the right is risky. Further, this
advantage is pretty much available if the lane is wide. In that case,
the bicyclist is rightly more cautious than when a clear bike lane
invites and encourages this.




While I might agree that there is little about bicycle lanes which can
be relied upon to make cycling safer (some of the above might make it
less safe), cycling is not too dangerous in either case and my experience
on higher-speed roads with well-designed and maintained bicycle lanes
is that cycling is significantly more pleasant there than on similar roads
which lack them.

Dennis Ferguson


Essentially your argument is mainly based on comfort, feel,
pleasantness, etc.

Bike lanes treat bicyclists as different/unequal, creating a caste system.
They REDUCE bicyclists' space.
They place bicyclists at the worst portion of the road.
They tend to harbor debris.

Wayne

wrote:

Mark Hickey wrote:

It all depends on whether you view that "confining stripe" as
"confining you" or "confining the cars". They've got plenty of room,
they don't need mine, and I've got plenty of room so I don't need
theirs.

What's wrong with that?

The fact that, if there's that much room, you don't need the stripe!

I don't need a road, or a bike for that matter.

But it's obvious that you're hard over on any logic that might impart
the slightest advantage to having an extra stripe painted on a
roadway. I've ridden a whole lot of miles (well into six digits of
miles) on all kinds of urban roads, and "it's better with a wide bike
lane". Most others think so too - but if you want to avoid the roads
with bike lanes, feel free. The difference between riding on the
local surface streets (most of which are 4-6 lane 45mph roads) with
and without lanes is astonishing. You would have to be a masochist to
choose "without" all else being equal, IMHO. But you have my
permission... ;-)

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $795 ti frame

On Fri, 04 Nov 2005 18:27:22 GMT in rec.bicycles.misc, Dennis
Ferguson wrote:

But the stripe doesn't cost much to paint, compared to the cost of
the rest of the road, so it is still mysterious what advantage one
would gain by not painting it even though you don't strictly "need"
it.

The advantage is that occasionally cars will get closer to the
shoulder and help sweep debris out of the edge of the lane,
cleaning it for cyclists.

On Fri, 04 Nov 2005 21:35:25 -0700 in rec.bicycles.misc, Mark
Hickey wrote:

But it's obvious that you're hard over on any logic that might impart
the slightest advantage to having an extra stripe painted on a
roadway.

Mark, there IS no advantage. None. It's a disadvantage that
costs extra money to paint, and where I live, with heavy studded
tire use, all the striping must be repainted every year.

Mark Hickey wrote:
But it's obvious that you're hard over on any logic that might impart
the slightest advantage to having an extra stripe painted on a
roadway. I've ridden a whole lot of miles (well into six digits of
miles) on all kinds of urban roads, and "it's better with a wide bike
lane". Most others think so too - but if you want to avoid the roads
with bike lanes, feel free. The difference between riding on the
local surface streets (most of which are 4-6 lane 45mph roads) with
and without lanes is astonishing. You would have to be a masochist to
choose "without" all else being equal, IMHO. But you have my
permission... ;-)


In spite of all your mileage, I doubt you've ridden in a lane as wide as
your bike lane plus the adjacent "car" lane. Your posts indicate you
compare bike lane roads to non bike lane roads with standard or narrow
lanes.

Wayne