Helmet Head

How about bringing a tape measure to measure the width of any door zone bike lanes on your route?
Door zone bike lane = a bike lane on a street to the left of a line of parallel-parked cars.

If there are two stripes, please measure the distance from center-of-stripe to center-of-stripe.

If there is only one stripe, please measure from center-of-stripe to outside of typical parked car.

Please specify:

1. City
2. Location (street and nearest cross street)
3. # of stripes (1 or 2)
4. width measured from left stripe to right stripe (or door)
5. width from left stripe to curb
6. width from right stripe to curb (where applicable)
7. Any additional comments

slowandsteady

Any particular reason why?

randya

where's the poll?

noisebeam

Oh f, now I need to buy a carbon fibre tape measure.
Al

I-Like-To-Bike

And a GPS to provide the necessary coordinates for HH to conduct an accurate study.

zeytoun

Because his other door zone thread didn't go as well as planned.

But in all fairness, I find the door zone bike lanes quite irresponsible. I usually ride on the left stripe or outside the bike lane when present.

I'd be happy to measure the ones that I ride by and record it, but I would really like to see a pic of you measuring one of the lanes your ride near to, HH

Helmet Head

I'm just curious how many are at least 6' wide and/or on which the left stripe is at least 13' from the curb. The reason I'm curious is because I'm pushing for 6' bike lanes in a particular place (with 7' parking lanes) and am wondering how that compares to other places.

Tom Stormcrowe

Sounds like a fair reason to help out.

OK, I happen to know our bike lane width over in WL (as opposed to the MUP). The on street bike lanes are 40" wide, but there is no auto street parking permitted on Bike Laned roads.

MUP is 10', by the way.

randya

40" is substandard, parked cars or not. The drainage grates must fill at least 2/3 of the lane.

slowandsteady

None near me. But we don't have curbs or parked cars on the side of the road so I guess it is a moot point. 6' sounds huge for a bike lane. The one bike lane near me is maybe 3 feet.

joejack951

If you had posted this earlier today I would have measured the one on my way home from my parents' house. You'd love it, HH. They painted it red, although most of the paint has completely faded or been worn away. I'll try to swing by there sometime soon again.

deputyjones

OOoo, Dutch style...

slowandsteady

Are you serious about bike lanes being 6 feet wide? Where do you live that there is that much space to put in a 6 foot bike lane 13 feet from the curb?

Let's see, two 10 foot car lanes, two 6 foot bike lanes, and 13 feet from each curb = 58 feet!!!

I-Like-To-Bike

That's the point of such HH "mandated" space requirements. There are few places in built up urban areas to retrofit 6 foot wide bike lanes, especially on both sides of a two way street. It's just another obstructionist ploy in the Forester Brand bag of obstructionist tricks.

slowandsteady

I guess HH prefers to make a point than to make progress.

joejack951

Not quite. It's not a sidepath, but a normal looking bike lane except for all the red paint.

zeytoun

It's really silly to even have on street parking on a high speed limit road. IMHO if there is on street parking the speed limit shouldn't be any higher then 30mph, in which case the only "need" for a bike lane would be on an uphill section of the road.

If the road is 35mph or higher, then there shouldn't be on-street parking, and then there's room for a bike lane without worrying about the door zone.

deputyjones

I agree with all of that, and I can't think of any legal on street parking in my area where the speed limit is above 30. People do it along some rural county roads, but it is not legal.

hotbike

I beg to differ.

If your bike has a heavy cargo box on the front, you can take the car's door off.

Helmet Head

Here's a photo of the road in question.
TPRdBLparking.jpg
See those plus sign field marks? They are at 12' and 8' from the curb. That creates the 12' adjacent traffic lane. I've got them to agree to move the left mark out from 12' to 13' - they're coming out tomorrow morning to repaint the field marks. That will reduce the adjacent traffic lane from 12' to 11'.

Although they have agreed to reduce the parking lane from 8' to 7' in another section, they won't do it here. They claim it needs to be 8' wide for trucks.

But if they did agree to 7' parking lanes, that would put the stripes demarcating the bike lanes at 7' and 13', producing a 6' wide bike lane (all stripe measurements are relative to center of stripe).

Don't be foolish. If it wasn't for the "'mandated' space requirements", I wouldn't be able to get the city to agree to these changes. This is a recent email in response to my efforts of making arguments for bike lane widening based on standards and guidelines in the CA MUTCD (which they claimed to be following):

sbhikes

6 foot bike lanes seem a bit luxurious and not really necessary. I ride in bike lanes this wide and wider every day. It's nice but if they were narrower I don't think I'd really notice. I agree with ILTB that this request ol' HH wants to make is some kind of ploy.

noisebeam

Yet when I show examples of 4-5' bike lanes that meet AASTHO standards that are not even adjacent to parking I get responses that this is what makes my locality so crappy to ride in - that if cyclists were a true political force like in Portland, I wouldn't be stuck with such crappy lanes, that I shouldn't judge bike lanes based on what have been implemented where I live - that if I had 'good' bike lanes I wouldn't be so against them.

Now I hear that wider than 5' is a luxury?

Al

randya

two meters wide is the Dutch standard. that width was chosen so that two cyclists could comfortable ride side by side in the bike lane.

Brian Ratliff

noisebeam, I believe you are mistaking sbhikes for someone else.

Helmet Head

Have you done the math? This bike lane is adjacent to onstreet parking.

To ride outside of the 3.5' door zone, with a 6" safety margin of error, your right side needs to be 4 feet from the stripe against which cars are parked.

If your right side is 4 feet to the left of the stripe, your tire needs to be 5 feet. That puts you on the stripe of a 5 foot bike lane, and, technically, outside of the bike lane as half your bike and body are encroaching on the adjacent lane.

You call that "a bit luxurious"???