Digital_Cowboy

I wonder how many cyclists have been injured or killed while trying to ride that particular "bike lane?" Where I live as I have said before I have a number of "bike lanes" that only run for a block or two to several blocks, as well. They connect to nothing, go nowhere and do NOTHING other then to move cyclists out of motorists way.

One such "bike lane" is the bike lane on 77th Ave. N. here in St. Pete. It starts at 4th St. N. and goes to 9th St. N. doesn't connect to anything, and passes through the blind spot(s) of buses that are standing to pick up passengers at connection point that sees several buses per hour. As well as the road being two lanes wide with the outside lane being wide enough to allow two cars to safely pass each other within the lane.

On the other side of the road/canal is a very narrow lane with on street parking and a bike lane. There are usually cars and/or semi-trucks and/or trailers parked in the on street parking. The road/lane is narrow enough because of the both the on street parking/bike lane and the canal that even IF drivers wanted to give cyclists a 3' passing buffer there isn't enough room for them to do so.

Digital_Cowboy

I did and that "bike lane" isn't just "counter intuitive" it is dangerous for a cyclist to ride in. And please explain to us what the benefit is of a bike lane that is only one block long. Or even as I explained to you 5-blocks long but doesn't actually connect to anything? Or even the 15 block long bike lane that runs along 1st St. N. It runs from 62nd Ave. N. to 77th Ave. N., but it doesn't connect to anything. Nor does it go anywhere. As it terminates one street before a very small city park. A city park that has about a 1/4 mile long section of the City Trails North Branch Trail in it.

It does NOT go to any shopping centers, it does NOT go any malls, it does terminate at the 62nd Ave. N. in the southbound direction end in front of a church, it also on the northbound side pass in front of a church, but that is it. It doesn't connect to anything, it doesn't go anywhere. It does pass, but does NOT go into a couple of apartment complexes. The one I live in being one of them. It is on a road that sees very little traffic, yes that traffic is 35MPH traffic, but there is so little traffic their speed doesn't really matter.

The city wasted money installing it, and they just recently expanded the sidewalk on the northbound side into a MUP that goes from 30th Ave. N. to 77th Ave. N. Again, this mup doesn't really connect to anything or go anywhere.

So please other then moving cyclists out of the "way" of motorists, explain to me the "good" that this infrastructure does.

hagen2456

I'm not sure if it serves any purpose to discuss crappy infrastructure based on a few examples that are not of a kind that would make anyone think of them as bike lanes or whatever. If for no other reason then because such infrastructure can't be a basis of sound statistics. What I'm pointing to is what you may see in London (which I admittedly only know from videos and the discussions on diverse blogs and fora): Bike routes that though crappy do lead from somewhere to somewhere else in a somewhat meaningfull way.

contango 

Coming from the UK I'm always baffled at the US and its apparent love of stop signs. The vast majority of your stop signs would be yield signs in the UK, and 4-way stops would be a mini roundabout.

I've seen a few places in the UK where they use chicanes as traffic calming measures but build a bike lane that goes down the side of the chicane. So cars have to slow but a bike doesn't. If there's not much traffic (or it's a downhill section) I usually still take the lane as I can go through the chicanes without slowing at all, being so much narrower than a car.

contango 

Very true, it's amazing how a few trees near the side of the road make the road look narrower and therefore less conducive to high speed. When a road is long, straight and wide it's natural to figure that it's suitable for driving faster. So having a road that looks like it's probably safe to drive at 50mph and then posting a 30mph sign is only going to result in drive confusion and the likelihood of drivers' speeds drifting upwards. Throw in a few trees, some roadside parking, the odd mini-roundabout or two, anything to break the clear line of sight from one end to the other, and people naturally slow down.

Ultimately there's nothing you can ever do to completely stop the motoring yobs who consider chicanes to be a test of their driving skill and speed bumps to represent an opportunity to do 0-60-0 between the bumps, and there's nothing you can ever do to completely stop those who drive when they are drunk/high/asleep/whatever. The key is to focus on the overwhelming majority of road users who just want to get where they are going.

On the subject of speed bumps what we're seeing a lot of in the UK are speed cushions. They don't take up the entire width of the road, they are spaced so a car has to slow down to go over them, an ambulance can straddle them and a bike can go between them. The downside is that White Van Man can straddle them in his van while tailgating the car in front for slowing down for them.

mnemia

I'm baffled by it, too, and I'm an American. I feel that their overuse has greatly diluted their effectiveness. I'd love to see most of our stop signs replaced with yield signs at all the places where their only function is to establish priority. There seems to be inadequate enforcement of engineering standards, as well as a desire to use signs, paint, etc, to paper over a basic lack of driver competence and law enforcement.

sggoodri

I would like very much for the US to switch to mini-roundabouts in place of stop sign intersections on many low speed streets, especially low speed residential streets that are useful as through connections for cyclists.

I like the idea of replacing stop signs with yield signs in general, but am curious about the differences between driving cultures in the US and the UK. Here in the US, I suspect many drivers will bomb through them withoutlooking or being prepared to stop when there is actual traffic coming close enough to present a collision risk. At least with mini-roundabouts, the raised center and diverter islands present physical obstructions to proceeding straight at speed, encouraging them to slow down and think, at least a little bit.

What is driver-pedestrian interaction like in the UK at crosswalk locations with yield signs for drivers? Do drivers facing yield signs yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk? Do they expect pedestrians not yet in the crosswalk to yield to them? In the US, drivers are unreliable at yielding to pedestrians even at stop signs; sometimes pedestrians step out in front of a motorist who is stopping for the stop sign just to avoid the possibility of a ticket but isn't seeing the pedestrian; the driver hits the accellerator just as the pedestrian thinks the driver has stopped for him.

Looigi

Yep. This gets back to my saying I don't have a problem with people coasting through stop signs or not coming to complete stops when turning right on red. Those who attentively and responsibly check for traffic and continue without coming to a complete stop are safer drivers than those who blindly and obediently stop but are oblivious to other traffic or exercise poor judgement when the do choose to go.

contango 

When I think in the small town in PA that I'm familiar with, driving out of the Post Office car park you reach a stop sign that seems to serve no purpose, and turn left. Barely 20 yards away is another stop sign, at which the road you're turning onto is a quiet residential street in a sleepy small town. In all the times I've come out of there it's been necessary to stop to yield to something maybe once or twice. Then 50 yards later is another stop sign before you turn onto the main road through town (although "main road" is used in a relative sense).

It really can't be a surprise to anyone that most people don't come to a complete stop at every single one of those signs. It's frankly silly to expect people to. As you say, the effectiveness of a stop sign is diluted through overuse.

A raised centre doesn't always stop someone flying through, especially in some of the huge SUVs you have on the roads in the US. From what I see of driver behaviour it seems a good proportion of people do at least slow for mini roundabouts but the usual suspects are less inclined to do so than others. The usual suspects typically include young men with cars worth less than the car stereo, builders driving white vans etc.

A lot varies by location. In the UK we have zebra crossings which are kind of like your crosswalks (called zebra crossings because they are black-and-white stripes across the road). At a zebra crossing pedestrians have priority but technically a car doesn't have to yield to a pedestrian unless they have already started to cross. At quiet crossings it's usually easy enough to cross but on busier roads it's not uncommon to see cars bunching up, almost as if each one is just following the previous one on the basis they are too close to stop. There's a crossing near my home and if I'm using it I make my own judgment call whether an approaching car can stop safely and then just walk out into the road. If you wait at the roadside sooner or later someone will stop but you'll be waiting a lot longer. There was one particular zebra crossing I remember - I was at the beach waiting for a friend and noticed a car had stopped. It turned out I was standing close enough to the zebra crossing that the driver thought I wanted to cross, so stopped to let me across.

Looigi

I just got back from taking the dog to the vet, a 24 mile round trip over many roads I ride on. These are major two lane roads between small New England towns and the posted limit varies from 20 to 35 mph. All the traffic was exceeding the limits by 10 to 15 mph. This was everybody, cars, service trucks, box vans, straight trucks, etc.. On these roads you can only travel as fast as the slowest driver and it was clear that all the drivers felt it reasonable and responsible to be driving at the rate they were. What this indicates is that the speed limits are set inordinately low, much lower than all these drivers felt were reasonable under the prevailing conditions. The limits are a preposterous farce, taken seriously by no one.

I should probably mention that on that drive I passed two cyclists in the waning light of day, both wearing dark drab outfits and with no lights, making themselves inconspicuous and difficult to see. Had they gotten hit, how would you apportion the blame between the speeding motorist and the idiot cyclists?

sggoodri

In accordance with the law, which should be clear regarding when lights or reflectors are required and the types thereof, by both motorists and cyclists, as well as the speeds at which drivers may lawfully travel and their duty of care.

mnemia

I think that a lot of people might behave that way at first if we were to replace many stop signs with yield signs. Ideally, we would do it all at once, and highly publicize the change (though I suspect you would run into ill-informed political resistance in many places in the U.S.). But the current U.S. motorist behavior at stop signs (a tendency to roll through them slowing) and yield signs (a tendency to just blow through them as if they weren't there) is a product of the current U.S. bias towards using stop signs everywhere rather than yield signs. Using stop signs lots of places that should just have yield signs does two things: it conditions drivers, and cyclists for that matter, to believe that most of the time, it's no big deal to roll through a stop sign, and also conditions them to believe that most of the time, they can just blow through yield signs without even slowing (since they generally only get used at places where there is very low risk to doing so). If we replaced a lot of the stop signs with yield signs, then suddenly drivers would have to start paying attention to the yield signs, or risk getting hit. And they would likely begin to pay even more attention to the stop signs, because they would be rarer and used mainly at intersections where a stop is genuinely required for safety (e.g, at intersections of roads with equal priority, or at blind corners, etc). In other words, we can't apply current observations of how U.S. drivers behave to how they might behave should we make this change. The reason so many disobey stop and yield signs is because of the current disconnect between the use of the signs and the actual real need for them.

Digital_Cowboy

Then why do you and a few others here keep insisting that ANY bicycle infrastructure is better then no bicycle infrastructure? Why can't you understand that about the only thing that crappy infrastructure does is to reinforce the notion that too many motorists have that bicycles do NOT belong "their" roads?

As I've said before in talking with the/one of the traffic engineers here in St. Pete he told me that the reason most if not all of the roads that have had bike lanes added to them did so because they fit, not because they actually did anything to improve cycling. They do NOT make it safer, they do not increase the convenience of cycling. They fit, and they move cyclists out of motorists "way." They also send the wrong message to motorists that ANY space to the right of a white line is "automatically" a "bike lane." And that cyclists NEED to ride in that "bike lane" even though it really isn't a bike lane. Some so much so that they are willing to not only stop their car but to get out of their car and actually get into a fight over it.

In situations like that, NO bike lane/infrastructure is better then inferior infrastructure or something that someone thinks as being a bike lane/infrastructure.

As I have said before I am NOT anti-bike lane/infrastructure, what I am "anti" are bike lanes/infrastructure that does absolutely NOTHING to improve bicycling.

Digital_Cowboy

As has been said before a LOT of them have been installed for political reasons. And don't actually have anything to do with safety. That and sadly way too many people here in the States ignore yield signs. So they end up getting turned into stop signs. Which again too many people have a tendency to ignore.

CB HI

Pretty much the claims I would expect from the coolaid drinking bike lane supporters like you and Bek - 'Any bike lane no matter how dangerous'.

hagen2456

Ah. That was pretty smart. Actually so smart that I didn't understand your reasoning. Would you care to elaborate a bit?

Looigi

No lights or reflectors are required for daytime riding. There is no requirement for wearing conspicuous colors. The fact there is no law governing it, doesn't absolve responsibility.

Bekologist

guess what's been proven to reduce motorists breaking the speed limits in the US and bringing traffic more to posted speeds along roads, all the while bringing improvements in pedestrian, cyclist and motorist safety while increasing rider share?

road diets with bikelanes.

the UK can also use traffic calming methods like road diets with bike facilities to reduce speeding motorists.

20 mph speed limits are one way to reduce speeds. But posting signs alone don't necessarily reduce speeds, and US motorists regularly break speed limits while driving.

sggoodri

Responsibility for what? To stay out of the way of drivers who are speeding and traveling too fast for visibility conditions?

The local cases I've seen where drivers drove into shadows or drove into the sun too fast to stop for pedestrians, cars, bicyclists, or other lawful road users ahead have been handled in a straightforward manner by the courts: Fault goes to the faster operator unless the slower operator violated an actual traffic law such as failure to use lights during the times specifically required.

Cyclist advocates should encourage cyclists to use reflectors and lights before it's dark enough that they are legally required, but it doesn't follow that they should be considered legally liable for not doing so anytime drivers are traveling too fast for visibility conditions.

CB HI

Sadly, there seems to be a growing number of BF members that believe exactly that.

Bekologist

you DON'T stay out of the way of motorists travelling too fast for visibility conditions?

what is that, reckless invincibility syndrome?

where should a rider ride this 60mph highway in low vision rain and ground fog conditions - in the lane or on the shoulder?


what's with the chestbeating about reckless riding? isnt' this thread about slower traffic benefiting cyclists?

Slower speeds on typical north american arterial roads are often achieved with a combination of traffic calming from road diets that included dedicated bicycle lanes- studies have shown motorists fairly consistently drive closer to the actual speed limits when roads are "dieted."

20mph speed limits are still slow to catch on in the US, but expect small cities to perhaps expand low speed zones to encompass 20mph downtown cores? I ride in a city with a lot of 25mph roads, and the motorists usually do 30 +.

CB HI

So if you get hit while cycling in the rain Bek, you will gladly accept full responsibility and let the motorist off the hook?

Bekologist

what utter nonsense. Who in the world is suggesting bicyclists let motorists that hit them 'off the hook?'

that's so "off the hook" it's like, "out to lunch".

Just like comments about taking the lane in front of motorists traveling too fast for visibility in inclement conditions.

what in the world do the CBHI's and Sgoodris' proud bicycle drivers' empty claims about taking the lane in poor visibility in front of dangerously fast motorists have to do with reducing motorists speeds in the UK?

if visibility is very bad, and motorists are outdriving their safety margins, by all means, stay out of the way. either side of the pond! that certainly doesn't absolve motorists of liability in the event of a collision.

every time i ride just 25mph roads here, the cars are doing 8-10 miles over. lowering the speed limit 5 mph might make things more marginally safe, but more countermeasures can supplement lowered speeds to improve rider safety. separated tracks from high speed roads, ample shoulder or dedicated bike lane when traffic speeds on a road are not practical for extreme traffic calming.

road diets on 30mph arterial roads in seattle have generally brought traffic speeds down from 40ish to closer to posted.

try getting the speed limit on a state highway bypass or six lane arterial thru your town lowered to 20mph.

CB HI

A lot of spouting all over the place.

contango 

Regardless of where the legal responsibility lies I'd rather take more responsibility for my own well-being than simply assume someone else is looking for me (despite not knowing I'm even there) just because a dusty statute book somewhere says it's their problem.

Bottom line, if I get run over it might be their problem from a legal perspective but I'm the one who has to live (or not, depending) day by day with the consequences. All the compensation in the world won't put me back together again.