buzzman

I must admit Hawaii still has eluded me as a place to ride (though I have ridden in 48 other states) so I'll have to take your word for it with regards your bad, door zoned bike lanes. One thing that surprises me here in BF's is I'll read accounts of horrendous bike lanes, "full of debris", poorly planned, in door zones etc. Oddly enough often from places with pretty consistent and warm weather patterns, like Arizona and Southern California. Then when I go there and ride I am amazed at the smoothness of the roads, their width and the relatively good condition of the bike lanes.

You see, I ride mostly in New England and the Northeast. And I ride year round- that means in snow, in sleet, in freezing conditions, often in the dark. Our roads are old, the infrastructure of Boston and NYC dates back to cow paths and push carts. The streets are narrow and crowded. Our winters cause frost heaves and potholes, our underground gas lines were installed in the late 1800's, spring leaks all the time and need to be dug and re-dug countless times so roads are patched and bumpy. I say this not by way of complaint but just as a reality. But maybe you've ridden places like this so there's no need for me to tell you.

In any case, for many of us here a bike lane is a positive. It marks an area in the road where we would most likely be riding in any case and while a portion of it may overlap a door zone most of the experienced riders have enough wisdom to stay away from car doors and still ride within the lane. If there is debris or construction in the lane we use hand signals when possible and move out of the bike lane and proceed around the obstructions. There is not an expectation here that the bike lane will be perfect, that no one will ever park in one, open their door into one, jog in it, step into it while on their cell phone and stand like a sedated cow being led to slaughter, all of those are things that, over time, we learn to anticipate and through experience and patience deal with as best we can.

My guess is you have it pretty good in Hawaii in your bike lanes. I'm sure they are not perfect. I am sure they are not the Garden of Eden of bike lanes, I'm sure they have their challenges and with responsible, open minded input could be improved upon but I'll bet a fair share of riders appreciate them being there. But I could be wrong.

This is from another thread on a similar topic and worth reposting since I couldn't have said it better myself. This is also from a rider with many years and many miles under his belt.
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robble

I'd rather take the lane than ride in a badly placed bike lane. When the bike lane is there, cars expect you to be in it and the "car lane" "belongs" to them.

loky1179

And when the bike lane is not there, the only lane that is there is the "car" lane. And then the cars think they own the whole road, and you should get your bike OFF the road.

For me, the greatest value of a bike lane consisting of some white paint on the roadway is that it makes clear to even the most neandertal of drivers that bicycles DO belong on the road.

spare_wheel

This is why sharrows are also useful. They communicate loudly and clearly that cyclists have the same right of way.

CB HI

Bek spews words like "value of well implemented, context specific bicycle infrastructure, including but not limited to bikelanes," but he and others here have seen the pictures I have posted of our bikelanes and they have declared them perfectly fine for cycling.

CB HI

Bekologist

wow! good thing cyclists never encounter parked cars, glass or grates on roads without bikelanes





when cyclists encounter conditions that merit improving on their bikeway network, work to improve them.

Honolulu isnt going to become some kind of cycling paradise if the rip out all the bike facilities!!!

I bet the vast majority of cyclists in Hawaii, perhaps even CBHI and robbie rather like the path networks that allow cyclists to avoid some of the mass interchanges and traffic clusters.

As to Jan heine and his protected bikelane "critique", he goes on to explain in his blog commentary that he actually supports smart protected lanes when they make sense, and buffered and standard bikelanes when they make sense too. and sharrows and bike boulevards.

Jan Heine, the author of the supposed 'critique', actually supports context appropriate cycle tracks in Seattle where they make sense as part of a larger, more comprehensive bike plan

The balanced approach to bicycle accomodation...... pretty much like any other mainstream and informed cyclist, not infected with auto-immune vehicularism disease.

*honk honk*

CB HI

robble - See what I mean about Bek.

PS - Is there a reason I am unaware of that he keeps calling you robbie?

Bekologist

what, how astute i am to point out to you that traffic, parking and surface hazards exist on roads without bikelanes?

If you can't figure out how to avoid that stuff on a road with a bikelane, what hope is there when you encounter those conditions at other times?




or perhaps cbhi means my 'balanced approach to bicycle accomodation'?

how do you guys like the path bypasses underneath the freeways in honolulu and the waterfront bike paths?

CB HI

Yes Bek, it is quite wonderful being able to pass all the traffic jammed cars so that I have the extra time to fix the flat caused by the glass in the wonderful bike lane.

krobinson103

In South Korea they have built bike only roads along most of the major rivers, and in many cases installed bike lanes on a lot of roads. The river paths are ok if you like to ride slow and dodge 10,000 other bikes and people. The bike lanes I like EXCEPT that they are used as parking, shop display space, loading zones, and they tend to do odd things through intersections. I almost got wiped out by a driver on a 'protected' bike lane as they simply crossed the lane without looking - bikes don't register.

Good idea? For sure, but at least here in Korea enforcement of the rules would make them actually useful.

CB HI

What are you talking about? Your clueless. The only freeway bypasses here are called roads or foot bridges (which do not allow cyclist).

The Pearl Harbor Bike Path is fine for the short distance it travels. The problem is, the path started in 1973, is not complete around Pearl Harbor. It still does not connect the fastest growing housing in Hawaii with any other area. But you would not know that sitting in your high tower looking down to declare the wonders of planned, unbuilt paths.

hagen2456

You're mixing up so many different aspects that it makes me completely dizzy.

Example: Mode share in Denmark has fallen, in spite of more bike paths. Yes. Outside the larger cities plus suburbs, people have almost stopped cycling. And why is that? Because schools and shopping and daycare etc. gets ever more centralized in ever larger units, and people tend to commute ever longer distances. However, in spite of this, the larger cities have seen more cycling, in particular the second and third largest. Copenhagen cycling seems to be stagnating these last few years, probably because there's hardly room for more cyclists. Before that, the increase followed very nicely the increase in bike paths. As it has done lately in Aarhus.

But what the increased coverage with bike paths has achieved is first of all increased safety, wherever it has been built.

Example: German bike paths etc.: The German bike paths you speak of were not so, but simply a part of the sidewalk. Noone would think that kind of infrastructure particularly effective in getting people to bike, would they? Extremely narrow, interrupted, with poor division between cyclists and pedestrians - in effect, MUPs. (And then there are all the socio-economial realities of Germany at present...)

Example: Bike infrastructure in Holland: You're dead wrong. They built tons of separated paths before 1990, and they made woonerfen, and lots of other bike friendly things. And cycling has certainly increased up till then, and it certainly has increased since then, too. I have no idea where you got your strange ideas from.

You are twisting reality, or you don't know what you're talking about. Either way, it's most annoying.

Bekologist

Don't forget, he's not anti-infrastructure, really seems to favor 2-3 meter wide bikelanes, even though he thinks these don't tend to separate bike and car traffic.

You're right though, it's a muddle. the consensus around here is the contrivities and screed distracts from the conversation.



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-In spite of which, Jan Heine supports cycle tracks in Seattle when they make sense and provide adequate mitigation at conflict points. Things easily done on the cycletrack section he's criticizing at his blog.

Bekologist

you've conveniently overlooking that the pearl harbor bike path goes under the interstate.

you're also overlooking that the erstwhile 'critic' of protected bike lanes Jan Heine is actually pro-protected bikelane where they make sense in Seattle.

CB HI

No Bek, it does not. So foolishly laugh all you want.

B. Carfree

This.

Bubba is generally okay with cyclists riding a line clear of the door zone on streets that don't have a bike lane. He may not be overly happy about it, but he rarely flies into a rage. Squeeze in a door-zone bike lane and he thinks all the pavement to the left of the magic white stripe is his and his alone and any cyclist who dares to venture out of it is in need of a "lesson". I've even had ignorant motorists express with angry certainty that any white line on the road means that cyclists must stay to the right of it.

Well done infrastructure: good.
Poorly done infrastructure (by whatever name): bad.

CB HI

A hit and run driver and his wife both testified in court that the reason I got hit was that I was riding in the middle of the lane and not in the mandatory bike lane.

Photo of the so called bike lane:

Bekologist

CBHI thinks that's a safe bikelane to ride in. What hysteria.

CBHI, if you encounter those types of edge conditions, move left! Haven't you learned yet?



the city of honolulu is improving the bike master plan, maybe CBHI and Robbe can direct their criticism of the sub-standard sections of hawaii bike infrastructure and improve it, instead of muddling the thread about Jan Heine and his actual endorsement of smartly implemented cycle tracks in Seattle.

Sure it does! The Pearl Harbor Bike Path jogs under the 201 just north of the Alea Bay state recreation area.

besides, it sounds like you'd like it to serve some of the denser population centers and employment.

and on top of all that, Jan Heine actually endorses cycle tracks in Seattle. his position is that he supports context appropriate cycle tracks, buffered bike lanes, standard bikelanes and bike boulevards among the varieties of ways to plan for bike traffic

this approach is significantly more nuanced than the histrionics of the infrastructure critics, who've never seen a bikelane good enough.

yeah, and that's what Jan admitted in his blog commentary about the smartly designed cycletracks in Seattle.

CB HI

Hey Bek, there is no Freeway 201 or Alea Bay state recreation area.

I assume Bek is trying to falsely claim an off ramp from Kamehameha Highway is a Freeway, to avoid being wrong. That off ramp does not become part of a freeway until several off ramps join together about 0.7 miles away from the bike path.

Bek, stop looking at google maps and thinking you know what you are talking about.

CB HI

Was it really that hard to actually read what I said, Bek?

spare_wheel

"paths"

How vague can you get hagen? And can you please cite some actual data. I fully understand that you prefer copenhagen-style infrastruture. Well, I don't. I prefer German-style infrastructure.


And this is exactly the kind of infrastructure that is being built in the USA.

In the USA one of the common arguments for physically-separated infrastructure is that it is better associated with increased mode share than other infrastructure (or reforms). I have provided examples of a doubling in separated infrastructure in Holland with only a tiny increase in mode share. If its not obvious to you why I cite this and the unfortunate decline in cycling mode share in Denmark then you are clearly being intentionally obtuse.

PS: I have always been a huge fan of woonerven and other forms of traffic calming/elimination. IMO, we already spend too much on separated infrastructure and too little on traffic calming and elimination in Portland. Eliminating car traffic entirely in large swathes of downtown Portland is the obvious thing to do.

spare_wheel

I agree. Howoever, another important issue in North American is our very limited funding. We simply do not have the funds to build a connected network of Dutch-style separated infrastructure. And, imo, a poorly connected network of separated paths is worse than nothing. Given our limited funds, German-style bike lanes are the better option

Bekologist

"'Aiea Bay State Recreation Area

Location: Off Kamehameha Highway (Hwy.) at McGrew Loop near Aloha Stadium, 'Aiea.

Along the banks of Pearl Harbor's East Loch, the park offers picnicking opportunities. Views of Pearl Harbor and the Arizona Memorial. The Pearl Harbor bike path passes through the park.

Hours: Daily 7 am to 6:45 pm

Entrance Fee: None"

The crazy hawaiians always spelling things funky!

CB HI

Actually Bek, the bike path does not pass 'through' the park. The park is state land and the bike path was built by the city on FEDERAL LAND adjacent to the park. The federal government has actually argued this point in court.

Stop acting like you know what the hell you are talking about.