Advocacy & Safety - Bike Lane on one side of road.

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View Full Version : Bike Lane on one side of road.

DenverCruiser
07-11-05, 04:13 PM
A co-worker asked me a question today that she was wondering and I figured I might as well ask you guys. She mentioned she rides on a 4 lane road near her house. There is a bike lane on the East bound side but no bike lane on the West bound side. She is a very casual rider.

Should she ride on the bike lane going both East and West or should she ride in a car lane going West?

Hawkear
07-11-05, 04:17 PM
Riding against traffic is a bad idea, whether you're in a bike lane or not.
DenverCruiser
07-11-05, 04:30 PM
Thats what I told her. Thanks

noisebeam
07-11-05, 04:35 PM
Unfortunately there are many poor implementations of bike lanes, putting them on one side of a flat* road is one such example. In some cases these one sided ones are actually intended for two way travel as marked and/or signed. In other cases they are only marked for one way correct direction riding, but encourage two way riding. I would avoid the use of any bike lane that had me riding facing traffic.

*In some cases a one way one sided bike lane on steep hill is appropriate, a bike lane for slow climbing and cyclists ride in center of travel lane for fast decent.

If she is not yet comfortable riding in traffic lane on this road, then this is not a route that she can ride on.

There was a one sided (one direction) bike lane round here on a flat 25mph road near a school. It was full of both way riders. On a recent repaving/repainting it was fixed so BL was on both sides of road and now the wrong way riding is much less frequent.

Al