Advocacy & Safety - "Stupider" bike lane contest

http://www.slatev.com/player.html?id=1475273846

http://bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=392800

OK so perhaps the real question we should ask is why? Why is it that any cyclist can see such bike lanes and laugh (or cry) but the "engineer" that wrote the work order or reviewed the work can't see that such things are just beyond stupid?

I am an engineer and frankly these traffic engineers that allow stupid bike lanes are giving engineers bad names.

Honolulu is an old city and we have very bad bike lanes. They basically just give us some marked space wherever it is and they all feed you right into death traps. We kill about 100 peds a year. Cyclists are not even on the radar yet.

OK so perhaps the real question we should ask is why? Why is it that any cyclist can see such bike lanes and laugh (or cry) but the "engineer" that wrote the work order or reviewed the work can't see that such things are just beyond stupid?

I am an engineer and frankly these traffic engineers that allow stupid bike lanes are giving engineers bad names.

I don't know what it's like there, but here, government departments aren't exactly environments conducive to change or innovation or even thinking very hard, and the people who design roads are no exception.

It's stupid, but no stupider than most every other urban bike lanes, its just a shorter example.

It's length is not an attribute that makes it good or bad - it only affects how much of that quality there is . The placement of the lane striping relative to parked cars and the intersections are two attributes that alone make it a stupid bike lane. It is fortunate that it does not continue for any more blocks than this one - that would make it stupid*blocks

Al

Bad lane in England

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLsloDzYZ9g&NR=1


More England, extraordinarily narrow bike lane

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMhKCvPgvAA

In York England, three horrible bike lanes:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9onKKAnzhOU


From Portland Oregon

Here is a photo of a intersection with poor planning:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2406/2337074608_5fdfcf5aa3_o.jpg

Closer:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3209/2336239709_8147ba5d14_o.jpg

the worst intersections for cyclists in Portland are the result of interstate highway overlays. get rid of the highways and the highest hazard intersections would all go away overnight.

the worst intersections for cyclists in Portland are the result of interstate highway overlays. get rid of the highways and the highest hazard intersections would all go away overnight.

LOL. Well that should be simple enough to do.

Bad lane in England
From Portland Oregon

Here is a photo of a intersection with poor planning:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2406/2337074608_5fdfcf5aa3_o.jpg

Closer:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3209/2336239709_8147ba5d14_o.jpg
contrasted with tunnel rd. and SR-13 in oakland, CA...

http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/5971/tunnelrdsr13bikelanewd8.th.jpg (http://img329.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tunnelrdsr13bikelanewd8.jpg)

i think the design found in the thumbnail is good, as it separates the through surface road bicycle traffic from the highway on-ramp traffic well before the intersection. the only problem i've encountered is that the approach to the bike lane merge left is on an incline (coupled with motorists' tendency to speed).

***

OK so perhaps the real question we should ask is why? Why is it that any cyclist can see such bike lanes and laugh (or cry) but the "engineer" that wrote the work order or reviewed the work can't see that such things are just beyond stupid?
because most of the time the traffic engineers who design bicycle (or--my favorite--transit) facilities are not users of said facilities. in the case of designing proper bicycle facilities, they do not have the benefit of a bicyclist's perspective. or, at least i like to think that is the case rather than poor design being out of spite :p

As bad as some of these bike lanes are, you should try riding in an area where there are no bike lanes, and little tolerance for bikes (unless gasoline powered and noisy).

Those shown in Portland would be a dream come true here. Crossing a high speed turn lane doesn't have a good solution that I have seen.

because most of the time the traffic engineers who design bicycle (or--my favorite--transit) facilities are not users of said facilities. in the case of designing proper bicycle facilities, they do not have the benefit of a bicyclist's perspective. or, at least i like to think that is the case rather than poor design being out of spite :p

Or, to put it another way, never attribute to malice that which can be readily attributed to incompetence.

the worst intersections for cyclists in Portland are the result of interstate highway overlays. get rid of the highways and the highest hazard intersections would all go away overnight.

That is a problem in most of the U.S., because the freeway engineers design the interfaces between the freeways and the remainder of the road system, and in their 1950s car culture mindset, they really do not care about the safety and efficiency of pedestrians or bicyclists. It is time for local authorities, accountable to local residents, to take charge of these intersections. Freeway-style free merges and diverges are great on freeways themselves, but they are inappropriate at the mouths of access ramps.

Novel idea: Let's do away with those freeway ramp meters, which keep ramps from functioning properly as acceleration lanes (much-needed for many of us with underpowered cars), and traffic calm the mouths of the ramps.

Novel idea: Let's do away with those freeway ramp meters, which keep ramps from functioning properly as acceleration lanes (much-needed for many of us with underpowered cars), and traffic calm the mouths of the ramps.

Novel and good... too bad you are not a traffic engineer. Those meter lights have always driven me crazy... a ramp designed for merging then stifled with a light.

That is akin to putting fat heavy wheels on a CF racing bike. :rolleyes:

Traffic calming the mouth of the ramp would slow the access to the ramp and "meter" the flow of traffic automatically. It would also allow for a graceful way to transition from lower speed streets to on ramps... we would not need 55MPH arterials acting like pseudo freeways. Lower speed streets feeding traffic calmed ramps could control the flow of traffic quite well.

John didn't mention a study that shows that road speeds above 40MPH are NOT conducive to good flow?

OK so perhaps the real question we should ask is why? Why is it that any cyclist can see such bike lanes and laugh (or cry) but the "engineer" that wrote the work order or reviewed the work can't see that such things are just beyond stupid?

I am an engineer and frankly these traffic engineers that allow stupid bike lanes are giving engineers bad names.

To me it looks like the engineer did a good job or the job asked of them. Most likely that block was up for re-striping due to some other work that had been done, or perhaps funding available - I see that happen all the time in cities. So the engineer designed a bike lane striping that for that block meets AASTHO guidelines. They did everything that was asked of them - if the other blocks also get re-engineered at some future date then what has already been put in place would not need to be changed. That sounds successful to me.

Al

Part II

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid988092926/bctid1504447505