Advocacy & Safety - The winner for the stupidest bike lane in America goes to Silver Spring MD!

Slate V (http://slatev.com/player.html?id=1504447505)

Some local commentary (http://www.finishthetrail.com/2008/04/were-1-were-1.html)

And in case you missed the link in the article above, some history. (http://home.comcast.net/~phyilla1/sstrails/cedar.html)

Brilliant.

Congrats!

amazing. great post.

We have a very busy avenue that has a bike lane. Except that the lane disappears for long stretches where things are congested. IOW, where you actually need a lane, there isn't one. My favorite spot is in front of a hospital. They nicely included a turn lane, pushing traffic towards the edge of the road where a cyclist would be.
Did I mention that traffic on this road often goes 40? But at least after you get run over the hospital is close by. Not that it's likely to do you any good.

I call it the Valley of Death and avoid it.

I think we'll being seeing more of these in the future with the push from bike lanes to bicycle boulevards. Where bicycle traffic is moved from main roads to a lesser traffic parallel road. Unfortunately there never seems to be a continuous parallel road when you need one, so we end up with a labyrinth of left and right turns that try to mimic a parallel road. Some times, it's just not going to fit.

Word association: hospital-ambulances-priority over all other traffic-including bicycles-avoid it-good thinking

"Depending upon some traffic engineer's thin stripe of paint to keep you safe, might be the stupidest idea of all"

I think Portland has been taking lessons from all those stupid European bike lanes recently.

:eek:

Silver Spring at Wayne and Cedar, eh? I'll have to see that one for myself.

I was a bit suprised, on my usual ride home through one of many lovely downtown neighborhood streets, to find a new sign erected:

"Bike Route Ends"

:D

(Needless to say, I didn't dismount and phone my wife to pick me up. ;) )

we have something like that in my parents neighborhood

"Bike Route Ends"

darn, guess I gotta dismount , lock up to that signpost, call my parents, and have them bring my SUV* over to complete the rest of the journey!

BTW, congratulations Silver Spring for this dubious honor. what a stupid bike lane!

*I don't have an SUV.

what a bunch of whiners! In my day, every bike lane ended in a brick wall, which we would run into. and we LIKED it!

Sheesh...
And I'm back in Olney from the summer... definitely makes me miss the Vancouver roads even more... :(

"Bike Route Ends"

Here in my hometown, they have some Bike Routes where there is just a sign saying "Bike Route". However, in neighboring Dallas and Mesquite, they have Bike Routes that are actually numbered like highways, so the signs will say "Bike Route 280W". There are signs at each intersection saying which way 280W goes then. That is the kind of bike route where it would make sense to say where it ended. I know on my end of 280W, there is a sign that says "Bike Route 280W Begins"

This "bike route ends" type of problem is the most interesting to me. How do motorists and police interpret such indications? One would think that bikes wouldn't be allowed past that.

It's not uncommon here in DC to have a bike route sign, and below it a sign that says "On Sidewalk."

What does that mean?

Oh, please. You're just beginners at this. I don't wish to cause an outbreak of uncontrollable and ignoble envy, but we Brits are probably the undisputed masters at the art of imaginitive cycle lane/path design.

For those of you who are, as yet, disbelieving of this fact, log on to http://www.warringtoncyclecampaign.co.uk/

If you know any highway designers who have yet to develop their professional design experience, please introduce them to this site and its monthly examples of the efforts of our finest.