Originally Posted by Brian Ratliff
Yes, but you don't live or ride here. I hope you can see why I am a bit irritated at your use of Portland to forward you bit about laws requiring a cyclists to stay in a bike lane. You, someone who read something on the internet, are telling me, who knows from experience, what I can and cannot do on a bike on my roads.
Bike-lane-everywhere advocates frequently cite to Portland as an example of what they want in a bike lane system. As long as they are doing that, I will point out problems. If you can convince the people who want to put bike lanes on 25 mph streets to stop referring to Portland as an example, I will reciprocate.
Originally Posted by Brian Ratliff
Go, type in "oregon department of motor vehicles" in Google and download the drivers manual and the bicycling manual. In the section where it theoretically should say "bikes must stay in the bike lane where one is provided," they instead have a page or so of rules telling a student driver why a cyclist may choose to leave the bike lane and merge with cars. Similarly, there is no mention in the bicycling manual of such a law. It impossible to know such a law exists unless one reads the actual text of the law. This means that it is not enforced, and could possibly mean it is unenforceable.
If it's on the books, it's enforceable.
Originally Posted by Brian Ratliff
It is also mentioned
here that removing those words from the text of the law is being worked on by the Bicycle Transportation Alliance. So, as you can see, since the law was put in the books, Portland, and Oregon in general, has become much more progressive with regard to cyclists and has stopped enforcing this particular section of the law, and we are in the process of getting the language formally removed. The article is titled "STRAIGHTENING THE SHELVES IN THE BICYCLE LAW CUPBOARD" indicating that the law has not caught up with enforcement practices.
The article says they are considering moving to a California-style mandatory bike lane law. The proposed law still requires cyclists to use the lanes when provided, with a short list of exceptions. That list of suggestions could make things worse for cyclists if the cyclists leave the blue lane for reasons not on the list (like. Why can't they just say, "Cyclists do not have to use bike lanes. Cyclists can ride on the roadway as if no bike lane were striped." That would be a lot more cyclist-friendly.