Originally Posted by Helmet Head
I'm fine with bike lanes on freeways, bridges and in tunnels, where cyclists are not allowed to ride anywhere but the bike lane, and, if not for the bike lane, they would not be allowed to ride there at all.
But, yes, the minute you put a bike line on a roadway where cyclists are allowed to ride outside of the bike lane, at least under certain circumstances and conditions, you're setting up a confusing situation, that I consider problematic enough to be labeled "bad" for cyclists.
The later where BL is on roadway where cyclists can ride outside the lane, while not preferred, is not terrible like BLs that go to right of right turn lanes, BLs that extend all the way to the intersection, BLs that abruptly end where the road narrows, BLs that don't have inductive sensors, BLs that direct one onto a sidewalk - all of these and other bad examples I encounter daily on roads that have been designed relatively recently (in last 3-10yrs, I live in a relatively young city) and have recieved 'bicycle frieindly' awards from LAB. I have this sense that even good intentions, work done to define 'good' (not in the Serge sense) lanes, still result (espeically after re-modelling as happens here in rapidly growing city) in terrible designs. I am not just considering the design rules, but the sytems as a whole, what must be done to prevent these terrible designs from being implemented.
Al