Originally Posted by
Camilo
But, I hate riding on highways that have on/off ramps. At highway speeds with even moderate traffic, they are dangerous, in my experience. I don't get nervous riding on the shoulder of a highway, city streets, just about any normal traffic situation - not at all. But crossing (pedaling straight) through an off ramp, or even a right turn lane on a 50+ mph highway makes me very nervous. On ramps, quite a bit less nervous. On one such highway I ride, I just go down the off ramp and back up the on ramp. (this is a "diamond" type interection, not a "cloverleaf" type.).
I don't get nervous if the traffic is really light though, especially if it's light enough so I can pretty much hear and also quickly observe individual cars coming up from behind. Heavy traffic with a lot of cars, some of which signal their turn late or not at all- makes me nervous.
Interesting; I get more nervous at high speed on-ramps than simple off-ramps, because on-ramp drivers are often looking behind and into their blind spot when merging, while simple off-ramp drivers have no reason to look away from what is ahead of them. The worst are dual on/off ramps where on-ramp drivers are trying to merge left as off-ramp drivers are trying to merge right.
At simple off-ramps and simple on-ramps, I either ride in the center of the right through lane (if it seems narrow) or along the right side of the right through lane (if it seems wide). Once I am beyond the merge and diverge points I will move back over to the wide paved shoulder if one exists.
I find this easy to do if traffic is light (I suspect it is usually light on the road referenced by the OP) and not very difficult in slower traffic (say, under 40 mph) but a combination of high speeds and high volumes is undesirable. I ride through the US1/64 interchange in Cary a couple of times per week as one alternate bike commute route or after dropping off my car for repair. The ramp traffic is usually light enough that I can align myself with a large gap in ramp traffic by modulating my speed. The road I use was once intended to be fully controlled access but the state doesn't have money to convert all the intersections to fully controlled access, nor to build usable alternative surface street routes that cross the same freeway and water body barriers that this road does, so cyclists are stuck riding through a few interchanges in order to ride east-west in this corridor.