Originally Posted by
David Bierbaum
I must live in an unusually nice suburban area here. Nice shoulders that might as well be a bike lane, and drivers that look out for me more often than not, with only the occasional "You go first. No, you go first." politeness tussle at the stop signs, and more side road routes than you can shake a stick at. Traffic is rarely all that heavy here, either.
Except it's narrow, usually one way streets, your experience sounds more like downtown Nashville. I enjoy riding downtown.
Every unpleasant experience I've had (save for one cab driver) has been on a suburban stretch that I'm on literally about 1 minute but unfortunately can not avoid. I turn on to the street in order to cross a bridge, then turn into a neighborhood as a cut through. It's two-lane, no bike lane or shoulder, in fact the fog line crumbles into the ditch in spots [see pic below]. The speed limit is 45mph, most are wanting to go faster. When I first started commuting, I was hugging the fog line and had my mirror brushed twice. After that I started moving out into the lane. That improved things dramatically on this stretch, now I may get honked at or yelled at, but that's OK.
The strange thing for me is, I turn onto this road from a really wide street, wide enough for safe semi-truck/bike lane sharing, that has both a bike lane plus a parking lane. The speed limit on THAT road is only 35mph. It's as if the suburban planners have the speed limits confused/backwards.
The good news is, the bad stretch is on a high priority planning for a bike lane. The question is only when.
