Old 10-03-22, 11:19 AM
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UniChris
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Originally Posted by kyplaskon
What do you think of this logic as a reason for not installing protected bike paths using parked cars?
You mean the fact that it makes a terrible and dangerous cycling experience chock full of designed-in conflict?

Consider the problems:
  • it forces you to position cyclists in a dangerously wrong place at each intersection - the basic fact of design is that those wishing to proceed through the intersection need to be on the passing side of those who want to turn there, not trapped where they'll be "hooked" by those turns.
  • when you forcibly segregate the flows with barriers rather than softly deconflict them with shoulder space, it encourages drivers and cyclists to ignore each other as irrelevant - but every intersection requires that they be extremely aware of each other, so this is a recipe for causing collisions
  • using parked cars as the barrier is even worse than other sorts of barriers, because the cars are a visual barrier that makes it so that even the small minority of cyclists and drivers who actually understand how important it is to be aware of each other can't adequately see each other because of the obstructing parked cars
  • The more "protected" the bike lane, the more likely pedestrians are to chose it as a place to walk - and there is zero political will to enforce bike lanes against pedestrians.
  • The alleged e-bikes that are actually motorcycles which increasingly dominate two wheeled urban traffic (plus some actual traditional motorcycles) then take all the existing failures of this design and magnify them even more
If you look at places where this has been tried, and just stand there on the sidewalk and watch for a bit, you'll discover that every few minutes you can witness a screaming match between a cyclist trying to be through traffic in the wrong place, and a driver trying to use a turning lane the way turning lanes are designed to be used: this design does not work.

In reality, the only halfway viable argument in justification for physical barriers that dangerously trap cyclists in the wrong place is that they prevent illegal parking in the bike lane - but it turns out that drivers are inventive enough to park even in bike lanes shielded by concrete barriers. And the number one offenders for parking there, are the police themselves. A car parked in a "protected" bike lane is orders of magnitude worse than one parked on a shoulder or painted lane, since you can't just go around it by making an ordinary traffic-aware lane change.

If you want to see what an absurd failure this design is, go visit New York City, stake out an intersection (try 2nd ave in the upper 40's) and watch what happens.

Or go on youtube, and watch what antisocial maniacs it turns those who try to ride them into (and it's the cyclists who have been turned into antisocial maniacs by this designed in conflict who are the ones posting the videos)

It was a clever idea in the abstract, but when you try it in the real world it does not work.

Last edited by UniChris; 10-03-22 at 11:35 AM.
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