The story reads slightly differently at:
http://www.madison.com/tct/news/inde...133934&ntpid=0

There was also plenty of video of the intersection on the Milwaukee news last night.

I don't want to turn this into a pro-vs-anti bike "facility" debate (there's plenty of other places for that) but I think this an example of a very poorly designed bike facility.

As far as I can tell from the press, the biker did nothing legally wrong and the van driver did lots wrong (fail to yield right of way and leaving the scene, possibly driving too fast for conditions).

However, lets look at the bike path itself. The "path" that "parallels Eastwood Drive" is a glorified sidewalk. The biker did not have a "green light" on the path/sidewalk, he had a "walk" signal and he rode his bike into a crossWALK (this is what was shown on the news). He also was not at the intersection when the light changed, he came up to it with the "walk" already on.

At even moderate speeds, bikes move faster than pedestrians and this biker was riding "swiftly" (or "pretty fast" depending on the article). Therefore his appearance in the intersection could have been quite a surprise to motor vehicles (unless they're locals who know this is both a sidewalk and a bike path). Even when I'm actually walking, I hesitate entering a crosswalk if I wasn't right there when the light changed.

Again, I want to point out that I'm not blaming the biker and I'm not excusing the driver. I AM asking whether or not the basic design of the intersection is dangerous.

There are a couple of intersections like this on my commute and I avoid them because they look dangerous and they seem to confuse right-of-way issues.

How many of you have problems with "is it a bike path or a sidewalk?" facilities on your commutes? How many of you have those types of paths and have never had a problem?

Tom