Originally Posted by
Allister
So how do you reach the conclusion that bikelanes are inherently in contradiciton with the rules of the road, when you yourself have experienced bikelanes that are clearly placed so that you can ride in accordance with the rules in them? That's illiogical
Well, there is noisebeam's answer about the
system of bike lanes being contradictory, but there is more. What Forester wrote was:
"If the bike lane is in the place where proper cycling behavior would put me, then that is where I ride. If the bike lane is not designed to be in the place where proper cycling behavior would put me, then I ride properly, even if that is outside the bike lane."
At any given time, for the current conditions, "proper cycling behavior" may put a cyclist in one particular lateral position, while it may put him several feet away (laterally) some other time under very different conditions. Under some of those conditions, the "proper cycling behavior" may put him in space that happens to be demarcated by the bike lane; at other times it puts him outside of the exact same bike lane.
That's one big
inherent problem with bike lanes. They, being
static demarcations of supposedly appropriate lateral positioning for cyclists, are based on the assumption that proper lateral positioning for cyclists is largely determined
independent of current conditions. But, actually, the opposite is true: cyclists should be adjusting laterally all the time. It is a very dynamic process, based on current conditions (including but not limited to: weather, surface conditions, cyclist speed, cyclist's intended destination, speed, volume and location of other traffic, presence of parked cars and other potential hazards, lighting conditions, etc.).
This is not just a tenet of vehicular cycling, but is even endorsed by scofflaw-cycling rationalizers like Robert Hurst, whose book returns and returns to this theme. It is a great disservice to cyclists, especially to the relatively inexperienced ones that bike lanes are often touted to be mostly for, to create facilities that reinforce the notion that where cyclists belong on the road is largely a static proposition independent of current conditions.