Originally Posted by
BarracksSi
I haven't ridden to that circle (and if I'm driving, I'm too worried about where other vehicles are, not some effectively-arbitrary paint on the road), but it wouldn't surprise me to see a bike lane marked dangerously.
DC has some of the most complex, confusing, and dangerous traffic "circles" I've ever seen. Multiple entry & exit lanes, red & green arrow stoplights, flashing yellow lights, ring-shaped islands, and pedestrian crossings make for a truly PITA combination.
This is a good example of the bike-lane conundrum. Bike lanes are supposed to make cycling safer and easier. Indeed, in the easiest situations where nothing much need be done, bike lanes manage to do very little while being easy to understand. But the more difficult and complex the traffic situation becomes, by far the more difficult, complex, and confusing the bike lanes become, as if with an exponent greater than 1 to the actual traffic complexity.