Originally Posted by
Roody
I assume you're referring to the difficulties of riding through a street that intersects with what they call a merge or diverge. These cross streets require merging, and are usually controlled by a "merge" or "yield" sign.
The best way I know to ride in a merge situation is to take the entire lane and ride through the merge or diverge. Ride in the right-most lane that is signed to go in the direction that you want to travel.
I agree that merges and diverges on full-access streets should be eliminated. They are difficult for some cyclists, and almost suicidal for pedestrians. The method you mentioned might work. A simpler way to eliminate merges is to rebuild the intersection to make it perpendicular (streets meeting at right angles). The intersection should then be controlled by stop signs or, better yet, a traffic signal with "walk" indicators for pedestrians.
Cloverleafs are even worse than what you are describing because on cloverleafs there are no yield signs. The whole idea behind a cloverleaf is that it's supposed to be free flowing and that cars can whip through interchanges, cornering at 30mph.
While I agree that making all intersections look like crosses would be much easier for pedestrians and bikers, I know that state transportation departments will refuse these ideas if there are too many cars lined up at the intersection as a result. Any time trafic has to wait multiple cycles to get through a light, that's considered an engineering failure, and states/cities feel compelled to speed things up and get cars through no matter what the cost.
When only 2% of people bike or walk as a form of commuting, how are we supposed to convince cities to build their infrastructure to suit us?