livedarklions

So in sum, ride in the door zone when it's safer than taking part of the lane, and ride in the lane when it's safer than riding in the door zone, and adjust your speed as appropriate. Try hard not to make drivers mad unnecessarily. This pragmatism is only radical stuff in A&S, where everyone has to join team this or team that.

There's tons of urban side streets where I can ride right in the middle of the traffic lane confident in the fact that traffic is so low I will hear a car coming behind me. Helps that I'm not going much slower than they are on such a street as well. There are also 40 mph + roads where I'll just ride as slowly as I need to to navigate the door zone safely, thank you very much. The speed differential between the cars and what I can plausibly pedal is simply too great for it to make any sense to try to ride with the cars.

What's hilarious about A&S is just how dogmatic people get. IRL, everything I've seen indicates people adopt different strategies in differing situations.

noisebeam

Cyclists should never drive in door zone. If the locality has marked this as a place to drive, then work with them to convert it to a hashed zone.

Paul Barnard

And "safer" is a judgment call. Reasonable people can arrive at different conclusions based upon their experiences, training, education, understanding etc. We also have varying levels of risk tolerance. I won't ride in downtown NOLA during weekday traffic. Others do it without hesitation or issue. I will ride through downtown NOLA on weekend mornings. To others, it's dangerous and stupid. I will happily share why I do what I do and ask others questions about why they do what they do. I don't get too dogmatic about much.

Lemond1985

Riding a bike is like good New Orleans Jazz, sometimes you just have to improvise:

gear64

I'm with you on this. I realize there's a minute increase in odds with cell phones and such that someone could be in a car for several minutes or more before exiting, but it's very rare I've passed someone just sitting in a parked car. Then in a subset of those cases they need to open without looking. Generally I can see the person approaching the car or parking the car. Part of the problem is that somewhere along the line window tinting became legal or at least unenforced. Heck a quarter of the time I can't even make eye contact through windshield or driver side window. Still I don't think a person sitting there as a time bomb is any more likely than unexpected, unusually large pothole, driver running stop sign, dead limb falling from tree on beautiful tree lined parkway, etc. In fact I've never had a close call with dooring, but I've essentially been assaulted with vehicle, had stuff thrown at me, rolling smoke etc. Active acts of road rage and negligent moving violations are far more common than dooring, yet I choose to take that on to enjoy a cycling lifestyle. Dooring is a low level threat.

livedarklions

I lived in NOLA in 1984-5. JoeyBikes told me one of his rules was never ride on Magazine Street. That rule wouldn't have worked for me because I lived on Magazine Street.

Not too surprisingly, the only place I've ever had a close call with a dooring was, yup, Magazine Street.

Paul Barnard

I work on Magazine and Poydras in the CBD. It's 2 lanes one way there. I am guessing both of you are referring to the more Uptown part of Magazine where it's a rough, narrow, busy 2 lane with curbside parking in both directions. Motorists entering from the side streets have to pull out into the road to see around those parked cars. On occasion I'll pedal a that part of Magazine on my weekend morning rides. The lemon blueberry croissants at La Boulangerie are some of the best pastries on the planet. I would want nothing to do with that part of Magazine during busy periods.

mr_bill

Yeah, Joey made stuff up. He would tell people to never ride on Magazine Street, he just made videos of himself riding on Magazine Street (in the door zone and on the center line no less).

He also explained that death awaits all who stop at stop signs, who stop at red lights, and worse, fools who always ride in the direction of traffic.

But most amazing are the deadly pedestrians of Audubon Park who disburse death and dismemberment to any who dare to ride a bike nearby.

I just spent the week stopping at stop signs and red lights, riding in the direction of traffic, and even gasp riding in Annihilation Park. I did not die.

-mr. bill

mackgoo

I just yell at them and keep moving.

Jim from Boston

I almost got doored - yet most drivers blame me. How do we improve car culture?

A few days ago, I replied to this thread “Cheering on New Bike Lanes...”.

Jim from Boston

˄˄˄˄ ...How do we improve car culture?

Earlier this year,

JehD

While this was never a good place to ride the city has done its absolute best to make it one of the worst places in town period. It used to be 3 lanes in each direction and the busses would use the right lane on either side. Now they removed the 2 inner lanes and they are designated BUSSES ONLY - It says ART on the street Except the busses don't use them because the doors are on the wrong side. SO the busses still use the right outer lanes competing with all the cars and anyone brave enough - or stupid enough - to ride there. all the other cars use the middle lane and both inside lanes are unused. For at least the next year and a half.

livedarklions

Were the buses supposed to drop their passengers on that center island or pop back and forth between the lanes to get to the stop on the right side? Whoever designed this was obviously neither a bus driver or a passenger, and may never have seen a bus in their life. Are they buying a bunch of left-side door buses?

mr_bill

The ART is Albuquerque's Bus Rapid Transit. To say that there have been problems would be an understatement.

The original articulated battery buses (with doors on the left and right) were returned, and their replacements are just arriving.

Anyhow, no, that's not an ART stop. This is an ART stop.


-mr. bill

JehD

the intent was to have the busses drop off the passengers in the center. They “thought” lol this was a good idea but after a 2 years of construction they purchased busses but then rejected them all and sent them back. And are waiting to get new busses but as far as I know they haven’t reached an agreement with the builder as to when they will be ready.


There were a lot of issues with the design. Beside the left hand exit. One being how are all the people supposed to cross the traffic. Oh yes go to the corner and wait for the light .... that doesn’t happen now when only some of them have to cross.

It’s also hard to get to business on either side as you have to go to the next light that allows a u-turn and the. Block a lane of traffic while you wait for the special signal. That may be over a quarter mile away.

part of the idea was to park your car on the outskirts of the system and take the bus into the center of town. Except there is now place to park on the outskirts. Just signs saying “No ART parking”.

Pretty stupid all around.

livedarklions

The center island drop isn't necessarily bad--that's an idea they seemed to have borrowed from light rail systems, and well-timed crossing lights can make those work.

Whoa-they tried to set up a system with battery powered buses???!!!

https://www.abqjournal.com/1246094/a...-electric.html

JehD

I agree the center island should work. As it is now where some people walk on the side walk that they’ve been let out others just free for all across the street. With the center island I image more of a mad rush across the street like a crowd going to a Black Friday sale as the doors open.

Yes electric. $120,000,000 so far and it’s still not running.

Looking back at picture and the topic name I probably could’ve picked a better shot. Closer to the city center it gets worse. A row of parked cars, a row of moving traffic -shared with the current busses- and then a completely empty
Lane of (BUSSES ONLY).

I avoid it as much as possible, as do a lot of people, which is exactly opposite of what the city wanted. It’s all good times for those that have no choice. Ie the people on bikes trying to get from point A to B sharing a space with swinging doors, angry drivers an departing bus passengers.

mr_bill

Or as we might call them around here, trackless trolleyless trolleys.

The issue isn't battery buses. Alburquerque chose their provider poorly.

(Battery buses have been deployed in many cities. There's even a pilot going on here in Boston.)

-mr. bill

bpcyclist

My approach is this. I normally ride on the far left-hand side of the bike lane to mitigate the door thing. If the bike lane is in un-ridable condition, eg, due to autumn/winter debris/branches and stuff, I wait until it's safe and then pull out into the vehicle lane. I stay there until conditions improve or, if that doesn't seem to be happening fairly quickly, I just find myself a new route. If there is no bike lane and I for some reason cannot pull out into the vehicle lane safely for a short while, I stop on a side street and recalculate another new route. I know that I have to be flexible about my routing, especially this time of year with conditions worsening. I can't get too stuck on going just and only one way because that's how bad things can happen. You never know. Every ride can be an adventure.

I-Like-To-Bike

Almost all Philadelphia trolley cars (PRT/PTC/SEPTA) ran exclusively down the center of the numerous streets they ran on back in the day, few lines ran on private right-of-ways within the city boundaries. Passengers often exited in front of a traffic lane, but the local regulations prohibited passing a stopped trolley car on the right. This rule was was complied with by drivers, pretty much like few drivers pass stopped school buses.

Extra wide streets sometimes had an island for passengers to enter and exit the trolley cars and passing was allowed to the right of these islands.


Don't know what the setup is now on the few remaining trolley lines in Philadelphia, presumably they still run down the center of the streets.

https://ggwash.org/view/71769/philad...ut-interesting

livedarklions

Yes, when you have street cars, you have to come up with an arrangement that accounts for the fact that they can't pull to the curb, and different systems use different setups, and you'll see different setups in the same system varying for the conditions on the street. Here's the more elaborate center of the boulevard platform approach in Brookline, MA:

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3419...7i16384!8i8192

mr_bill

I’ll get snarked at two-ways, but the Green Line still stops in the middle of the street on South Huntington with passengers stepping off into the road.

BTW, while people driving cars have to stop, people on bikes don’t, just like people on bikes don’t have to stop for school buses. Which is stupid.

-mr. bill

anon06

Hi. Yeah, that is a scary situation to be in, with the bike lane directly where drivers are trying to get in and out of their cars. The design is horrible.

I tried looking at the Santa Monica area on Google maps. Just a thought--would you be able to, for example, go down a block (parallel in the direction to where you're going) and use a side street where there isn't a bike lane? (I saw a side street that didn't have a bike lane and didn't appear to be busy. There were parked cars along it, but I was thinking that, perhaps, since it only looked to be a one-way street, you and your dog running alongside you might be more visible to drivers while cycling on streets like that).

Yes, it would make your journey a little longer, but that's what I do when confronted with unsafe/busy roads. I was also thinking that, perhaps, it might be a little safer for your dog, which is running alongside you (I'd kind of think that a busy road might be unsafe for the dog, too, where there's a risk that a passing driver might accidently hit your dog, if the dog moves farther out into the road).

noisebeam

That sounds like a local problem. In AZ and many other US states the stopping for a stopped school bus law applies to drivers of all vehicles, not just motorized vehicles.

Jim from Boston

I approach stopped buses with even more vigilance than riding by parked cars, since they are probably stopped to discharge passengers who will pass in front of the bua and suddenly appear in my lane. Depending on the traffic, I will either cut a wide path around the bus, or slow down.

Of course I give the pedestrians the right of way. Riding to the right of a bus is also an active potential danger.