FWIW, from these words I pictured the graph that you posted later. But thanks anyway... Good job on the written and graphical descriptions. You've made yourself very clear.

I am curious though if you're talking about conspicuity primarily to overtaking traffic (and potential right-hookers), or if you're also thinking about your conspicuity to cross traffic when you draw this graph?

With respect to conspicuity to the rear, I don't much disagree with you, except in the case of when approaching an intersection I find moving out of the bike lane to be very helpful in terms of coaxing right turners behind me to slow down and get behind me rather than pass and hook right. I observe other cyclists get jammed up in the (dashed stripe at this point) bike lane all the time.

Now, on a street with no same direction traffic and driveways and alleys, I find that being several feet left of the bike lane stripe makes me MUCH more conspicuous to anyone who might be moving into or across the road from the side than riding even near the stripe of the bike lane, much less in the center where your right shoulder is only about 18 inches from the curb in a 5' bike lane. There is just no comparison. For conspicuity to cross traffic, I'd say the conspicuity line on the graph remains low and flat from the curb to about the BL stripe, then a steep climb until you're about to the right tire track, and then begins to climb less steeply for a couple of feet, finally flattening at high conspicuity around the point between the left and right tracks, perhaps a foot or two to the right of that.


My experience is similar, though I have a different explanation for why this occurs. It goes back to the "symmetrical" theory. The idea is that when a driver approaches a cyclist from behind, the subconscious assumption is that the cyclist needs about as much room to his left as he has left for himself on the right.
Anyone who has a mirror can discover this very quickly. That's the general rule (there are exceptions, of course). How it applies when riding to the left of the bike lane stripe is that the space estimate does not include the space demarcated by the bike lane stripe! Remember, most motorists treat the BL stripe like a shoulder stripe - to them, conceptually, it's the edge of the road. If you're riding in the bike lane, you're off the road from their perspective. If you're riding a few inches to the left of the stripe, then the space you're leaving yourself is a few inches on the right, and that's all they feel obligated to leave on your left. If the stripe is removed (assuming WOL = NOL + BL for the moment) then suddenly you're 5+ feet from the edge of the road, and they are more likely to respect about that much space on your left, which you may quickly discover is more than enough, and move further right. This is why many vehicular cyclists claim that a BL stripe often causes them to ride further left.

By the way, the major exception to the symmetry rule is when you leave just enough room for them to squeeze into the lane on your left. If that's the only way they can fit into the lane, sometimes they feel justified in encroaching on that space that they would normally respect. This is especially true when you are where you are in order to stay outside of the door zone. So on a street with curb parking, often your choices are:

• ride in the door zone (no thanks)
• ride just outside of the door zone (but this leaves just enough room for motorists to squeeze into the lane to your left, passing you to closely)
• ride even further left, forcing motorists to have to change lanes to pass you (expect honking, since avoiding the door zone is not understood, so you appear to be taking the lane for no reason).

No good choices!



It depends. A 10' NOL + 5' BL = 15' WOL. It's basic math. Now a standard 12' lane adjacent to 5' BL is more like 17' lane, or a VWOL (Very WOL). As far as widths/lane types go, off the top of my head:

9-10' = narrow (only shareable at crawling speeds, if that)
11-13 = standard (many of which arguably too narrow to be safely shared in many circumstances)
14+ wide (usually wide enough to be safely shared)


I think Al's experience is more likely to be evidence of the validity of my theory about the BL stripe being treated as a road edge marking, and thus only respect as much space to the left of the cyclist as he has between him and the BL stripe "road edge" on the right.


Your "visual clutter" speculation aside, this statement cracks me up. Yes, it's very simple to find 2-3 feet to the right of 10s of thousands of miles of bike lanes to create a shoulder to reduce the "visual clutter" that makes us difficult to see. Let's just cut into the sidewalks, which we can move further right as well, into people's front yards and storefronts!

I'd enlist the help of local cycling clubs to petition the city to repeal its ordinance requiring sidepath use. That's what we did successfully here in Cary, North Carolina. Here is an article about how and why we did it, including the letter we wrote to the transportation planners and police chief:

http://www.humantransport.org/bicycl...yclinglaws.htm

-Steve Goodridge

A few things I didn't mention is there is nothing blocking the view of motorists seeing the path. It is a wide open area. Visiability is not the issue, but motorists not paying attention is. On this particular path they do not expect a cyclist to be crossing at the intersections. Pedestrians yes, cyclists no. Not that many peds. use the path but if they do the reaction time is a lot better then with a cyclist.

I have attempted to enlist the help of the Siouxland Trails Foundation to repeal it. How ever half of the members of the foundation are in favor of the ordinance even if it unenforced & half are not. And the last thing the foundation president wants to do is cause ripples amongst the group.

I do not mind if the ordinance is in place. What bothers me the most is not enforcing it. If it is there fine, but enforce the damn thing. Otherwise remove it. That goes for any ordinance or law.

What I think I will do is silently take on this matter myself & not advise the trails foundation I am doing so.

Section 10.52.040 Riding on roadways and bicycle paths.


1. Every person operating a bicycle upon a roadway shall ride as near to the right side of the roadway as practicable, exercising due care when passing a standing vehicle or one proceeding in the same direction.
2. Persons riding bicycles upon a roadway shall not ride more than two abreast except on paths or parts of roadways set aside for the exclusive use of bicycles.
3. Wherever a usable path for bicycles has been provided adjacent to a roadway bicycle riders shall use such path and shall not use the roadway.
4. Bicycles are hereby prohibited from riding or traveling on any portion of Interstate Highway 29 within the corporate limits. (Ord. R-12185, 1961).

Would someone please help me write a letter to the city council, the chief of police & the parks & rec. director asking that this ordinance be repealed?

Here are the 2 reasons why:

1. It is not enforced.
2. It is often safer to ride on the roadway because of obstructions blocking the view of motorists where the paths intersect with driveways & roadways or because motorists do not pay attention the fact a cyclist is on the path, the expect & pay closer attention to a pedestrian & have more time to react but when it comes to a cyclist.

Either activley enforce it & remove all obstructions from the areas where the are objects blocking the motorists view of the path or repeal the ordinance.

If it left in place & enforced & the obstructions removed then it should be modified to reflect an age limit to where a certain age & under can not use the roadway. I do not think we want young children riding in the street as an adult would.

What do you think about deriving it from the letter that Steve Goodridge mentioned?

i find noisebeams' complaints about riding conditions in his bike lane photograph absolutely amusing....those NOL's you post about getiing 17 second honks are better, Al???

N_C,

Looking at your posts, it sounds like you have everything to you need to write a letter. Why don't you do a draft and post it?

Getting others to support you is critical. So, if half of the local trail association wants to repeal it, ask them to write individual letters. Do you have a cyclist advocacy group, or is a trail association all you have? If you don't have a cyclist advocacy group, this could be the way to start one.

(P.S. People, HH asked a bike lane question and the usual suspects chimed in for and against. Might I suggest that the bike lane debate go back to the bike lane sticky?)

If Singing Hills Blvd is NOT Interstate 29 what is your (and apparantly your's alone) problem? Besides having an incessant busybody bee in your helmet?

Don't expect help from an organization that promotes path riding as a replacement for roadway cycling.

Instead, find the local road cycling clubs, and contact their leaders about repealing the ordinance. Experienced road cyclists tend to be highly opposed to mandatory-sidepath-use ordinances. They can probably get their whole club to sign a petition if required.

Please feel free to re-use material from our letter to Cary.

-Steve Goodridge

firstly complaint is relative, in this case relative to how the road could ideally be striped, not relative to a different road/traffic condition. also there are a number of complaints i have about BL stripes and this is just one.
Al

Singing Hills is not I-29, there is a Singing Hills Blvd exit & entrance for I-29. This is part of the area I ride through when I commute home. In fact the trail crosses in front of the beginning of the entrance ramp on one side & the end of the exit ramp on the other side of I-29. Traffic turning from Singing Hills ontoto the entrance ramp does not pay attention to the trail traffic & the same goes for traffic turning from the exit ramp onto Singing Hills. Along this section of I-29, Singing Hills is north/south bound, the interstate is east/west bound.

I am not the only in this community that feels this way about riding on the paths in the busy commercial areas of town.

There is only 1 area where doing so is a good idea but only because the path does not intersect with roadways that are terribly busy. It is called the Floyd Trail, it parallels Floyd Blvd, but it does so 2 blocks to the east of Floyd Blvd.

Another area where it is not a good idea to ride on the path is called the Lewis & Clark River Front Trail. It goes from Floyd Blvd to Riverside Park. In this order from north to south is I-29, Chris Larsen Road, the trail, then the Argosy Casino, Sgt Floyd Museum, Lews & Clark Interpritive Center, city park, marina, resteraunts, public boat launch, dance pavillion then the Missouri River. This area is called the Sioux City River Front. Chris Larsen road goes east/west from Floyd Blvd to Hamiton Blvd. This is the busiest section of the trail with pedestrian traffic & with motorists entering or exiting the driveways to the public areas or businesses. From Hamilton Blvd to Riverside Park the only roadway is I-29 so cyclists have to ride on the trail or use the city streets to the north of the interstate to get to the west side of town.

They do not just promote path riding as a replacement for roadway cycling. If they did I would no longer be a part of the organization from whom I recently received an award as Father or the Foundation for my Vision & Service. That is what the award says on it anyway, I humbly accept it. I was the one who started the foundation. Our major project this year is to survey the existing on street bike routes & potential new on street bike routes. If we only promoted path riding in place of roadway cycling we would not be conducting the survey.

Even though the foundation promotes safe cycling on both the paths & the roadways there are those who only prefere to ride on the paths. That is fine & their choice, I've nothing against that. Ever since our start we have attracted some very diverse people to be a part of this.

Why not just make restricted use NOLs. Cyclist ride in the left side of this NOL (even put a dashed stripe down the middle of the lane and mark the left side with a 'bike icon' to guide cyclists, then right side becomes default shoulder)
-Motor powered vehicles permitted & required to only use lane for turning & restricted to 25mph zero tollerance.
-Lane is a RTOL for motor vehicles at intersection

Al

Sure, why not? But it contains numerous practical problems. You still have cars crossing streams with cyclists. You will not be able to enforce the 25 mph designation, particularly since you'd have to discriminate between the speed of the inner lanes vs. the speed of the outer lanes. And this takes up much more space than a simple bike lane, with or without an extra shoulder.

So, you've made it more expensive to impliment, more complicated, and there really are no advantages. Bike lanes already allow merges by cars into them at intersections. Large volume crossings are easily handled by RTOLs, which is essentially identical to a merge into the bike lane. Low volume crossings are irrelevent in my experience.

All you've done is create a dedicated "get out of traffic jam free" lane for motorists to shoot through and have changed nothing for cyclists over a bike lane. I agree with, perhaps, widening the bike lane. This deals with the visibility aspect and the "not a real lane" aspect. But at the same time, my experience here, vs. the experience of others in regions where cars are allowed to merge into the bike lane, show that the limited access feature of the bike lane is essential to its effectiveness. It implicitly teaches motorists to regard the bike lane space, making it harder for a cyclist in the bike lane to be overlooked and rendering the "inadvertent drift" argument moot. After all, if you have to avoid something, you cannot help noticing it. If you (the driver) are freely allowed access for turning maneuvers, you can get through life without having to recognize the presence of the bike lane.

No one would stripe a bike lane on this road because there is an adjacent path, so you have to look for other solutions. One way to control speed on the lane is to make it a truly narrow outside lane--say 8', including curb.

If there is no road cycling group, maybe it's time to start one. It sounds like you might be able to get half of the with half of the trails foundation as members (the ones who support the right to use the road). A little competition among cycling organizations could be a good thing.

Here are the pictures of my commute along Singing Hills Blvd. The one with the close up of the Coca Cola truck/trailer is the intersection of Business 75/Lewis Blvd & Singing Hills. I am heading north toward the Wal-Mart shopping area. The trail/path on the right hand side. If you look close enough you'll see what I mean about the hazards of using the path vs. the Singing Hills. Notice how busy the traffic is in this area. This is the only way I have to get from work through this part of town. Riding on I-29 is illegal & riding on Hwy 75/Lewis Blvd is more dangerous then riding on Singing Hills.

In Quebec ther eis a law that bicycles must use a bike path if it goes alongside a road. However I consider that if there are no signs prohibiting roller bladers and peds, it is a multi-use path, and this particular section of the law does not apply. I have never had to make this point in a court. I often ride a 4 lane road (WOL) with 45 mph traffic without being hassled by cars. There isnt an adjacent bike path but it is much better paved than other streets nearby.

Your previously mentioned "unenforced city ordinance" against riding on this road is not applicable to Singing Hills Blvd since it is NOT an Interstate. So what exactly do you want? You want to ride on this apparantly unpleasant street instead of the adjacent trail or on other streets? Go ahead - What's stopping you?

It is applicable to Singing Hills Blvd, Floyd Blvd, Chris Larsen Road, Wesley Parkway & West 8th St. These are the roadways that trails run parrallel with. This is what the one ordinance applies to. There is a seperate ordinance that prohibits cyclists from riding on I-29 as well.

The trail along Wesley pkwy & W 8th is the same trail, called the Perry Creek Trail. It is not complete yet. But when it is I imagine the ordinance will apply to it as well as it will parrallel differant streets because the creek winds through the city.