Bekologist

studies have been done. they show bicyclists ride further from car doors when there are 'standard' bike lanes striped adjacent to parked cars. Without bikelanes, bicycle traffic tends to hug the cars AND weave in and out of lines of parked cars.


Bike lanes discourage weaving in and out of parked cars. Bikelanes position bicycle traffic further from cars.

AND, they increase awareness by motorists of bicycle traffic. statistically, these types of roads are safer for bicyclists than roads without bike lanes. OF COURSE bikelanes can be improved from the standard designs commonly seen today in the USA, but even these bare minimum 'standard' designs have proven positive safety effects.


despite what you perceive about bikelanes next to cars, they are not systemically kryptonic to bicyclists.

smasha

^^^

link to studies?

if someone gets injured/killed while riding in one of those DZBLs, i'd think them or their families would have a decent civil suit against the city. cities like NYC are including "buffer zones" between parked cars and bike lanes.

Bekologist

VanHounten Cambridge MA bikelane study

maybe if there was a climbing bikelane on that road you used as the OP, you wouldn't have to stop your bike for the motoriststs or ride on the sidewalk, eh?

smasha

* if you're entirely inside the door zone, you're likely to crash into a door and maybe go over it; being killed is possible.
* if you're on the edge of the door zone you're likely to be knocked into the path of moving traffic and run over; being killed is reasonably likely.
* if you're riding OUTSIDE of the door zone you can't be doored.

skimming the study, it seems like these "bike lanes" still have ≈50% of the bicyclists riding within ≈85% of where car doors will open. i'd say that's a fail.

yeah, uphill bike lanes would be nice. wellington has a lot of hilly & narrow roads, but along many of the (de facto) bike routes almost 50% of the road capacity is used for taxpayer subsidized free vehicle storage, instead of VEHICLE MOVEMENT.

Bekologist

vague criticisms about the proven positive effects on bicyclist road position and other safety effects of bikelanes aren't related in any way to the riding behaviors exhibited in the original post.

did i mention bikelanes significantly reduce sidewalk and wrong way cycling?

It is pretty clear that the addition of a climbing bike lane in your second and third video might prevent you from having to ride on the sidewalks or stop for cars when you think you're going to be holding them up, smasha.

some of us aren't too impressed by this type of riding - sidewalk and stopping on slow speed urban streets for the benefit of car traffic - and object to it being characterized as 'share the road' behavior. a bike lane would facilitate you and other cyclists sharing the road with the motorists in your 2nd and 3rd videos.

smasha

that would require removal of on-street parking, which is not likely to happen anytime soon.

cale

Smasha, I don't think you're using the word "likely" in the manner that most people would expect it to be used. My understanding of the word "likely" is something with is more possible than not. Our neighborhood has not experienced the sort of accidents that you've predicted, so for us, these accidents are not likely. Perhaps you are hoping to stimulate discussion. In which case, consider it "Mission Accomplished".


I get the impression that you don't like bike lanes but your arguments against them are not particularly good. For instance, you ignore the benefit that a bike lane offers as a device to raise driver awareness of bicycle traffic. But, more importantly, you suggest that there is only one state of conditions that exist for cyclists and the parked cars adjacent to the lane. These parked cars can exist in a number of states: unoccupied, occupied by an exiting person that is looking out for bikes, parked cars occupied by a person that is exiting and isn't looking out for bikes but realizes "just in time" that a bike is "upon them" and pulls the door closed, occupied by a person that isn't looking out for bikes and opens the door when the lane is clear and finally occupied by an exiting person that isn't looking out for bikes and opens a car door hitting a cyclist. Similarly, the bike lanes are occupied by riders within the "door zone" that are aware of the risks parked cars present and are being vigilant to manage that risk, occupied by riders that take a riding line that is outside of the "door zone", riders within the "door zone" that are not actively managing the risks but are able to avoid being hit when a door is opened next to them, and finally riders within the "door zone" that are not managing the risks.

In order for an accident to occur, there needs to be a combination of a exiting person that isn't looking out for bikes and a rider that is within the "door zone" that is not managing the risks. What is the liklihood of this occuring? In order to determine likihood, you need to create probablilities.

For example, the porbability of a car door being opened by a person that isn't looking out for cyclists when a cyclist is passing (.5% in a low bike traffic area). Probability of a cyclist that is not actively managing the "door zone" risks when passing a door being opened upon them (.05%). The likelihood, or probability, of this combined event occurring is therefore .5 X .05 or .025%. Out of every 1000 such events, 25 times an accident will occur. The number of events on a given stretch of road will depend on a number of factors such as the turnover among parked cars, the volume of bicycle traffic, the demographics of the driver and cycling population, the social norms of a given community and a great many other factors.

There is simply no way to reduce the "likely" to a simple "more likely than not" statement as you suggest.

charbucks

Thanks for the link! I admit I didn't read the whole thing, but the graphs at the end were very interesting. I particularly liked the before/after responses to "What makes you aware of cyclists?".

I didn't consider the possibility of non-bike-lane cyclists hugging the curb and going in and out of the parking lane. I can definitely see how a bike lane would encourage better behaviour, even if it's in a suboptimal location. One could also hope that the bike lane would remind drivers to look for bikes before opening their doors.

As to the likelihood of a dooring, it really is quite likely relative to other accident types. That's not to say that it happens all the time compared to "no accident", but according to [url=https://www.toronto.ca/transportation/publications/bicycle_motor-vehicle/pdf/car-bike_collision_report_ch3.pdf] one study (page 35), it's one of the highest causes of bicycle/vehicle collisions. In the detailed description, they also mention that the resulting injuries are somewhat more severe than the average collision. Also, there's a weird spike in motorist age - most of the dooring motorists were in their 30s at the time (now in their 40s).

charbucks

I think going up steep hills is a reasonable place for pedestrians and cyclists to share, assuming it's not a terribly busy place for either. There's a path like that on my commute, and I think it works really well. At the top of the hill, the asphalt shared path gets narrower and turns back to concrete sidewalk, so it's obvious that cyclists are supposed to continue onto the road, and the narrowing provides cyclists with a nice buffer from cars.

I tried to find a link to it on streetview, but it looks like the google image data is a little out of date (link).

rumrunn6

interesting vids, wow those are some busy roads!

AngeloDolce

Having lived and bicycled in Cambridge (before bike lanes; some recent visits), I'm not at all impressed by the Cambridge MA study.
Some bicyclists may move over 3-4", but they are still in the door zone. Even without bike lanes, motorists seemed to have no problem recognizing bicyclists in the middle of narrow lanes. The bike lanes may try to get bicyclists out of motorist's way, but are only useful to bicyclists at walking speed.

With these bike lanes, the riders are still inside the door zone - even if the rider moves from being entirely within the door zone to 50%, they still get pushed into traffic if the door opens, yet they are riding where it is most difficult for motorists to see them. I'll admit I have a particularly low opinion of DZBL since someone I know was pushed in front of an MBTA bus. (In the bicyclist's defense, it was a driver getting INTO his car that waved the bicyclist on, and then opened the car door to push him in front of the bus). If traffic is heavy, bicyclists aren't slowing motorists down and a dooring will push them in front of oncoming cars or buses; if traffic is light I see no need to encourage bicylcists to ride in any part of the door zone.

With a compact city and close destinations, difficult auto parking and congested (read slow) traffic, there are already lots of bicyclists. Motorists don't need bike lanes to become aware of them - they can't miss them in the road. With multiple choice surveys, I can see "bike lane creates awareness" as a choice test takers expect. In reality, motorists in city traffic seemed to do just fine noticing bicyclists in front of their windshield.

I agree that bike lanes can make sense on bridges or coastal highways with few intersections. In a city with short blocks (frequent intersections and congested traffic) and parked cars, I find these to be the conditions where bike lanes create the most conflicts in traffic. From my experience in Philadelphia (similar traffic) they provide no benefits over using normal traffic lanes, but create new motorist hostility if bicyclists try to avoid right hooks and doorings.

Bekologist

"Riders in the middle of narrow lanes" isn't what happens, what happens is people will: fail to choose to bike on the road in the first place, ride on the sidewalk, ride the wrong way, hug lines of parked cars and weave in and out of parked cars.

the addition of a bike lane moves riders further into the roadway, reduces wrong way and sidewalk cycling, encourages cycling, positions cyclists further from parked cars, reduces swerving into lines of parked cars, makes motorists more cognizant of bicyclists, calms traffic, and reduces collisions.

Boston may, and i use the word may with slim odds, present unique traffic corridors that contradict current best practices in bicyclist-friendly road design, but i strongly doubt it.

Besides, the OP wasn't even dealing with a bikelane, he was stopping his bike to let the cars get by on a narrow road, and another video had him riding on a glorified sidewalk -

How well would expectations of those behaviors enhance transportation bicycling in Boston, eh?

spivonious

Did you even read the study? The full marked bike lane improved pretty much every facet of cycling on the road. I would love to have a lane like that on some of my roads instead of just a shoulder.

telkanuru

Having bicycled in Cambridge every day for the past three years, and the un-lane'd burbs before that, I would like to respectfully say that you have no idea what you're talking about. Walking speed? What?

I ride on the outer edge of the bike lane when there are parked cars, which provides ample space for dodging car doors, and passing cars naturally give me enough space so that if I need to move out a foot into the lane, I'm not going to be killed. Plus, in heavy traffic, I don't need to either stop and go or split the lane, both of which present radically greater dangers than the occasional dooring.

Actually, motorists frequently miss bicyclists, but it's good to see confirmation bias alive and well.

hagen2456

It's always hard to judge from a video, but I'd say that c. 90% of that bike lane is in the door zone. I'd go rather slow in it.

John Forester

Bekologist's statement simply demonstrates the success of the American motorists' campaign to frighten cyclists off the road by arguing that "If you get in our way we will simply crush you!". That campaign, going back into the 1930s, has been so successful that the typical American considering bicycle transportation either refuses to obey the rules of the road or refuses to ride at all. This is the system whose advantages Bek has been praising at every opportunity that these discussions provide. That's right, Bek, you always argue for the motorists' side of the argument.

myrridin

Bek and John at it again!

hagen2456

Not only do they argue so, they do it, too. Compare cyclist fatality rates in the Netherlands vs the USA.