Originally Posted by jon c.

If I didn't know it was supposed to be a "bike path", I'd have thought it was a vid of a cyclist riding the sidewalk.

Originally Posted by sweeks

Yes, those are called "protected" lanes here as well. When they started being installed, I predicted that they wouldn't be plowed and was accused of being "negative". The ones without bollards are called "buffered" if they have not one, but two parallel lines about a foot apart. They don't get plowed either.


Most people just park in the lane. The *correct* (legal) way to do it is to park next to the lane; the people exiting on the bike lane side are technically responsible for checking for traffic. The Municipal Code says this is true "on either side". No one notices.


There's at least one of these in Chicago, on Jackson Blvd (one-way east-bound). The bike lane was on the right side a few yeas ago, then it was removed (IIRC the street was re-paved). Then it was gone altogether for a couple of years. When it came back, it was on the left side. The story I was given by the Active Transportation Alliance was that the bike lane has to be on the left because Jackson is a bus route, and that this was mandated by the State somehow. The bus route thing sort-of makes sense for safety reasons, but there are plenty of other streets with buses and bike lanes on the right.

These are some of the reasons I'm not a complete fan of bike lanes (you mentioned some others). But this is what the city gummint wants, presumably based on some good science. I remain respectfully skeptical.
Steve

Originally Posted by cyccommute

My biggest problem, however, is the attitude of motorists towards just about any bike lane around here. First they don't want them and when the lane is installed, woe be it to anyone who rides outside that lane. If someone parks in the lane, a homeless person explodes in the lane, the results from an crash get shoved into the lane or the lane just get clogged with ice, the cyclist is never to get out of that lane!

Originally Posted by sweeks

Things may be different in Chicago! Or not... but if the bike lane is impassable, I'm in the traffic lane. If the traffic lane is too narrow for a car to pass me with 3 feet of clearance, I take the lane. If there's a car there, so sorry! (I only make them follow me for about 50 yards before I turn off into my building.) I report unplowed bike lanes, but so far it makes no difference.
Steve

Originally Posted by cyccommute

I doubt that things are that much different. Not that it happens all the time but cars do seem to be a bit more rude and I've been yelled at more than once for not being in the bike lane when one is "available". It may be blocked but they still consider it "available" and that I should be out of their way.

Frankly, I just go on riding where I'm riding even when people yell at me. I (mostly) flat refuse to use a poorly designed bike lane that I consider to be dangerous.

Originally Posted by sweeks

Well, I won't be riding any bike lanes for a while.
Last week I slipped on the ice going from my house to the garage to take out my bike and thought I had given myself a bad sprain. Today I learned it's a displaced fracture of the head of the fibula. I'll be lucky to be riding by March.
Steve

Originally Posted by cyccommute

Well, that sucks. But if you'd just have sucked it up and not been a wuss who goes to the doctor, you'd still be riding

Originally Posted by sweeks

Hahahaha! Trust me, I wouldn't be riding... I can't even get a shoe on. But soon, soon...
Thanks for the sympathy though.
Steve