Interesting article on the inherent risk of bike lanes:
Lawrence Solomon: Rip out the bike lanes ? before more innocent people get hurt | Financial Post

Not this guy again.

This is idiotic. Just build bike lanes correctly and none of those "problems" are "problems."

Bike lane fear from a paid AGW denier.

Keep in mind that inexperienced cyclists gain experience by being on the road. Keep their bikes parked in the garage, and they'll always be inexperienced cyclists.

Of all accident types, the "overtaking" accidents are the most likely to be fatal. So, if one looks only at total accidents, the seriousness of the overtake accidents will be under-represented. Of course, the true picture of accidents should look at fatal&serious plus minor (reportable?) accidents.

Another thing about the overtake accidents is that they become much worse at night (with poor lighting). Ride where the cars don't drive, and the invisible rider may survive with cars passing not seeing the person. Ride in the middle of where cars are driving, and the invisible rider at night becomes bug-splat on a bumper.

Here is a New York study in which only ONE fatality occurred inside a bicycle lane (out of 225 in the study), and only ten that were near a bicycle lane (including 3 that didn't include motor vehicles).
https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/download...fatalities.pdf

It is hard to argue the dangers of the bike lanes when < 1% of the fatalities occur in bike lanes, and < 5% occur near the bike lanes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Solomon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Probe

"After its separation and incorporation, and led from then on by Lawrence Solomon, EPRF began to accept funding from the oil and gas industry, and, in 1983, began a campaign "to educate Canadians to the social, environmental and economic benefits of less regulation in the petroleum field.""

Less bike commuting means more cars which burns more oil. Profit!

This is sleazy.

Damn it, I used to order from Green Beanery (Toronto) , well forget that now. To think I funded an anti-bike organization...

The articles are click-bait. I doubt that even the writer takes his stuff seriously.

I almost clicked through just to see what argument could possibly be made against bike lanes, then I thought better of it. There are some cyclists here in the Portland area who are against bike lanes. They're usually the same people who are against helmets (not just against requiring helmets but actually against helmets). I find that I'm much happier if I don't try to engage their arguments.

I do think there are in many situations better infrastructure choices than bike lanes, but I also think that bike lanes are much better than just throwing people into busy lanes that must be shared with cars and trucks. Bike lanes seem to work better in the suburbs than they do in the city. In the city more planning is required for proper bike lane deployment.

Wise decision. I did skim through, and even surfed his links to his earlier articles before coming to my senses. It's just shock-jock stuff, pointless except to argue about.

I agree, even segregated by a painted line is better than the same lane without.

Devil's Advocate position: Bike lane "etiquette" is not followed. Cars parked in bike lanes force cyclists into traffic, which puts the cyclists at increased risk. Violators are almost never ticketed. I've been reporting (with photographs) these incidents for months and to my knowledge only one ticket was issued... because I snagged a parking enforcement officer who would have otherwise passed by. Another thing that really irritates me is that the bike lanes are often not maintained by the city. Below are two images I took this morning; now, I *could* try to ride through that stuff, but I don't think it's right. And that snow fell about 5 days ago. The bollards make it necessary for the city to bring in Bobcats to plow the lanes instead of the whole street being plowed by the regular plow. Also, several of the bollards have been knocked off; tire tracks are visible where they used to be located.
I hate to say it, but I almost think it would be better (in this location) to remove the bollards and leave the painted lines, plow the lanes and (hopefully) have better enforcement.
Steve

EDIT: Sorry... I don't know why the images are rotated.

Proper, as in fully segregated bike lanes.

My city (Novi Sad, Serbia, Former-Yugoslavia, Europe, 3rd rock from the Sun... ) has lots of separate bicycle roads. It is a great thing for begginner cyclists. However, intersections of those lanes over roads is a very dangerous place. Most were well designed, but in the last few decades, it has all gone to hell - no planning. So now we have newspaper stands with windows opening over a bicycle road. Caffee "gardens" taking 90% of the sidewalk, so pedestrians use the bike-road for walking. Large boards with advertisments just before an intersection of bicycle road and the car roads - so the view is blocked both ways. I prefer using the road (even though the law says to use bike lane/road whenever it is available).

Still, for begginner cyclists, it's a good place.

Bike lane on a car-road? We have a few, with car parking next to the lane often. Guess it's still safer for inexperienced cyclists than just riding on the road though.

Here's what a good design with a bad implementation (law enforcement and planning) looks like (not my video):

Volume 2



I had read some studies that conclude that more bike lanes/paths usually result in more people riding bicycles - which results in motorists being more used to bikes, resulting in cyclists being a bit safer.

Yeah, you've shown those before. Maybe I've just been fortunate to live in places with proper infrastructure ... where they have their own lights for cyclists that are separate from autos.

CPH:


Deutschland :

It's not gotten any better, in spite a growing number of cyclists.

Some cities in my country (northern ones) have separate bike-lane traffic lights as well. There's also one such light in my city. It boils down to the green light (safe to start crossing) stays on longer for bicycles than it does for pedestrians.

What's the law in Germany - is using bike lanes/roads obligatory wherever they are present, or can you still choose to ride on the road?

In theory you're not allowed to use the street unless if a bike lane exists. Sometimes, this is not enforced is the rider is on a rennrad (sport/race bike) and leaving the city. A general commuter (no spandex, etc...) would be stopped/shouted at by the police in Frankfurt for example.

Most of the time the infrastructure is clean and maintained.

There are a lot of split cycle/ped paths, however peds are extremely good about not being in the bike portion as they'll be responsible for any collision (damage to bike / injury issues). Same with the autos actually, in general it's quite collegial.

The further east one goes across the continent until the Urals, the nicer the people are but resources (time, space, infrastructure) are more scarce, which seems to cause issues (parking, petty theft, etc...)

In my country it's usually the driver's responsibility, no matter what happens. For a cyclist/pedestrian collision - the cyclist gets it. I had a situation:

Riding slowly on a separate bicycle lane. An elderly pedestrian runs for a bus, across the lane, jumping between a tree line, hitting me sideways (my upper body took most of the hit). He fell, and started shouting, crying. I had called an ambulance, they picked him to the hospital. Then came the police and took my data. Another cyclst, that was riding behind me, stopped to give his report to the police, of how it all happened. There was no way for me to see, or avoid the pedestrian.

I was then taken to the hospital along with the bike Blood was taken, to test for alcohol. The final verdict was: if the pedestrian has any bones broken, the public prossecutor would press criminal charges against me, for causing "grevious bodily harm" - and I'd have to pay some good lawyers and forensics to avoid a severe fine. If there's no bones broken, then it's settled, no charges ?!?!?! From then on, I like bike lanes even less.

This is similar in Germany. If riding drunk, you can lose your driver's license and get a €500-€1500 fine. Same rules as a car (it is the same gesetz). If the accident occured in a bike lane, the ped would be at fault.

Having said that, there's no medical bills to pay (everyone is fully insured unless they make over a certain amount €70k/year and opt out). Also, everyone has liability (Haftpflichtversicherung) so that would cover the cost of the bicycle part from the pedestrian, but their insurance would increase.

We don't have any bike lanes around my area to like or dislike. Ride/share the road. I imagine plenty of areas are like this.

Interesting findings. Note the huge proportion of crashes that happen at intersections vs. mid-block. I'd be willing to bet that most of those were cyclists filtering traffic and trying to blow through a red light, or coming up along the right side of turning cars, or salmoning where a motorist is turning out and not looking towards their right.

I think that's why a bike-only zone in front of the stop line (UK, cheap option) or individual traffic lights (continent, expensive option) are required at most intersections.

It's total crap from anti-cycling jerk, and you should be ashamed for posting it.

or, you know, don't pass stopped traffic only to make them have to pass you again. That's a d*ck move.

Have you not seen a bike box? You're supposed to wait in front of the cars.



real life morning commute with a London-based bike box:

which is why I hate bike boxes. Forcing motorists to negotiate passing the same cyclists again and again and again is really dumb. Oh there's a cycle lane you say? Well all those people in that bike box will NOT move immediately into the cycle lane, nor would they all fit. I know what London cycle lanes and bike boxes look like. And they're ridiculous.