I am gearing up to start commuting on my bike and I have ridden 2/3's of my commute a few times now. I have one dicey two block connection where I ride one block through a parking lot, 1/2 block on a (gravel) shoulder, and 1/2 block on a side walk. This is legal in Oregon (to the best of my knowledge). I always take it very slow (5-8 mph). Is it dangerous to ride on side walks if I am riding at a pedestrian's pace?

Also, I have read some of the debate on bike lanes being less safe for cyclists, is there any conclusive research? Is thier a large body of research?

Thanks.

I would just ride in the street. Cars will go around you, you need more confidence in yourself.

One of the great things about bike commuting is it gives you many options for getting where you want to go. While I don't advocate regular riding on sidewalks, if doing so for 1/2 of a block gets you to where you're going safer, then go for it. I think the key is to know how to recognize the hazards and make adjustments accordingly to minimize risk. Some people will tell you bike trails are more hazardous than roads and they are probably right overall, but your commute might include a section of bike trail because that's the best option for getting where you want to go.

You're in Portland. Lots of bike advocacy! See if you can find a class on road riding and safety to enter, they have classes like that here in silicon valley and people take the classes and like 'em.

I agree with dfw. Do what's safe for you. I have a section where I ride on the sidewalk because the intersection is a zoo... and I'd rather take my time and walk the bike across in a crosswalk.

I've spent a lot of time on sidewalks.
It never occured to me that it wouldn't be safe.

There is one 100m section that I often ride on the sidewalk. During rush hour, there are two lanes that expand into three, and I have to cross from the far right to the far left to make my left-turn. This is hard enough to do in a car!

There are usually no peds on this section of sidewalk, so I can just breeze right past all the traffic craziness to cross at the light, then merge back onto the road when it's safe to do so. I like to think that drivers appreciate that. One other reason to sidewalk this section is that if I take the road, I often get stuck at the front of the left-turn lane, and the advance green doesn't trigger. That's annoying for me, and for the cars piled up behind me!

I think the argument against riding on sidewalks is that it adds more variables at intersections. Things can happen that are unexpected for both drivers and riders. I was on vacation out of state recently, looking for a particular restaurant, approaching an intersection in the minivan with the family, looking around and trying to drive, and BOOM there was a kid on bike screaming off the sidewalk on the right. He swerved around me to the rear and pounded once on the car (which I believe is the standard biker notification of displeasure). I would go in the sidewalk if you think safety dictates it, but keep alert at those intersections. There may be some subtleties in the overall concept of "safety."

I ride on the sidewalk during one short stretch of my commute - there are no shoulders on the road, the roads are filled with trucks and there are no people on the sidewalks because it is an industrial area. I am very careful at all driveways but otherwise it is the safest way to go during this particular short (three blocks) stretch.

You're probably just fine. swwhite is correct, the big issue is conflicts at intersections with pedestrian conflicts coming in second. However, if the adjacent street is inhospitable (let's say narrow and excessively fast) and there is little cross traffic or pedestrian traffic and you're aware that you need to pay extra attention to those sorts of risks, go for it.

There is a large body of research but it's largely inconclusive. This is due to a few reasons. Firstly, there's a very large range of facilities and contexts considered (sidepaths, MUPs, sidewals, bike lanes) and are often poorly differentiated. Further, within those things there exists a wide array of engineering standards and non-standards that makes it hard to say things like, "a bike lane is a bike lane is a bike lane." Finally the studies themselves are often poorly designed and their conlusions are often of dubious validity even within the above constraints.

However, having said that, the thesis that dedicated-use facilities are safer is far from proved. Those studies that claim to have such proof are generally badly designed as explained above. There are a number of contrary studies that attempt to demonstrate that they're not safe. Many of them suffer from the same issues, though I personally believe that their conclusions are more likely correct and consistent with what we know about cycling accidents. Further they tend to agree with the principle of conservatism in traffic engineering.

Finally, what has been proven pretty conclusively is that sidepaths and sidewalks are FAR more dangerous than roadways for cycling. But that's in general, not in your particular case.

Ride on.

A big part of commuting is finding the safest way to go. If a couple hundred feet on a sidewalk is safer, then go for it.

A big part of my commute is a bike path, and that path shares a sidewalk for a couple of blocks. I just slow down, give pedestrians the right of way (and the benefit of the doubt), and a couple of minutes later I'm through and on my speedy way again.

Just be careful not to get lulled into a sense of false security when you're on a path or sidewalk - remember that those pedestrians can do unpredictable things.

Hey, thanks for all the info, but what is a sidepath?

It's like a sidewalk that you're supposed to ride on.

It's a sidewalk with a yellow stripe painted down the middle.

(Technically, it's a path that parallels a road, but almost always they're designed as sidewalks.)

My answer was a little flip.

Basically what differentiates a sidepath from a multi-use path (MUP) is that the sidepath, like a sidewalk, has very little setback from the adjacent roadway. Likewise it will have as many at-grade crossings as any sidewalk. It's basically a sidewalk by another name.

MUPs, on the other hand, tend to be set well away from the street and may even be grade separated or have a limited number of at-grade crossings. Rail trails are good examples of this as at-grade crossings are avoided to keep trains from having to slow overly much and to prevent them slamming into people that happen to find themselves on the crossing at the same time as the train.

The primary problem with sidepaths is, like sidewalks, they have excessive conflicts at intersections. They also tend to be used as sidewalks whether there are properly designated sidewalks adjacent or not. Looks like a duck, quacks like a duck... So you have the same problems with peds as sidewalk cycling.

Finally, as with a sidewalk, an accident on a sidepath adjacent to the roadway runs the risk of spilling the cyclist unexpectedly into moving traffic.

So there are all sorts of fancy ways of designating sidepaths (and some not-so-fancy ones) but at the end of the day, there's no operational or design difference between a sidepath and a sidewalk.

Yes, Boston Trevor's answer was flip. DC Commuter's comment is just ill informed (at best.) Such comments also are indicative of the reliability/accuracy of the shaky source of conclusions about "what has proven pretty conclusively is that sidepaths and sidewalks are FAR more dangerous than roadways for cycling." The careless, flip, and in some cases, agenda-driven deliberate interchanging of the terms "sidewalks" and "sidepaths" when discussing cyclist risk results in just so much more gibberish about relative risk to cyclists.

What exactly is "WHAT" in the above quotation that makes it any more reliable than all the rest of the poppycock dissemenated about cycling risk which Boston Trevor correctly identified as a large body of research, largely inconclusive and poorly defined?

Ladies and gentlemen, the man who can never be satisfied because no study can simultaneously be driven by statistics and speak to the specifics of absolutely every context.

There, I've said it.

Now maybe we can continue with what has been, until now, a useful discussion.

Do you allege that my description of sidepaths was inaccurate? Do you have any evidence that shows that they are as safe as riding in the street to counterbalance the numerous studies that strongly indicate the opposite? Would you like to rehash the entire Bike Lanes or No thread?

Ride where you think you'll be safest. On my homeward commute,there's a stretch where I always ride the sidewalk. It's up a steep hill,traffic zooms by generally ignoring the speed limit,and the curb is very high. I can't keep up enough speed to be anywhere near the cars',and the curb is too high for me to take evasive action. The sidewalk is kind of narrow and there are occationally branches hanging down,but ped/cycle traffic is very rare. Maybe once a month I'll encounter someone else on the sidewalk.

I'll also occationally use the sidewalks at the 3 traffic circles I go through. The fact is,most DC drivers have no idea how to properly use them(I lived in England for 2 years) and the one at Mass and Nebraska(at American Univ) is a bastardized mess. Tore up roadway,circles in circles,traffic lights,yar!

Half a block on a sidewalk is fine. But if you see a single pedestrian there and think there is even the slightest risk of injury to the pedestrian, get off your bike and walk.

My big problem with sidewalk riding isn't the danger to the bike rider. Sure, it is statistically the most dangerous place to ride -- though I think those statistics are affected by the fact that most people who ride on sidewalks have no idea what they are doing (young kids, drug addicts who lost their driver licenses, people who ride two weeks a year, etc) and are careless at driveways and other intersections. No, the real problem with sidewalk riding is that some pedestrians just aren't equipped to handle it. We aren't all young and spry. The elderly and disabled have a right to safe, accessible sidewalks, and that means no punks riding 25-pound steel and aluminum contrapions three inches away from them at 15 MPH.

You have to consider the risks - the number of pedestrians, the number of driveways or business exits. I often take the sidewalk for half a block to ease a left hand turn across a 6 lane road. I can get across the first 3 lanes by signalling and watching for a small gap in the traffic. To get across the last 3 lanes with opposing traffic I wait for a gap caused by traffic lights ahead then cross over to the opposite sidewalk. Fortunately peds are very rare on this stretch. If there is a pedestrian I will say "excuse me" before I get to him so he is aware of my presence.

I am not discussing Bike Lanes and neither are you when you write of the "dangers" of sidepaths. The so-called problems of sidepath danger is mostly a strawman argument raised for perverse reasons by the anti-bike lane ranters who attempt to twist statistics about children's accidents on sidewalks into a case against bike facilities which in almost every case is directed against bike lanes.

Yes, your (and DC Commuter's) description of sidepaths is inaccurate. "They also tend to be used as sidewalks whether there are properly designated sidewalks adjacent or not." - Only if you are describing a pedestrian sidewalk, as you portrayed in your "flip" picture.

Pedestrian traffic is not a significant factor on side paths constructed for bicycle use (seperated facilities adjacent to highways) as are often found in Europe and rarely in the US except along bridges and in a few parks; and those are usually multi use recreational paths. I am not aware of ANY sidpaths that would remotely resemble the "flip" picture of some campus sidewalk (or other busy pedestrian traffic area) being passed off as an answer to the question of "what is a sidepath?"

Your personal belief in speculative conclusions does NOT strongly indicate anything about their validity.

I repeat - Rants about US sidepath "danger" is indicative of a flip attitude about reaching conclusions about relative risk factors for cyclists in the absence of credible evidence.
Also you don't add any credence to your "proof" of sidepath danger by seeking evidence of the negative.

Self-preservation is the name of the game when commuting or just road riding in general. The problem some sidewalks can pose is limited view of peds walking out to the sidewalk. I nearly crashed into someone once who walked out from behind a fence which illustrates the main hazard for sidewalks, imho. Being courteous and allowing for anyone else on the sidewalk would be the right thing to do in the first place, but there is nothing wrong with using one to get you through a stretch of road safely.

Personally I don't trust my fellow man's ability to always go around me and seek out back roads to commute on to avoid the main traffic patterns as much as possible. I have seen some commuters taking up half a lane on a busy road and I refer to them as 'organ donors'. I like to think my occasional use of a sidewalk helps lower the odds of me ending up in that category.

OK, I'll bite. How is a sidepath not like a sidewalk with a yellow stripe? (or a white stripe, depending on your jurisdiction).

My bike expert is John S. Allen, and he says: "A bicycle sidepath is a path next to a road, like a sidewalk, except that signs are posted designating it for bicycle use." (https://www.bikexprt.com/bikepol/faci...h/aashside.htm)


There is a good discussion here as well: https://www.bikexprt.com/bikepol/facil/sidepath/ If you follow the links there are lot of pictures of purported sidepaths that look just like sidewalks with stripes painted on them.

Really? Do you have any evidence that these statistics only involve youth cyclists? I'm more inclined to agree with jagged that sidewalk cycling risks spring from those who ride on the sidewalk while being ignorant of the dangers. I would go further and suggest that there is a positive correlation between increasing understanding of those risks and decreasing sidewalk/sidepath cycling. As you learn what all you need to watch out for it stops being such a convenient way to get around.

I was not suggesting that my picture was flip, merely my words. I still stand by that picture as a fine example of a sidepath. In fact, it's part of a design that MIT and the City of Cambridge were very proud of due to its Europeaness.

The fact is, there is no OED definition for "sidepath" and even the AASHTO bike manual doesn't actually define the term, as I recall. The operational definition has been and remains a cyclepath immediately adjacent the roadway but not actually a part of the roadway.

MUPs are not sidepaths nor are highway shoulders or bike lanes on bridges. Typically a MUP is grade-separated with substantial setback and bike lanes are on-street facilities. If you want to talk about a common term for all these things, it is "bikeway".

Really? You must be joking. If not, try going to Google Images and searching for the term "sidepath". That's a good indicator of the vernacular use of the term. Amazing how nearly all the cycling facilities that show up look exactly like what you say they would never remotely resemble. Fascinating.

I know you despise anything touched by the hands of John Allen and if he were to say the sky is blue you would immediately have to declare it to be green, but nevertheless he has a nice little collection of studies involving sidepaths here:

https://bikexprt.com/bikepol/facil/si.../sidecrash.htm

The fact is, there have been numerous studies of sidepath and sidewalk cycling (which despite your assertion are engineere and sited in exactly the same fashion) that show them to be substantially more dangerous (not just a little, but a whole damn lot) and not one that shows them to be even as safe as street riding. In general.

Noob.