One of your points is a perfect example of non-cyclists setting up bike lanes. They end before intersections here in California, but apparently someone has a lot of white paint, because they paint them waaaaay to close to the intersection.

How bout lets assume a reasonably well-maintained BL, not ideal, but not the worst, but average in some sense? How common are the extreme speed differentials? I can't imagine many roads where the speed limit is 35mph but the "safe" bike lane speed is 5mph. How is this determined anyway? I don't see any need for exceptions for speed. I don't think the bike lane speeds of >15 are practical for most cyclists anyway, which narrows your array of choices.

I'm not talking about worst case scenarios.
I'm saying that you can't find even one mile of bike lane - even of one that is reasonably well mantained - that is appropriate to ride in the entire mile.

I'm saying exceptions are the norm.

I agree the level of maintenance is separate from the definition of a BL. But one of the biggest arguments against mandatory BL, so it seems, is their supposed lack of maintenance. I can see how the level of maintenance contributes to the effectiveness of the BL, but I don't see how it pertains to legislations regarding the BL. Take any other traffic facility, I dunno, stop lights. Taking your logic, you would say, city X habitually lets their traffic lights break down and doesn't repair them. Therefore, we should repeal laws regarding traffic lights. Nonsense.

Then you are saying bicycle travel is a much, much different thing than other vehicle travel. How does this square with cyclists acting like drivers of other vehicles? If cyclists are constantly responding to supposed obstacles, and this response is just utterly unpredictable, then how can cyclists obey ANY traffic laws?

FYI: there's a set of BLs on a newly constructed multi-lane road in a nearby city that, at the approaches to the intersections, are marked much more like shoulders than like travel lanes. For example, all the travel lanes have stop lines at those intersections, but none of the BLs do.

Richard C. Moeur, P.E., once posted in another list:To which I had replied:

Pretty strong statement. I'm not a traffic engineer, but I'd be curious to hear how other PE's respond to that statement. I can't believe they universally agree. It seems like motor vehicle travel is just as diverse, yet we have managed to come up with a system of markings and signing for motorists. Is Mouer just as critical of facilities for motorists? Why, why not?

No, I'm not. In this respect - being balanced and susceptible to tipping - bicycle travel is very similar to motorcycle travel.


How does it not?


Just like motorcyclists can. By, as much and as often as is reasonably possible, maintaining a safety buffer of about 3 feet on each side.

Bike lanes make this impossible to do.

Here's a way to look at the problem. Consider a motorcycle lane, only one on the left side of the road, to which motorcyclists were mandated to drive in. Assume that it is the same width of a typical bike lane (4 feet). Now, motorcycles are generally better at sweeping than are bicycles (faster, tires are bigger), but they couldn't keep up with all the crud swept in from the adjacent car lane. Such a lane would have many of the problems, and dangers, of a bicycle lane. Any many of the arguments against mandating motorcycle use of such a lane apply to mandating bicycle use of bike lanes.

My mph question goes to the heart of what's "reasonable." Why won't you tell us what you mean by "reasonable"?

To me a bike lane that slows me from 35 to 20 mph is not reasonably designed and/or maintained. How much of a slow down do you think is "reasonable"? The mph chart I provided above is ahandy way for you to answer. Which of those slow downs is "reasonable"?

If you need examples of when cyclists need to swerve, check out the pot holes thread...

Look, it's pointless to argue this anymore. Bill's just being contrarian to be a pain in the ass.

His response to the pothole issue is to say, yes, that's a problem, but you should get the city to fix it.

In a nutshell: we can start a priori with a mandatory bike lane law. Any problem that might ever rear its head becomes a problem that we as cyclists must expect the city or responsible party to fix.

Yes, Bill, you're right. If every bike lane is perfectly designed and installed; constantly maintained; never obstructed; well shielded from straying birds, squirrels, and dogs; striped only on roads where one would have no need of left turns; deiced any time the temperature dips below freezing; scrubbed clean of any automobile tail pipe drippings; grade separated from automobile turns; and essentially every unforseen circumstance forseen and corrected for...well then yes, mandatory bike lane laws might be feasible.

Me, I occupy a little state called "reality". You should come visit sometime.

But even then, you would still have all the visibility issues as you approach any intersection, even minor intersections, associated with the fact that folks in cross traffic tend to look for potential conflicts in the vehicular lanes, all too often ignoring the bike lane.

And this is not an education issue. It's a fact of human nature. If you drive home about the same time every day, and make your left from southbound 1st ave to eastbound A street, you might be very diligent the first 200 hundred times to make sure the bike lane is clear. But by your 1,000th turn some time during your 4th year of making that turn and yet never seeing a cyclist in that bike lane, you're likely to learn to start ignoring it. Two years later some poor guy might be flying down it 20 mph and when you hear him slam into the side of your car after you cut him off, you will swear that you never saw him, and you won't be lying.

It is only reasonable to expect motorists to look where they expect potential conflicts - in vehicular lanes. It is not nearly as reasonable to expect motorists to look where potential conflicts are very unlikely (though still possible) - in a bike lane.

After searching the MUTCD, there do not appear to be any commonly used markings or signs which indicate to drivers (other than cyclists) that they are supposed to travel along the far right (or at some fixed distance from the right edge) regardless of how fast they're going (as a bikelane does for pedal vehicle drivers). If someone know where in the MUTCD such commonly used non-bike specific markings or signage exist, please post the URL in this thread.

Yeah, but at least 800 times the driver is looking for a car... ask any motorcyclist why they get hit... driving in the "safe vehicular manner" AND at the speed of all other traffic... but with a different profile. In fact, motocycles are "big," by comparison to a cyclist.

On average, bicyclists enjoy a lower collision rate than do motorcyclists. Which just goes to show that:

• it's not the size that counts; it's what you do with it :)
• doing it (traveling) quickly isn't the safest behavior.

I have come to agree with the others, billh is just a troll. As others have been saying for awhile, he's just being contrarian. That wouldn't be so bad if he made more sense. By refusing to say under what conditions a cyclist should be allowed to leave a non-ideal bike lane, he's painted himself into an illogical corner. He refuses to explain himself further because he's surrounded by his own wet paint.

Is that collision rate per mile, or per trip, and of course the other side of the issue is how many motorcyclists are "hot shots" and cause their own accidents.

The real stats should be to compare auto caused accidents of motorcycles to auto caused accidents of bicycles... not just all accident rates.

My point is that the claim of "increased visibility" of VC riders may not be valid as motorists are in fact looking for cars and trucks, and nothing else. Not even gorilla suits.

The real issues involving accidents are that they do occur at intersections, which we all agree with, and at intersections bike lanes do not help, which we all agree with, and that riding in a VC manner at intersections may not even marginally increase visibility.

But riding in a bike lane, in an intersection free area, which puts the rider on the side, does little to help the cyclists, other than to minimize the posibility of motorist/cyclist tension (which is a good thing) by allocating different parts of the road to different speed vehicles. WOLs, in similar intersection free areas, offer no such divisions on the roadways and may be increasing tension of motorist/cyclist encounters (not a good thing).

In other words, while bike lanes may not help cyclists at intersections, nothing else may aid the cyclist either... except perhaps some outstanding eye catching apparel -- motorists are looking for large vehicles (and actually are being trained by road crews to look for that yellow green apparel). On the other hand, Bike Lanes can aid in the smooth flow of all traffic, in intersection free areas, while WOLs may not.

Of course if the cyclist is riding at or near the speed of auto traffic, neither a WOL or a bike lane matters... but intersections can still be problem areas, as mentioned above, as exemplified by typical auto/auto crash patterns (motorists simply missing the picture or distracted).

I'm just saying that much of a speed differential is probably the exception than the rule. If there is some huge downhill where cyclists can safely go 35 mph, then probably not a good place for a bike lane. Just my humble opinion.

No, I am not a troll. I am a serious cyclist who is open to learning about others opinions, and I feel I am learning about the arguments against bicycle lanes. However, I am persisting in the thread because I believe reasonable cyclists do not have to be rabidly against bicycle lanes, let alone rabidly against mandatory BL, which seems like an extension of the BL argument. I am not rabidly in favor of BL or mandating their use, as is the straw man you would like to set me up to be. I think the radical position is those who are so against BL and by extension mandatory BL, that it is the only issue they see. I want to take a moderate stance against that sort of radical belief system.

Serge, BL width sounds like a design issue. Are you adding a minimum width to the working definition?

On the issue of lane width, I see a more narrow width as one of the advantages of bicycles over most motor vehicles. It is an inefficient use of road width for a bicyclist to take the entire lane, although I agree it is at times necessary. BL are one possible efficient implementation of bicycle use of the road. Think of a stretch of road. Have 100 reasonable cyclists ride down the road. One might find that the 100 different paths have something in common, perhaps 95 of those paths can be demarked by lines that are somewhat more narrow than the lane for motor vehicles. Call that a bike lane. Is that so awful? Is this lane appropriate 100% of the time. No, but it may be a good approximation for what is appropriate for that road. Say the, that this BL is a reflection of good lane position 95% of the time. Should it then be optional? I argue not because then motorists will never be sure where a cyclist is going to ride. It should be mandatory with proper exceptions (for left turns, for obstructions, like the CA law cited) because that promotes predictable position on the road, and the more predictable the position the safer for both cyclist and motorist. Should every road have a BL? God forbid. All I'm saying is that it might be a proper facility for a limited small number of roads as determined by the local users.

It's not unreasonable to ask a municipality to fix a pothole. There was a nasty pothole on a downhill section of road maintained by St Louis County Highways and Traffic. There was also a grate with a bar missing. I visited the STL County web page. Filled out the complaint form and both the pothole and grate were fixed within two weeks. No problem. I'm sorry if your city is not so responsive but that has little bearing on legislation.

Of course not. But I bet you can find plenty of designs for other lane markings such as double yellow, solid white, and white dashed lanes. That is the proper analogy. How did the engineers come up with those designs? I bet it was a process and there was controversy, but a good design was eventually achieved. BL are just one way to implement the principle of "slow traffic to the right". Bicycles are by definition slow moving vehicles.

Yes, legislation is made in a vacuum. Thank you for so nicely demonstrating my point.

How does WOL solve the line of sight problem? I can't agree that cyclists should cheat to the left at every intersection. This is not standard VC practice as far as I know. If it is, please post a link.

Of course it is not done in a vacuum, but you can't write legislation assuming a facility will not be maintained. I think this has to be an assumption of the vehicle code, ie. that roads are properly maintained. Otherwise, we could have no rules for the road. They would all be pre-empted by "what if", what if there is a load of bricks in the road, what if there is pothole, broken glass, etc.