Daniel4

Yes but there's another discussion somewhere where pedestrians take responsibility for their own collisions if they in the car's path too.

work4bike

I understand that, but the links I provided above clearly shows cyclists lawfully able to leave the bike lane for making a left turn and for not passing a car on the inside while it's making a right turn. Are you saying that it's against the law to do this?

Here in Florida our laws say basically the same thing, that if a bike lane is provided a cyclist must use it, unless it is obstructed. However, it also shows that you may leave the bike lane to make a left turn and also to avoid a Right Hook. It seems NYC law is basically the same, according to the two links I provided above

https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/download...t_brochure.pdf

https://www.bike.nyc/advice/riding-tips/bike-lanes/



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livedarklions

If I understand what that pile of seemingly contradictory rules are adding up to, basically you're required to stay in the bike lane, but you can come out at intersections, then you have to go back in again.
That might or might not be ok for any given street, but I'd rather have the choice not to have to pop in and out and in like that if I think the constant lane changes are putting me at greater risk than just staying out of the bike lane.

UniChris

Approximately, yes, and you're right - being compelled to use it anywhere it is "available" vs "useful" is a mistake - MA's "offered but never required" law is much better than NY's in that regard.

Of course MA is no actual paragon of sensibility. The state wants to rip out the hostile-feeling but actually fairly useful wide shoulders of route 10/202 north of I90 in Westfield to build another bidirectional bit of Assembly-square type nonsense on its western side (though the density is a little lower, there are still things like gas stations drivers can accelerate out of while looking only in the direction of road traffic). Rather what they should be doing is painting that already existing space as bike lanes and displacing the occasional right turn lanes outside of it.

No doubt they won't plow what they build, either, though I guess the saving grace is that my only present reason for going there is to get to the rail trail into CT which also isn't plowed. But they have this idea kids are going to use it to get to schools...

work4bike

Well, now that we agree that it is lawful for a cyclist to leave the bike lane for some instances, other than an obstruction... I don't see it as a pile of seemingly contradictory rules.... It's quite simple.

I practice this all the time, but that doesn't mean I'm constantly changing lanes at every intersection and I cycle on some streets that have tons of intersections, not just the major ones, but numerous right turning options for gas stations, grocery stores, shopping centers, small street access points, etc....

There have been a few occasions where a vehicle was making a right turn into one of these non-intersection turns and a number of cars would suddenly form a very slow-moving line and I'd jump in behind them, because you never know who else in that line is going to turn....and this is on roads with 45-mph speed limit (and you know, no one drives the speed limit)




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billridesbikes

More like typical New Yorker. Pretty mild compared to what I’ve heard when I’m in Manhattan, and god help you if you hold up the line in the morning at Gregory’s Coffee.

livedarklions

If you can leave the bike lane at the intersection but are required to ride in it between intersections and you're dealing with the chaos of Manhattan car and pedestrian traffic constantly intruding on that lane, there's nothing simple about it. If given a choice, I doubt I'd ever bother with the bike lane because if it isn't protecting me going straight through an intersection and no one is respecting its segregation, I don't even know what it's there for. If I need to leave the lane to go straight, that probably means the lane is in the wrong place throughout. Basically, a lot of NYC lanes are probably futile attempts to retrofit the existing street system for safe multi-use when it already has never functioned well as a street system for cars when it didn't have bike lanes.

TBH, the one thing I think the OP video is successful at is documenting that those bike lanes aren't really working for cyclists in NYC. I don't ride in NYC, so I can't speak for lanes that aren't on that video.

work4bike

NYC is such a densely populated city, I think the only way to make it somewhat bike friendly would to totally scrap the entire infrastructure and redo using Amsterdam as a model. Instead it seems they have just tried to retrofit some bike lanes into an already poorly designed system.

But I love watching how they deal with it...some of the best videos online



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Daniel4

Tokyo and Hong Kong, two very densely packed cities, have sidewalk rails which keep pedestrians from stepping into the street.

However, in Tokyo, cyclists ride all over the sidewalk. I think there is an understanding of co-existence or tolerance so there does not appear to be any open aggression or animosity. Pent up, maybe.