The first thing I'm wondering is who is going to pay for all that road-work? It sounds expensive. I can just hear the howls of protest at the city council meeting. I'm proposing perhaps a hundred miles of bike-roads. Not just a couple of intersections.

The double entry at intersections might work in non-snow areas. But around here the plows have to have access to the full width of the road. The separate lane at intersections could only be done with painted islands, which would get covered by snow and slush. Speed bumps would be hard to plow as well.

Regarding blocking off the road, I think that would really antagonize mv drivers. I know when I get "trapped" I'm NOT at all happy. As a cyclist, I wouldn't want to shoot myself in the foot like that. The point is not to ban mvs from the bike-road, only to discourage them. A stop EVERY block would do that.

The great advantage of using signs to make a bike-road, instead of physically changing it to be unfriendly to cars, is that you do not diminish the road's utility for cyclists. I would hope that bike-roads would eventually become bike-highways with huge bike traffic. You'd want a good road for that, not one full of speed bumps and islands.

Hey, I found Idaho's motor vehicle law. Not only does it allow slow coasting through STOPs, the law also allows going through a red light after stopping !



STATE OF IDAHO
TITLE 49 MOTOR VEHICLES CHAPTER 7
PEDESTRIANS AND BICYCLES
49-720. STOPPING -- TURN AND STOP SIGNALS. (1) A person operating a
bicycle or human-powered vehicle approaching a stop sign shall slow down and,
if required for safety, stop before entering the intersection. After slowing
to a reasonable speed or stopping, the person shall yield the right-of-way to
any vehicle in the intersection or approaching on another highway so closely
as to constitute an immediate hazard during the time the person is moving
across or within the intersection or junction of highways, except that a
person after slowing to a reasonable speed and yielding the right-of-way if
required, may cautiously make a turn or proceed through the intersection
without stopping.
(2) A person operating a bicycle or human-powered vehicle approaching a
steady red traffic control light shall stop before entering the intersection
and shall yield to all other traffic. Once the person has yielded, he may
proceed through the steady red light with caution. Provided however, that a
person after slowing to a reasonable speed and yielding the right-of-way if
required, may cautiously make a right-hand turn. A left-hand turn onto a
one-way highway may be made on a red light after stopping and yielding to
other traffic.

Wow! I'm moving to Idaho! Seriously, I wish California would adopt this law. In one fell swoop thousands of cyclists would be converted from outlaws into law-abiding citizens.

I don't see it as a flaw. The key is both cyclists must slow down to a reasonable speed before proceeding through... if you're both going 10mph or less you both have plenty of time to brake and/or adjust as needed. Flying through a stop at 20mph is illegal.

The red light law would be great at non-functioning lights on Sunday mornings. Stop at the red, look both way, go through. Of course, at rush hour, it would be nearly impossible to apply the law to cross a busy boulevard... but hey, if there's a long break, go for it!

I'm moving to Idaho. Maybe I'll take up potato farming.

You needn't worry. No one is going to get excited if you decide to stop every block at the "BICYCLES ARE EXEMPTED FROM STOPPING" stop signs. I don't think you would, but you could, in order to act consistently.

So how do you handle the fact that you are not allowed to ride your bike on the freeway?

Stop signs are used to give an indication of who has the right of way at an intersection. Attempts to use stop signs as traffic calming devices -- which is what Scavenger is proposing here, though in an interestingly innovative way -- have failed miserably. The overuse of stop signs to calm traffic has led to vehicle operators ignoring stop signs.

The local powers that be have never heard of, or ignore, your point that traffic calming stop signs leads to the running of those signs. 4-ways are appearing like weeds. As a cyclist, I LOVE them, because I treat them essentially as 2-ways; I wish ALL the back street intersections were 4-way. It's true that many drivers do rolling stops, but that's all I need to go either before or after them. As a driver,I'm not really bothered by all those 4-ways because I've only got to go through 2 stop signs to get to a main artery.

Locally, all those stop signs on back streets haven't "failed miserably", as you claim, in calming traffic. In fact, they have succeeded by driving traffic off of the back streets onto the main arteries; So, the back streets which would be designated bike-roads ALREADY have very little mv traffic .My proposal would encourage mv drivers even MORE than they are now to use the main arteries.

I agree with your point that stop signs should be used to indicate who has the right of way. So, if the cyclists are exempt from stopping then they would HAVE the right-of-way!

Thanks for that GREAT piece of research. I REALLY like the red-light provision.

To have truely efficient bike transportation, the bike-road cyclists should have the right of way. On the other hand, I sure wouldn't vote "no" if the Idaho law ever made it to the ballot here!

Instead of a right-of-way disaster by allowing cyclists to proceed, throwing caution to the wind, make four way stops YIELDS for bicyclists. This idea would be perfect for residential roads, where stop signs' main purpose is to slow traffic. Bicycles travel at a safe speed and therefore should not be "slowed" by incessant stop signs.

My city web pages even make note of this:

https://www.tempe.gov/traffic/q&a.htm

See second paragraph, which also notes that cars tend to speed faster between stop signs (which is also my observation with speed bumps, which is why I dispise them)

Al

OK, I expect to get slammed for this, but fair is fair.

And I'm not picking on LV2TNDM specifically...we read this over and over in this forum.

We, as cyclists, get angry at those cagers who don't like to be delayed a couple of seconds by bicyclists.

However we, as cyclists, don't like to be delayed by stop signs?

I view every stop sign as a chance to practice my track stand.

I totally agree. For me its not practicing a trackstand, but instead the opportunity to get some standing start sprints in - after every light/stop I try to get up to cruising speed as fast as possible.

I don't see traffic control as hinderances, but instead as part of the commuting landscape aka obstical course. I follow all traffic laws, not primarily because I'm a stickler for the law, but instead because for me its the rule book for my commute which I time and track. Once I start breaking one rule, why not another and then how can I compare my best commute times if they are not based on following the same set of rules? One could argue that my 'obstical course' varies due to light timing, traffic conditions, etc. but these are outside variables I have no control over and I've found that over time they average out very well.

Al

The placement of stop signs should be considered in the context of the overall transportation network. If they're doing what they seem to be intended to do (move traffic from residential streets onto collectors and arterials) then it sounds like they may have been placed correctly.


The claim isn't mine. I'm not a traffic engineer, but I have attended a couple of workshops presented by pro-pedestrian traffic engineers and planners. Google for Dan Burden, Reid Ewing, and Nazir Lalani and read their material and research for some interesting information that I think you'll find very helpful. Look also at this article about "Second Generation Traffic Calming" at https://www.lesstraffic.com/Articles/Traffic/SGTC.htm

RFM

Al, do you stop at stop signs out in the country when there's absolutely no one around? I ask because that's 95% of my commute and so far, I only stop if there's a car anywhere in the vicinity. But that's pretty rare -- these are basically deserted country roads. Thanks!

I don't ride in the country on my commute, so I am not faced with this dillema. Its up to you what rule book you want to follow - for me the one that was already written was easiest.

I would get tired of stopping at a 4 way stop when I could see no traffic approaching from 'miles' away. Sounds like a wonderful commute route.

Al

Thanks, Al! There are only three drawbacks to my commute: 1) lots of hills; 2) heat; 3) lots of hills.

Actually, I'm going to learn to love these hills and it WILL cool down eventually. Hey, it's only 90 now at noon and yesterday, it was already 95!

What a great place to cycle (I just noticed your in Dripping Springs) I was married in Wimberley area. As to the hills, it adds variety. I have pure flats on my commute and this means you always have to pedal and its always the same.

Al

You may have something there, along with JamesV. I could live with bike-roads with 4-ways at every intersection, if I could treat the stop as a yield. Having a "WARNING, BIKE-ROAD CROSSING" sign below the cross-traffic stop signs would alert mvs AND cyclists that something was up and they would be more likely to yield the right-of-way to the bike-road cyclists, even though they wouldn't have to. So, I guess the next step is to try and get the Idaho bike law (stop=yield and red=yield after stopping) adopted here in Ontario.

[QUOTE=JamesV]Hey, I found Idaho's motor vehicle law. Not only does it allow slow coasting through STOPs, the law also allows going through a red light after stopping !



STATE OF IDAHO
TITLE 49 MOTOR VEHICLES CHAPTER 7
PEDESTRIANS AND BICYCLES
49-720. STOPPING -- TURN AND STOP SIGNALS. (1) A person operating a
bicycle or human-powered vehicle approaching a stop sign shall slow down and,
if required for safety, stop before entering the intersection. After slowing
to a reasonable speed or stopping, the person shall yield the right-of-way to
any vehicle in the intersection or approaching on another highway so closely
as to constitute an immediate hazard during the time the person is moving
across or within the intersection or junction of highways, except that a
person after slowing to a reasonable speed and yielding the right-of-way if
required, may cautiously make a turn or proceed through the intersection
without stopping.
(2) A person operating a bicycle or human-powered vehicle approaching a
steady red traffic control light shall stop before entering the intersection
and shall yield to all other traffic. Once the person has yielded, he may
proceed through the steady red light with caution. Provided however, that a
person after slowing to a reasonable speed and yielding the right-of-way if
required, may cautiously make a right-hand turn. A left-hand turn onto a
one-way highway may be made on a red light after stopping and yielding to
other traffic.

Wow! I'm moving to Idaho! Seriously, I wish California would adopt this law. In one fell swoop thousands of cyclists would be converted from outlaws into law-abiding citizens.

(Snip)


Why don't you try a petition to get the Idaho law on the ballot? You are lucky in California that you can do that. Most people can't.

Guess that depends on the area. I haven't seen to many protests about expenses related to bike facilities here. The new Alta Vista corridor will have bike lanes and a side-path, for example.

We are in a heavy snow area, and several downtown streets have double-entries (they want to avoid non-local car traffic). I'm not sure how they do the snow removal, perhaps the same plow that does the sidewalks. We certainly plow speed bumps all over the city.

Creating a dead-end for cars (but nor for bikes) can be met with praise from local homeowners who don't want high-speed traffic running from one highway to another through their peaceful neighbourhood. I can also think of at least one instance in Ottawa that allows through traffic for bikes and buses, but not cars.


Inlands don't make the road any less good for cyclists, and speed bumps don't extend to bike lanes or to the edge of a WOL.

I agree that all of the above issues have to be considered, and I am not generally an advicate of making roads less car-friendly as such, but they all work to some extent. There are plenty of other methods too, of course, I only listed what I am used to seeing locally.

Then again, when my city was reviewing plans for completing a ped/bike bridge over the freeway to complete a NS bike corridor there was huge push back from the neighborhood activist on each side as they believed it would bring more crime to their 'quiet' neighborhood. You know, lowlife theifs ride bikes, etc.

Al

There are at least (and a few more) two kinds of speed 'bumps'. There are those that are about a foot wide and are officially (as my city engineer explained to me) called 'bumps' These are quite jarring and are good for controlling speeds below 15mph - often found in school zones. There are also what are known as 'humps' which are more like 3ft wide and can be traveled over at about 25mph. These are (around here) used very frequently on residential streets. These 'humps' are very comfortable to fly over on a bike even over 25mph.
I bring this up as 'humps' should always extend across the full width of the road, even across a bike lane if it exists. Otherwise (I deal with this sometimes) drivers will very often, at least more than half of them swerve their car right into the bike lane, which can has lead to close calls for me (which is one reason I don't ride in BL on those streets). Fortunately most of these 'humps' extend the full width of the pavement.
'Bumps' on the other hand are painful to go over on a bike over ~10mph. BUT - 'bumps' should only be used in special cases (i.e. 15mph school zones) and not on normal slow flow streets. And on any street that is posted at such a low speed (i.e. 15mph) it should not have a BL anyway. A solution I've proposed to city is to make a 12"-18" wide cut in the bump in the middle of the travel lane so a cyclist can pass thru while keeping up with 15mph traffic flow, that way the 'bump' can extend all the way to the curb and prevent cars from swerving sideways against curb to avoid half of bump.

Al