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Chicago has been doing a pretty good job of building out bike lanes. But it needs to be taken further still, and more quickly. However, the initiative needs a
by shaboi 7y ago
Chicago has been doing a pretty good job of building out bike lanes. But it needs to be taken further still, and more quickly.
However, the initiative needs a more robust implementation, with more consideration of driver behavior and parking needs. This is evident as many delivery trucks, Ubers etc. park in the lane (albeit, with emergency blinkers on, but it's a moot measure regardless) and push bicyclists into traffic. So while the bike lanes probably improve safety and reduce deaths overall, it can and does introduce a new, very real hazard: the necessity of bicyclists to suddenly merge into traffic. And this abuse is pretty rampant.
The hanging fruit is simply implementing stiffer penalities for such violations but this seems lacking. Coupling this with more temporary parking zones might be a solution. Then again, I'm not a civil engineer, just my observations and half-baked thoughts concerning the matter.
- selectodude 7y agoProtected bike lanes implies a curb between the road and the lane. While a delivery truck could jump the curb, technically, it "curbs" a lot of that behavior.
- mumblemumble 7y agoIn Chicago it's largely been implemented by placing the bike lane in between on-street parking and the sidewalk, with soft posts and paint separating the parking lane from the bike lane. I've watched people put an impressive amount of effort into delicately navigating between those posts so that they can parallel park their car next to the curb. i.e., in the bike lane.
- bluejekyll 7y agoSo more signage and education is needed?
- javagram 7y agoEducation probably doesn’t matter. Convenience will always trump education. What would work would be enforcement, if you’re fairly likely to get slammed with a $500 ticket for blocking the lane that will actually stop the behavior.
- lonelappde 7y agoWhy do you think someone put so much effort into parking "conveniently" instead of misunderstanding what the post is for?
- javagram 7y agoDriving in between two posts doesn’t seem that much effort to me (doesn’t seem harder than parallel parking for example). And I suspect many of them do understand what the flexposts are for, and just don’t care. Drivers park in clearly signed bike lanes all the time, and when cyclists alert them to this fact they often respond with anger, not understanding or contrition. Common excuses are “I’ll just be a minute” or so on. It’s just part of how driving causes people to behave - I see the same thing with my apartment driveway which is regularly blocked by people parking illegally to go to the bank, rather than drive a few hundred feet and legally park in a garage. Now, I’m sure there are some ignorant people out there, but the majority of people will just do what they can get away with regardless of what the law or the rule is. It’s like educating people to not text and drive. Just doesn’t work.
- mumblemumble 7y agoI don't know that driving brings out terribly different behavior on that front, it's more that cars are so big that they act as this inconvenience multiplier that allows one person to easily create a much bigger hassle or hazard for others than they could with their bare hands. For example, I have plenty of run-ins with stepping out of a storefront and nearly getting creamed by a cyclist who's zooming down the sidewalk at 10mph, too. And it's frequently the cyclist who yells at me for failing to anticipate them barreling down the sidewalk illegally.
- bobthepanda 7y agoProbably an actual curb would be best, since hitting a curb can damage your car. Or more closely spaced posts that you can‘t squeeze a car between.
- mumblemumble 7y agoBased on what I've seen in Chicago, it seems that the missing element is informing the public of the relevant laws. To my knowledge, the rules covering bicycles and pedestrians have never been on Illinois's written test, they aren't necessarily covered in driver's (or other) education, and, since most motorists (and also, I'm guessing, cyclists) come from more suburban environments where there just aren't as many bikes and pedestrians on the roads, people simply don't know how they're supposed to behave on the streets. Which is a recipe for unnecessary chaos. Case in point: About ten years back, when she was visiting, I had to tell my mom not to drive in a bike lane. She was surprised to hear that it was a bike lane; she though it was just a weirdly small shared-use lane with slightly confusing paint marks. And no, while I appreciate the good intentions of whoever it is at the DOT who thinks composes these things, cute rhyming phrases in glowing amber letters over the freeway aren't going to cut it.
- ogre_codes 7y agoIf cars are driving in bike lanes then it's not very good bike infrastructure. The best bike & pedestrian infrastructure is isolated from auto infrastructure as much as possible. Drivers take up every possible piece of real estate available and steal space from adjoining infrastructure when they can get away with it.
- mumblemumble 7y agoThe best possible bike infrastructure is also very expensive to construct, and can't be built overnight. Given many major US cities' budget problems, I think that making the perfect the enemy of the good is probably a great way to doom ourselves to the worst.