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Maybe it depends on the city and its situation. I’m in Seattle, and I feel like the areas with sharrows are consistently the streets where I am (as a commuting

Maybe it depends on the city and its situation. I’m in Seattle, and I feel like the areas with sharrows are consistently the streets where I am (as a commuting cyclist) tailgated by cars or finding myself (as a errand-running motorist) unable to safely pass a cyclist for a very, very long time. And those sharrow streets are often an inefficient route for cyclists with no clear indication for how the route would be improved.

c22 6y ago
At least those sharrows are better than the "bike lanes" they paint into the pothole and garbage strewn shoulder which are frequently occupied by illegally parked vehicles, fallen branches, and delivery trucks.
- rossjudson 6y ago
  On the second last stretch of road before my home we have the "bike lane at the side of the road". On garbage day you'll find some of the homeowners view it as "garbage lane". Not that many, though...I think some of my fellow cyclists "relocate" garbage cans in the bike lane to the other side of the road, or well down it. There are a few houses where the homeowners really don't have that many options (bottom of a steep driveway) and those ones at least make an effort to minimally encroach. Illegally parked vehicles don't last long around here ;)
corytheboyd 6y ago
For context my experience comes from San Francisco. There are definitely streets exactly like what you mentioned, which can be frustrating but the ones I am thinking of are generally touristy anyway (Polk comes to mind as I spent a lot of time around there) I just can’t see how some paint on the road makes it actively WORSE, the cars and bikes are still there in the same volume as before. Cars and bikes just don’t belong in the same infrastructure, it’s ridiculous to expect it to work long term. People in this thread mentioning bike lines in the middle of the road scares the shit out of me, that cannot where bicycle infrastructure ends up
rossjudson 6y ago
I like the green-painted bike lanes out of the non-physically separated mechanisms. Over in Kirkland we have some reasonably good bike lanes (some green, some not). Dooring is still a highly rational fear, though, and when I'm going past cars that are parked I slow down quite a bit and I presume that pretty much any car might contain a driver that's opening a door without looking. Hugging the left side of the bike lane is also helpful. The biggest lesson I had in my first season of commuting to work was "TRUST NO-ONE". Do not trust cars to do what they are supposed to do under any circumstances. Do not assume that eye contact with drivers will affect their behavior. Do not assume that slow car speeds are safe speeds. Any given car can turn in front of you at any time, or flip open a door on any side. I once had the same guy almost get me twice in a single commute. He didn't mean to do it...just a very distracted driver.
- corytheboyd 6y ago
  Huge +1 to trusting no one as a cyclist. Another thing I have learned is to be EXTRA cautious around slow cars. It’s ALWAYS the slow car that is about to do something erratic. Makes sense if you think about it, as a driver you usually slow down to give yourself time to find that parking spot, check if you should turn here, etc.
  - dsego 6y ago
    In my experience drivers also often times just don't see you (something about saccades) or even if they do, it doesn't register. Or they misjudge you speed, they don't expect you going 25-30kph. An accident that happened to me not long ago was a driver failing to yield and pulling in front me, causing me to slam the brakes and lose traction, skidding and scraping the asphalt. Luckily it was just road rash and bruises (and I wasn't wearing my clip-less shoes - only flats from now on for me).
    - brewdad 6y ago
      The "safety" feature I hate most on my wife's car is the auto-tinting side mirrors. They are amazing at preventing being blinded by drivers with improperly installed LED headlights but they make it almost impossible to see a cyclist at night.
joveian 6y ago
I think they often use them when they aren't willing to do anything useful, as a "we haven't entirely forgotten that bikes exist, we just don't want to actually make things safer" measure (or, more cynically, as a "here we did something now go away" measure). Here in Portland (at least inner Portland) I think they have mostly repurposed them as a bike route marker, where bike route means more or less "a side street that isn't interrupted more frequently than nearby streets" (this being Portland, that is most side streets so there are lots of them all over the place). More heavily trafficed streets are more likely to have bike lanes and green stripes. I think sharrows are resonable as a "this street isn't likely to end abruptly in two blocks" marker, although that is quite a bit different than the initial usage. The city also somtimes installs barriers that allow bike traffic to pass but not car traffic in a few strategic places if a side street is too appealing to cars as an alternative route.

c22 6y ago

At least those sharrows are better than the "bike lanes" they paint into the pothole and garbage strewn shoulder which are frequently occupied by illegally parked vehicles, fallen branches, and delivery trucks.

rossjudson 6y ago
On the second last stretch of road before my home we have the "bike lane at the side of the road". On garbage day you'll find some of the homeowners view it as "garbage lane". Not that many, though...I think some of my fellow cyclists "relocate" garbage cans in the bike lane to the other side of the road, or well down it. There are a few houses where the homeowners really don't have that many options (bottom of a steep driveway) and those ones at least make an effort to minimally encroach. Illegally parked vehicles don't last long around here ;)

corytheboyd 6y ago

For context my experience comes from San Francisco. There are definitely streets exactly like what you mentioned, which can be frustrating but the ones I am thinking of are generally touristy anyway (Polk comes to mind as I spent a lot of time around there) I just can’t see how some paint on the road makes it actively WORSE, the cars and bikes are still there in the same volume as before. Cars and bikes just don’t belong in the same infrastructure, it’s ridiculous to expect it to work long term. People in this thread mentioning bike lines in the middle of the road scares the shit out of me, that cannot where bicycle infrastructure ends up

rossjudson 6y ago

I like the green-painted bike lanes out of the non-physically separated mechanisms. Over in Kirkland we have some reasonably good bike lanes (some green, some not). Dooring is still a highly rational fear, though, and when I'm going past cars that are parked I slow down quite a bit and I presume that pretty much any car might contain a driver that's opening a door without looking. Hugging the left side of the bike lane is also helpful. The biggest lesson I had in my first season of commuting to work was "TRUST NO-ONE". Do not trust cars to do what they are supposed to do under any circumstances. Do not assume that eye contact with drivers will affect their behavior. Do not assume that slow car speeds are safe speeds. Any given car can turn in front of you at any time, or flip open a door on any side. I once had the same guy almost get me twice in a single commute. He didn't mean to do it...just a very distracted driver.

corytheboyd 6y ago
Huge +1 to trusting no one as a cyclist. Another thing I have learned is to be EXTRA cautious around slow cars. It’s ALWAYS the slow car that is about to do something erratic. Makes sense if you think about it, as a driver you usually slow down to give yourself time to find that parking spot, check if you should turn here, etc.
- dsego 6y ago
  In my experience drivers also often times just don't see you (something about saccades) or even if they do, it doesn't register. Or they misjudge you speed, they don't expect you going 25-30kph. An accident that happened to me not long ago was a driver failing to yield and pulling in front me, causing me to slam the brakes and lose traction, skidding and scraping the asphalt. Luckily it was just road rash and bruises (and I wasn't wearing my clip-less shoes - only flats from now on for me).
  - brewdad 6y ago
    The "safety" feature I hate most on my wife's car is the auto-tinting side mirrors. They are amazing at preventing being blinded by drivers with improperly installed LED headlights but they make it almost impossible to see a cyclist at night.

joveian 6y ago

I think they often use them when they aren't willing to do anything useful, as a "we haven't entirely forgotten that bikes exist, we just don't want to actually make things safer" measure (or, more cynically, as a "here we did something now go away" measure). Here in Portland (at least inner Portland) I think they have mostly repurposed them as a bike route marker, where bike route means more or less "a side street that isn't interrupted more frequently than nearby streets" (this being Portland, that is most side streets so there are lots of them all over the place). More heavily trafficed streets are more likely to have bike lanes and green stripes. I think sharrows are resonable as a "this street isn't likely to end abruptly in two blocks" marker, although that is quite a bit different than the initial usage. The city also somtimes installs barriers that allow bike traffic to pass but not car traffic in a few strategic places if a side street is too appealing to cars as an alternative route.