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Bike lanes, as implemented in the US are a gift to cars and are down right dangerous. They communicate to drivers that bikes are designated to a lane when they

Bike lanes, as implemented in the US are a gift to cars and are down right dangerous. They communicate to drivers that bikes are designated to a lane when they are not. This is the style of lane than runs along the left side of the road with parking on the outside. They are designed with minimal buffer space (if any) and are right in the doorzone. What use is a bikelane that can be doored? Also, if a driver wants to make a right-hand turn, they must turn through a bikelane that is in a straight line direction. How does that make sense? We don't put our turn lanes for cars to cut across straight lanes. Bikelanes also are mostly just there (in practice) for rideshare services and delivery services to drop off goods. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, given the problems with right turns and doorings mentioned earlier. It is problematic in name however, but because new cyclists treat them as actual bike lanes and are just gambling with the probability of eventionally getting hit. We should have more bike infrastructure, but putting money into this garbage is a mistake.

itsbrass 5y ago
This echoes a lot of my feelings about bike lanes, do you have any references to traffic studies or the like showing that these kinds of lanes are, indeed, more dangerous? I'd be especially curious to know what the good alternatives are. IIRC physical dividers like reflector poles actually do make bike lanes safer, and sharrows are mixed on whether or not they make lanes more effective.
- scoofy 5y ago
  >I'd be especially curious to know what the good alternatives are. Open Streets: https://openstreetsproject.org/ https://openstreetsproject.org/
- chapium 5y ago
  Here's a video that illustrates my point better than what I commented, and there are some studies cited in the description which validate my admittedly anecdotal experience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fztvoxj_pds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fztvoxj_pds
arglebarglegar 5y ago
You’re not talking about protected bike lanes, which I think is an important distinction. Traffic travels too fast in the US, and I do not want to share roads with cars going 40+ mph
zamfi 5y ago
Obviously I can't speak to your own personal experience, but I've done a surprising amount of biking on streets that have added bikes lanes, and my experience is that the bike lanes tend to improve my subjective experience of biking on those streets substantially. Many of those streets, to be fair, have bike lines that are shifted 3+ feet away from the parking lane, with stripes to indicate the door zone -- which is a huge benefit, frankly, over the streets that don't have this. Another change that I'm 100% in favor of is the removal of a traffic lane to allow this: this often enables right-turns to be explicitly marked as crossing a bike lane, and drivers tend to be more careful there (again, just my experience). I've also biked on streets that became "super sharrow" streets: one lane striped with a giant green stripe that supposedly provides a big visual indicator that a bike can use the full lane. This was terrible. > We should have more bike infrastructure, but putting money into this garbage is a mistake. What bike infrastructure would you like to see, if not bike lanes?
- jfim 5y ago
  > Many of those streets, to be fair, have bike lines that are shifted 3+ feet away from the parking lane, with stripes to indicate the door zone That sounds pretty great. Unfortunately in my area the bike lanes are straight into the door zone (see for example https://goo.gl/maps/nMnKZEVZduEfkups8 https://goo.gl/maps/nMnKZEVZduEfkups8) and this seems to be the general design for bike lanes in the South Bay. In fact, the city of Sunnyvale's own bike map [0] says to avoid the four feet door zone, yet the bike lane is less than 4 feet wide and straight in the door zone. It's frustrating. You'd think they'd favor the safety of the unprotected squishy humans over the ones in two ton metal boxes, but it seems like the opposite most of the time. [0] https://sunnyvale.ca.gov/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?BlobID=24003 https://sunnyvale.ca.gov/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?Blo...
  - cycomanic 5y ago
    Actually in Germany bike lanes are typically on the other side next to the sidewalk which in my experience is much more dangerous. It gives the indication to cars that bikes are more like pedestrians, they get often overlooked at intersections, dooring is an even bigger issue, because people getting out the car to the street side tend to least look back to avoid cars coming and next to the sidewalk one also has to deal with pedestrians who don't pay attention. In my experience, the more in the way of cars you are as a cyclist the safer you are. You still need to have clear markings, but you should always be in sight of drivers IMO, as an active participant in traffic.
jimt1234 5y ago
THIS ^^^. My two-cents: 90% of recent "bike lane" implementations in my area and the whole "share the road" concept is bullshit. This is just aggravating drivers and giving a false sense of safety to bicyclists. Cars and bicycles don't mix.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  In the US they're implemented in a ham-fisted way just to get federal ISTEA money for minimal effort. 90% of the lanes around me added in the last 10 years are unusable because they are broken by dangerous safety compromises.
cheschire 5y ago
you would appreciate the bike lanes near the capital building then. https://goo.gl/maps/9AGskMFB3GjQ1ErZ7 https://goo.gl/maps/9AGskMFB3GjQ1ErZ7
ascar 5y ago
In Bavaria we have most bike lanes as part of the sidewalk. They are clearly indicated and separated from the pedestrian zone by a 2-3cm drop. Eliminates most problems with cars. However, often the problem with the doors for side parking cars persists for the car's passenger side, which makes it less frequent but more likely that the person opening the door didn't look.
- petre 5y ago
  That's taking space from pedestrians instead of cars. I always see joggers, kids with rollerskates and moms with prams on these sidewalk bike lanes. Side parking and bike lanes cannot cohexist on the same side of the road without wasting another 3 ft of space for a door zone. Some of the useful bike lanes are raised a bit like a mini sidewalk separate from the pedestrian sidewalk or have a physical separator like bumpers.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  > Eliminates most problems with cars. Except now every street crossing becomes a death trap because you're outside the cone of visual awareness of drivers.
- aix1 5y ago
  > In Bavaria we have most bike lanes as part of the sidewalk. From my experience (in the UK) how usable those lanes are depends hugely on pedestrian discipline. There's one of those running alongside the seafront in Brighton that in my experience works well. The same style of lane that I've seen in and around London generally doesn't work as well: there are often pedestrians on the wrong side, not infrequently looking into their phones and/or wearing headphones. What makes matters worse is that in the UK the rules are asymmetric: while it's an offence for a cyclists to go on the pedestrian side, there are no rules preventing pedestrians from walking on the cycle path (source: [1]). [1] http://www.cyclecraft.co.uk/ http://www.cyclecraft.co.uk/
  - corty 5y ago
    The solution is to make pedestrians afraid of stepping into the bike lane. Pass them quickly, closely and surprisingly, if they run into something in the process all the better.
rtpg 5y ago
I get your complaints but in a lot of areas the alternative to the painted-on lane is to have no lane at all, and having the lane at least establishes a principle. I feel safer in it, and cars in my area tend to take it seriously. I don't think there's really a solution to the turning problem, unless you're proposing tunnels at every intersection for cars/bikes. I'm hopeful that newer cars' safety features help to fight this back (I would also like people to, yknow, pay attention when driving). My principle (especially after getting a drivers license and realizing how little visibility one actually has while driving) is to not listen to music (so I can actually hear cars etc) and to basically slow down at every interesection that has even a bit of doubt. It's annoying but at least I'm not rolling the dice on every intersection (or at least not as much)
- lmm 5y ago
  > I get your complaints but in a lot of areas the alternative to the painted-on lane is to have no lane at all, and having the lane at least establishes a principle. It establishes the wrong principle - it makes drivers feel entitled to exclude cyclists from the main road lanes. A bike lane that isn't wide enough, isn't adequately maintained (sweeping, filling potholes...), leads to blind corners, or just dumps you out into the main lanes at junctions, is worse than useless - it actively makes cycling more dangerous, because drivers feel no need to share the main road lanes. > I don't think there's really a solution to the turning problem, unless you're proposing tunnels at every intersection for cars/bikes. The solution is to have bikes be part of the main traffic stream at that point. If you have a bike box at the front of the queueing area, and ideally a bike phase on the lights, that can help a lot.
  - porknubbins 5y ago
    I ride in bike lanes, road sides and sometimes in the middle of the lane. When I started cycling seriously I tried to go full vehicular cycling, but a lot of the time it endangered more than it helped and made drivers angry. 10K+ miles later the one thing I’ve learned is not to be dogmatic, there is no one safest way to ride for all roads and environments. Some roads are way better with bike lanes and some bike lanes are terrible. I just do whatever seems safest.
stephen_g 5y ago
Yeah, that kind of lane sucks. Cities need to face it - the bike lanes need dedicated space designed in when building or upgrading a road, or you need to remove parking spaces entirely. My city (in Australia) has been doing a lot of both recently. In the inner city, nobody misses the loss of street parking up one side of major thoroughfares (you can fit a bike lane with both directions in the space on one side of the road) - it was extremely unlikely to get a park so you usually had to pay to park in an underground/multi-storey car park anyway. Removing the parking means you can have a properly separated lane (they have plastic bumper things in like 30 cm separated double lines, painted green so it’s obvious what it is and that you can’t legally pull into it or park over it) and it’s great. They’ve even put push buttons to signal you’re there for the traffic lights.
- riatin 5y ago
  I assume this is Sydney? I love the work the council have done to the CBD recently - I wish they'd emulate what they did to George St all over the city centre.
  - stephen_g 5y ago
    No, Brisbane actually, but I have heard some good things about Sydney's from a cycling group that reports on things happening locally but every week mentions a project from elsewhere in the country (Space for Cycling Brisbane). These are some of the fist ones through the CBD - https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/traffic-and-transport/roads-infrastructure-and-bikeways/bikeway-and-pathway-projects/citylink-cycleway-trial https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/traffic-and-transport/roads-... - As part of this they closed a major bridge in the middle of the city (Victoria Bridge over to South Bank) to road traffic. Before it was two bus-only lanes and two car lanes, but now it's three bus lanes and a separated bikeway. They're also building four bridges over the river dedicated to cycle and pedestrian to link up different bike routes, and the State Government has been doing some good work with their 'Veloway' next to the M3 highway. A lot of intersection and road upgrades (and new roads) are starting to add separated bike paths too, like the overhauled Kingsford Smith Drive that finished recently.

itsbrass 5y ago

This echoes a lot of my feelings about bike lanes, do you have any references to traffic studies or the like showing that these kinds of lanes are, indeed, more dangerous? I'd be especially curious to know what the good alternatives are. IIRC physical dividers like reflector poles actually do make bike lanes safer, and sharrows are mixed on whether or not they make lanes more effective.

scoofy 5y ago
>I'd be especially curious to know what the good alternatives are. Open Streets: https://openstreetsproject.org/ https://openstreetsproject.org/
chapium 5y ago
Here's a video that illustrates my point better than what I commented, and there are some studies cited in the description which validate my admittedly anecdotal experience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fztvoxj_pds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fztvoxj_pds

arglebarglegar 5y ago

You’re not talking about protected bike lanes, which I think is an important distinction. Traffic travels too fast in the US, and I do not want to share roads with cars going 40+ mph

zamfi 5y ago

Obviously I can't speak to your own personal experience, but I've done a surprising amount of biking on streets that have added bikes lanes, and my experience is that the bike lanes tend to improve my subjective experience of biking on those streets substantially. Many of those streets, to be fair, have bike lines that are shifted 3+ feet away from the parking lane, with stripes to indicate the door zone -- which is a huge benefit, frankly, over the streets that don't have this. Another change that I'm 100% in favor of is the removal of a traffic lane to allow this: this often enables right-turns to be explicitly marked as crossing a bike lane, and drivers tend to be more careful there (again, just my experience). I've also biked on streets that became "super sharrow" streets: one lane striped with a giant green stripe that supposedly provides a big visual indicator that a bike can use the full lane. This was terrible. > We should have more bike infrastructure, but putting money into this garbage is a mistake. What bike infrastructure would you like to see, if not bike lanes?

jfim 5y ago
> Many of those streets, to be fair, have bike lines that are shifted 3+ feet away from the parking lane, with stripes to indicate the door zone That sounds pretty great. Unfortunately in my area the bike lanes are straight into the door zone (see for example https://goo.gl/maps/nMnKZEVZduEfkups8 https://goo.gl/maps/nMnKZEVZduEfkups8) and this seems to be the general design for bike lanes in the South Bay. In fact, the city of Sunnyvale's own bike map [0] says to avoid the four feet door zone, yet the bike lane is less than 4 feet wide and straight in the door zone. It's frustrating. You'd think they'd favor the safety of the unprotected squishy humans over the ones in two ton metal boxes, but it seems like the opposite most of the time. [0] https://sunnyvale.ca.gov/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?BlobID=24003 https://sunnyvale.ca.gov/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?Blo...
- cycomanic 5y ago
  Actually in Germany bike lanes are typically on the other side next to the sidewalk which in my experience is much more dangerous. It gives the indication to cars that bikes are more like pedestrians, they get often overlooked at intersections, dooring is an even bigger issue, because people getting out the car to the street side tend to least look back to avoid cars coming and next to the sidewalk one also has to deal with pedestrians who don't pay attention. In my experience, the more in the way of cars you are as a cyclist the safer you are. You still need to have clear markings, but you should always be in sight of drivers IMO, as an active participant in traffic.

jimt1234 5y ago

THIS ^^^. My two-cents: 90% of recent "bike lane" implementations in my area and the whole "share the road" concept is bullshit. This is just aggravating drivers and giving a false sense of safety to bicyclists. Cars and bicycles don't mix.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
In the US they're implemented in a ham-fisted way just to get federal ISTEA money for minimal effort. 90% of the lanes around me added in the last 10 years are unusable because they are broken by dangerous safety compromises.

cheschire 5y ago

you would appreciate the bike lanes near the capital building then. https://goo.gl/maps/9AGskMFB3GjQ1ErZ7 https://goo.gl/maps/9AGskMFB3GjQ1ErZ7

ascar 5y ago

In Bavaria we have most bike lanes as part of the sidewalk. They are clearly indicated and separated from the pedestrian zone by a 2-3cm drop. Eliminates most problems with cars. However, often the problem with the doors for side parking cars persists for the car's passenger side, which makes it less frequent but more likely that the person opening the door didn't look.

petre 5y ago
That's taking space from pedestrians instead of cars. I always see joggers, kids with rollerskates and moms with prams on these sidewalk bike lanes. Side parking and bike lanes cannot cohexist on the same side of the road without wasting another 3 ft of space for a door zone. Some of the useful bike lanes are raised a bit like a mini sidewalk separate from the pedestrian sidewalk or have a physical separator like bumpers.
kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
> Eliminates most problems with cars. Except now every street crossing becomes a death trap because you're outside the cone of visual awareness of drivers.
aix1 5y ago
> In Bavaria we have most bike lanes as part of the sidewalk. From my experience (in the UK) how usable those lanes are depends hugely on pedestrian discipline. There's one of those running alongside the seafront in Brighton that in my experience works well. The same style of lane that I've seen in and around London generally doesn't work as well: there are often pedestrians on the wrong side, not infrequently looking into their phones and/or wearing headphones. What makes matters worse is that in the UK the rules are asymmetric: while it's an offence for a cyclists to go on the pedestrian side, there are no rules preventing pedestrians from walking on the cycle path (source: [1]). [1] http://www.cyclecraft.co.uk/ http://www.cyclecraft.co.uk/
- corty 5y ago
  The solution is to make pedestrians afraid of stepping into the bike lane. Pass them quickly, closely and surprisingly, if they run into something in the process all the better.

rtpg 5y ago

I get your complaints but in a lot of areas the alternative to the painted-on lane is to have no lane at all, and having the lane at least establishes a principle. I feel safer in it, and cars in my area tend to take it seriously. I don't think there's really a solution to the turning problem, unless you're proposing tunnels at every intersection for cars/bikes. I'm hopeful that newer cars' safety features help to fight this back (I would also like people to, yknow, pay attention when driving). My principle (especially after getting a drivers license and realizing how little visibility one actually has while driving) is to not listen to music (so I can actually hear cars etc) and to basically slow down at every interesection that has even a bit of doubt. It's annoying but at least I'm not rolling the dice on every intersection (or at least not as much)

lmm 5y ago
> I get your complaints but in a lot of areas the alternative to the painted-on lane is to have no lane at all, and having the lane at least establishes a principle. It establishes the wrong principle - it makes drivers feel entitled to exclude cyclists from the main road lanes. A bike lane that isn't wide enough, isn't adequately maintained (sweeping, filling potholes...), leads to blind corners, or just dumps you out into the main lanes at junctions, is worse than useless - it actively makes cycling more dangerous, because drivers feel no need to share the main road lanes. > I don't think there's really a solution to the turning problem, unless you're proposing tunnels at every intersection for cars/bikes. The solution is to have bikes be part of the main traffic stream at that point. If you have a bike box at the front of the queueing area, and ideally a bike phase on the lights, that can help a lot.
- porknubbins 5y ago
  I ride in bike lanes, road sides and sometimes in the middle of the lane. When I started cycling seriously I tried to go full vehicular cycling, but a lot of the time it endangered more than it helped and made drivers angry. 10K+ miles later the one thing I’ve learned is not to be dogmatic, there is no one safest way to ride for all roads and environments. Some roads are way better with bike lanes and some bike lanes are terrible. I just do whatever seems safest.

stephen_g 5y ago

Yeah, that kind of lane sucks. Cities need to face it - the bike lanes need dedicated space designed in when building or upgrading a road, or you need to remove parking spaces entirely. My city (in Australia) has been doing a lot of both recently. In the inner city, nobody misses the loss of street parking up one side of major thoroughfares (you can fit a bike lane with both directions in the space on one side of the road) - it was extremely unlikely to get a park so you usually had to pay to park in an underground/multi-storey car park anyway. Removing the parking means you can have a properly separated lane (they have plastic bumper things in like 30 cm separated double lines, painted green so it’s obvious what it is and that you can’t legally pull into it or park over it) and it’s great. They’ve even put push buttons to signal you’re there for the traffic lights.

riatin 5y ago
I assume this is Sydney? I love the work the council have done to the CBD recently - I wish they'd emulate what they did to George St all over the city centre.
- stephen_g 5y ago
  No, Brisbane actually, but I have heard some good things about Sydney's from a cycling group that reports on things happening locally but every week mentions a project from elsewhere in the country (Space for Cycling Brisbane). These are some of the fist ones through the CBD - https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/traffic-and-transport/roads-infrastructure-and-bikeways/bikeway-and-pathway-projects/citylink-cycleway-trial https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/traffic-and-transport/roads-... - As part of this they closed a major bridge in the middle of the city (Victoria Bridge over to South Bank) to road traffic. Before it was two bus-only lanes and two car lanes, but now it's three bus lanes and a separated bikeway. They're also building four bridges over the river dedicated to cycle and pedestrian to link up different bike routes, and the State Government has been doing some good work with their 'Veloway' next to the M3 highway. A lot of intersection and road upgrades (and new roads) are starting to add separated bike paths too, like the overhauled Kingsford Smith Drive that finished recently.