3 ms·
> Painting some lines on the road can help once people are on the bike Nah, it really doesn't. It just creates aggravation for cars and bikes alike, as both pa
by toyg 4y ago
> Painting some lines on the road can help once people are on the bike
Nah, it really doesn't. It just creates aggravation for cars and bikes alike, as both parties are stressed out about small spaces and eventually who-went-over-the-line. The only place it helps is at intersections, to favour filtering; whether that's a good thing per se, I'll leave for others to argue.
This is one of those areas where politicians' default modes ("compromise" and "progressive improvement") just don't work. On busy roads, you either build wholly-separated spaces for bicycles and motor vehicles, or you might as well not bother. On tight streets, you close the street to motors or you might as well not bother.
Painting lines is only useful to assuage somebody's conscience or tick some abstract box, not to actual road users. And I say that as a motorbike owner.
- bombcar 4y agoThe places I've seen where line painting works is where it replaced on-street parking; a bike lane painted on a road that is 10-12 feet wide works well, for some value of well. The thin bike lanes added to roads are a joke most of the time.
- frosted-flakes 4y agoMy city converted a lot of 4-lane roads to 2 traffic lanes, a centre-turn lane, and 2 wide bike lanes. It's great, cheap, and it really doesn't affect car traffic at all.
- genocidicbunny 4y agoAnecdotally, where I live has been doing something similar, and it really depends on the specific road as to whether or not it's effective. One of the roads near me had this 'road diet' done to it, and the net result was that drivers actually ended up speeding more often on that road because they ended up driving faster to avoid driving next to cars in the narrowed lanes. Since the road diet occurred, I've basically not seen any cyclists using that road anymore because the car traffic has gotten more dangerous.
- frosted-flakes 4y agoThese are all on curving roads through residential neighbourhoods, which might have something to do with it. Roads that really did not need 4 lanes to begin with. Some areas near schools also have enforced 40 km/hr speed limits.