4 ms·

These lanes are confusing and dangerous in my experience. I choose to bike on folsom instead now. We have great protected bike lanes elsewhere in the city (vale

These lanes are confusing and dangerous in my experience. I choose to bike on folsom instead now. We have great protected bike lanes elsewhere in the city (valencia between market and 15th, folsom north of division) and I don't understand why we couldn't just go with that instead of experimenting on the valencia corridor. To be clear for anyone not familiar: Valencia already had bike lanes, and that's not the problem. The problem is that the new design is more fragile to bad driver behavior, since drivers run over the flex posts to pass stopped vehicles, and make the whole corridor a mess for everyone.

dang 3y ago
That's my bike route too, and I was surprised at the change. The previous bike lanes were familiar and fine. Cars would stop in them but that's at least a known risk. The new system is complicated and seems less safe, because you have to cross traffic to get in and out of the lane, and it's all unclear. It also puts the opposing bike traffic right next to each other, people don't necessarily stay in their lanes, and there are visibility issues at night.
- bombcar 3y ago
  And now cars have to look in unexpected directions for bikes. Moving parking to one side of the street, then the car lanes, then the double bike lane would have been a bit better, or as someone else said make the road one-way for cars and then you have lots of room.
  - markerz 3y ago
    By "moving parking to one side of the street", do you mean get rid of half of the parking spots? I'm having trouble visualizing this part, but it sounds like you want the road layout to be (from left to right) sidewalk, double bike lane, double car lane, parking, sidewalk.
    - sleepybrett 3y ago
      Seems reasonable. Just because you own a car and drive to a place should not mean the there is any street parking at that place. If a place depends on parking they should rent a location that has parking not hope the citizenry supplies them with it for free.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      You could also have room if you went one-way for sidewalk, parking, car lane, parking, door space, double bike lane, sidewalk.
- thefaux 3y ago
  Honestly, I wonder if the best solution is just no bike lane at all. The thing I hated about the old lane was the need to constantly move in and out of the lane to avoid parked cars which felt more unsafe than just riding with traffic (which can't go fast on Valencia anyway due to the light timing). The idea though that Amado's closing was specifically due to the bike lane seems hard to believe unless the business was already extremely marginal (I believe the bike lane might have been the straw that broke the camel's back but it feels like a scapegoat for other issues).
  - macrael 3y ago
    Protected bike lanes save lives. https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2012-10-measuring-the-street.pdf https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2012-10-measuring... Painted only bike lanes, in fact, do not really have an impact on safety. This is why it's law in the Netherlands that all bike lanes need to be protected.
Animats 3y ago
> since drivers run over the flex posts New York City's solution to that was to replace some of the flex posts with anti-terrorism bollards which will stop a runaway truck. Not all of the posts. Just enough of them to get the message across.
- MostlyStable 3y ago
  From the images (and text) in the article, this bike path already has those bollards and _doesn't_ have flex posts. I don't live there so can't comment from a personal standpoint, but I'm confused about the discrepency between the above commenters description and the images in the article.
  - usmannk 3y ago
    they are like.. flexy bollards? cars can run over them no problem
    - xvedejas 3y ago
      Yes, they are plastic and designed to be driven over. Although, many of them are noticeably damaged already, so I can't imagine they're expected to be driven over so often?
      - usmannk 3y ago
        yeah after writing this i looked more attentively as i walked by today and they are pretty fucked
- lokar 3y ago
  I think they want fire trucks to be able to run them over if needed
- decafninja 3y ago
  IIRC this was started because of a literal terrorist act where someone took a truck and went on a rampage mowing down people in the Hudson River bike lane. I was nearby when this happened. The bollards went up shortly after.
welder 3y ago
I like shotwell better than Folsom... less cars.

dang 3y ago

That's my bike route too, and I was surprised at the change. The previous bike lanes were familiar and fine. Cars would stop in them but that's at least a known risk. The new system is complicated and seems less safe, because you have to cross traffic to get in and out of the lane, and it's all unclear. It also puts the opposing bike traffic right next to each other, people don't necessarily stay in their lanes, and there are visibility issues at night.

bombcar 3y ago
And now cars have to look in unexpected directions for bikes. Moving parking to one side of the street, then the car lanes, then the double bike lane would have been a bit better, or as someone else said make the road one-way for cars and then you have lots of room.
- markerz 3y ago
  By "moving parking to one side of the street", do you mean get rid of half of the parking spots? I'm having trouble visualizing this part, but it sounds like you want the road layout to be (from left to right) sidewalk, double bike lane, double car lane, parking, sidewalk.
  - sleepybrett 3y ago
    Seems reasonable. Just because you own a car and drive to a place should not mean the there is any street parking at that place. If a place depends on parking they should rent a location that has parking not hope the citizenry supplies them with it for free.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    You could also have room if you went one-way for sidewalk, parking, car lane, parking, door space, double bike lane, sidewalk.
thefaux 3y ago
Honestly, I wonder if the best solution is just no bike lane at all. The thing I hated about the old lane was the need to constantly move in and out of the lane to avoid parked cars which felt more unsafe than just riding with traffic (which can't go fast on Valencia anyway due to the light timing). The idea though that Amado's closing was specifically due to the bike lane seems hard to believe unless the business was already extremely marginal (I believe the bike lane might have been the straw that broke the camel's back but it feels like a scapegoat for other issues).
- macrael 3y ago
  Protected bike lanes save lives. https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2012-10-measuring-the-street.pdf https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2012-10-measuring... Painted only bike lanes, in fact, do not really have an impact on safety. This is why it's law in the Netherlands that all bike lanes need to be protected.

Animats 3y ago

> since drivers run over the flex posts New York City's solution to that was to replace some of the flex posts with anti-terrorism bollards which will stop a runaway truck. Not all of the posts. Just enough of them to get the message across.

MostlyStable 3y ago
From the images (and text) in the article, this bike path already has those bollards and _doesn't_ have flex posts. I don't live there so can't comment from a personal standpoint, but I'm confused about the discrepency between the above commenters description and the images in the article.
- usmannk 3y ago
  they are like.. flexy bollards? cars can run over them no problem
  - xvedejas 3y ago
    Yes, they are plastic and designed to be driven over. Although, many of them are noticeably damaged already, so I can't imagine they're expected to be driven over so often?
    - usmannk 3y ago
      yeah after writing this i looked more attentively as i walked by today and they are pretty fucked
lokar 3y ago
I think they want fire trucks to be able to run them over if needed
decafninja 3y ago
IIRC this was started because of a literal terrorist act where someone took a truck and went on a rampage mowing down people in the Hudson River bike lane. I was nearby when this happened. The bollards went up shortly after.

welder 3y ago

I like shotwell better than Folsom... less cars.