Creating Bike Lanes Isn’t Easy. Just Ask Baltimore. Or Boulder. Or Seattle. WSJ

[simplemind]

In todays WSJ, if you have a subscription.

[fiamme red]

As a commuter who rides 15-20 mph, I hate, hate, HATE segregated bike lanes. Don't fence me in!

[BobO]

Originally Posted by fiamme red

As a commuter who rides 15-20 mph, I hate, hate, HATE segregated bike lanes. Don't fence me in!

Seconded. Tucson tried to do not only separated, but elevated bike lanes along Broadway. What could possibly go wrong?

[93KgBike]

that link won't let me read on without paying.

but I think I've heard this argument long enough to write it myself.

someone should argue this issue based on physics and nothing else.

[jtakeda]

Originally Posted by fiamme red

As a commuter who rides 15-20 mph, I hate, hate, HATE segregated bike lanes. Don't fence me in!

And all of the sudden you have to stay in “your” lane even though it’s dangerous and often littered with trash, glass and inexperienced road users.

[dbnm]

Albuquerque tried and failed.

They also made an "around the city" bike lane that is about 50 miles but they refuse to clean it. It's filled with glass and debris and bullet shells. Sometimes I don't like my city.

[cgolvin]

BALTIMORE—Cities’ drive to expand bike lanes keeps running into a wall of opposition—even in bike-friendly places like Seattle or Boulder, Colo.

In Baltimore last week, residents of the upscale Roland Park neighborhood beseeched city transportation officials at a boisterous public meeting to remove a roughly mile-long protected bike lane that opened about two years ago along a major thoroughfare.

When the city’s transportation director called it a “complex situation,” several people in the crowd of more than 100 responded with shouts of “No, no!” and “It’s very simple!” and “Put it back the way it was!”

“This is tearing us apart as a community,” said Claudia Diamond, one of the residents asking the city for a “reset” and renewed planning process.

Baltimore is hardly alone. Similar fights have broken out from Philadelphia to Seattle, Boulder to Brooklyn. At issue are protected bike lanes that use barriers like parked cars or bollards to separate bikers from moving cars. Creating such lanes often requires eliminating parking or a lane for cars, changes that affect people’s daily lives.

Supporters say they help prevent car-bike collisions and are a big step up from painted lanes or shared road access. But critics complain about reduced street parking, increased traffic congestion and challenges for delivery trucks navigating city streets.

The number of bike commuters nationwide has ebbed in recent years, but rose nearly 40% from 2006 to 2016, when 864,000 rode to work, according to the Census Bureau. In addition, dozens of cities have rolled out bike-share programs, and ridership nationwide soared to 28 million trips in 2016 from barely 300,000 in 2010, according to the National Association of City Transportation Officials.

Part of cities’ intent with the lanes is to reverse a trend of increasing cyclist fatalities around the country. The number of cyclists killed in motor-vehicle crashes edged up in 2016 to 840, the most since 1991, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Only 3% of those fatalities occurred in bike lanes, the agency said, compared with 28% at intersections and 61% on roadways.

The protected bike lane trend began in New York City about a decade ago when Michael Bloomberg was mayor, said Kate Fillin-Yeh, who directs strategy at the nonprofit National Association of City Transportation Officials and worked in the Bloomberg administration.

A partial list maintained by People for Bikes shows U.S. cities, led by New York, have added more than 230 miles of protected bike lanes since 2014, a far quicker pace than in prior years.

Tim Blumenthal, president of the Colorado-based advocacy group People for Bikes, said the increase in protected lanes is fueling what has come to be known as “bikelash.”

“Bike infrastructure improvements are a hot button, and some people react really strongly and emotionally and negatively to them,” he said.

In Philadelphia, officials nixed plans to add a protected bike lane on a downtown street after neighborhood pushback, but they are moving ahead with similar projects around Center City.

A battle has also emerged in Seattle over a protected lane on the north side that officials say will be under construction by early summer. Rival groups have squared off over the plan, which would limit parking to one side of the street. Opponents are rallying to “Save 35th Ave,” as supporters clamor for a “Safe 35th Ave.”

In Boulder, the city installed a protected bike lane three years ago and three months later removed part of it, after howls of protest over the loss of one of two vehicle travel lanes in both directions.

“There was kind of a full-speed assumption that we’re Biketown USA, let’s do this. Of course people will understand it,” said Bill Rigler, chairman of the city’s Transportation Advisory Board. “People felt very strongly that it was the dumbest thing Boulder had ever done.”

Though Boulder’s disputed bike lane quickly yielded benefits—less speeding and a 58% jump in cycling traffic, with only minimally longer car travel times—the city did a poor job explaining the rationale beforehand and preparing the public, he said.

[BikeNY]

I can understand the backlash from drivers loosing their precious parking spots or clown car travel lanes, but I can't understand cyclists not wanting segregated bike lanes. This is what pretty much every city street in Europe looks like, and their city streets are narrower than ours!

[fiamme red]

Originally Posted by BikeNY

I can understand the backlash from drivers loosing their precious parking spots or clown car travel lanes, but I can't understand cyclists not wanting segregated bike lanes. This is what pretty much every city street in Europe looks like, and their city streets are narrower than ours!

Try riding up 8th Ave in Manhattan during rush hour and you'll understand. I just ride with traffic, much faster and safer.

[cachagua]

Originally Posted by BikeNY

I can't understand cyclists not wanting segregated bike lanes...

I will go on record saying I don't want segregated bike lanes, and here's why: they make bike riders approach drivers from where they're least expected.

There was an article in the Seattle newspaper last week about bike-riding on sidewalks. This isn't illegal in Seattle, but the article emphasized that it's quite dangerous. They quoted statistics showing the vast preponderance of car-bike collisions, when the bike was being ridden on the sidewalk, occur when the sidewalk ends at a cross-street and the rider enters crossing and turning traffic. It explained that when a bike rider emerges from the "protection" of the sidewalk, a driver will be taken completely by surprise: "He came outta nowhere!"

But the article failed to note that segregated bike lanes duplicate that problem exactly. They give both the bike rider and the driver a sense of security which ultimately proves false, as soon as a cross-street interrupts the bike lane. This has been cyclists' objection to them all along.

The bottom-line problem is that drivers habitually watch for traffic from a specific set of directions. You look around, and if nobody's coming from there, or there, or there -- you're cleared for takeoff, you step on the gas. The configuration of the bike lanes, however, forces bikes to approach drivers from directions other than those they expect traffic from. In contrast, when you are riding with traffic -- when you ARE traffic -- you are where drivers look to see if there's any traffic. And you are infinitely safer there.

That photo of the European bike lane is intriguing -- the bike lane and the sidewalk are combined, not the bike lane and the street. Is there a matching one going the other way, on the opposite side of the street? The lanes Seattle is building put two-way bike traffic on one side of the street, sometimes between parked cars and moving cars. Throw in some islands for bus passengers to embark and disembark, in some places but not in others, and -- it's total chaos. Really, it's worse than simply... um... riding with traffic! The people in, was it Baltimore? --who said "Put it back the way it was!" I'm right with them.

[OtayBW]

Originally Posted by fiamme red

As a commuter who rides 15-20 mph, I hate, hate, HATE segregated bike lanes. Don't fence me in!

Originally Posted by BobO

Seconded. Tucson tried to do not only separated, but elevated bike lanes along Broadway. What could possibly go wrong?

Originally Posted by jtakeda

And all of the sudden you have to stay in “your” lane even though it’s dangerous and often littered with trash, glass and inexperienced road users.

Originally Posted by cachagua

I will go on record saying I don't want segregated bike lanes, and here's why: they make bike riders approach drivers from where they're least expected.

I spoke at that Roland Park meeting in Baltimore last week. That 'cyclotrack' is a mess, IMO. I don't live in the city and tend not to ride down there, but I would not ride it if I was down there - at all. Last year, local organizers promoted it heavily and the community 'bought it'. Now that it's implemented, they've taken a historic neighborhood and plastered it over with paint, confusing lane changes, erratic intersections, and high probability of getting doored on both the bike lane and auto through lane. The community realizes now that this thing is a FAIL and are overwhelmingly trying to have this removed with continued push back from local organizers and bike advocacy groups. Really effed up situation, IMO....

[n1ey]

Originally Posted by BikeNY

I can understand the backlash from drivers loosing their precious parking spots or clown car travel lanes, but I can't understand cyclists not wanting segregated bike lanes. This is what pretty much every city street in Europe looks like, and their city streets are narrower than ours!

Not True! In many places they add the bike lanes in the wrong places. The bike lanes terminate in very bad intersections. Dublin is a prime example.

Most of Europe is car orientated and it is not a panacea for Bicycling. NPR just carried a segment on Hamburg and the traffic situation. 60% of the people actually drive. Most don't take public transit in Europe; there is no heavy rail subway. Most don't walk.

Bill

[General69]

When they created bike lines in Chicago, I started completely avoiding them. Slow people on rental bikes, cars making right turns right into you, pedestrians standing or walking in them, and cops waiting for you to blow a stop sign or a light. On a street without bike lines, I can ride faster without fear of cops or pedestrians. I do understand a family out on a ride feeling safer in the bike lane and also not having to watch for the dreaded car door. The only way to do it right is to put all cars underground and make the whole city motorized free.


IMAG0136.jpg

[zap]

I'm not a fan of taking a motor vehicle lane and/or parking away from motorists. Other posters already pointed out several reasons why.

I would rather have the monies spent on drivers education, greater motoring fines when cyclist/peds are involved and signage such as cyclists may use full lane.

[cmg]

Often times the bike lanes are designated by city staff that don't ride. They put a set of bikes lanes on a busy south side street in SA and removed the outside lanes to do so. It transformed the street and created long wait periods at the intersections. After 5 years and lots of citizen complaints the city removed the bike lanes. If the city staff had actually ridden in the area they would have discovered cyclist used the cross street immediately to the east for going into town.