Protected bike lanes: no me gustan

[cgolvin]

I realize this has been covered in multiple threads, but today's experience moved my opinion. I originally liked the concept but now that I encounter them (and one in particular) regularly, I decidedly do not.

As others have pointed out, the primary problem is that cyclists are less visible than in a standard bike lane, and this is especially true at an intersection. The lane I use regularly has some signage for drivers that attempts to alert them to the possibility of cyclists in the lane, but in practice drivers don't attend to them, especially since they aren't present at every intersection. Changes to traffic infrastructure that rely on educating drivers to change their outlook and/or behavior have little prospect of achieving the desired result.

In today's incident, I defensively expected the driver to make his right turn in front of me, slowed down and used my horn (i.e., I yelled). Had I not done both of these he certainly would have hit me. I caught up with him, hoping to have a calm teachable moment, and was surprised at what he said: "hey man, it was just an accident". He drove off before I could respond and explain that it wasn't an accident, it was him being inattentive and/or ignorant.

From now on I'm riding on the street side of the parked cars. I'm willing to chance a ticket rather than my safety.

[AngryScientist]

Absolutely agree.

Protected bike lanes make some sense on a high speed roadway with very few intersections, like highways for example.

Most are simply not laid out intelligently enough to deal with intersections, and create enough confusion and misunderstanding that they are dangerous.

I've learned how to ride with and among traffic a long time ago, and I'm comfortable operating as a vehicle. bike lanes freak me out, generally speaking.

The worst is around here in NJ. Some politician will get a bug up their butt to make a town more "bike friendly" and add some bike lanes that are totally worthless. They start literally nowhere, and end abruptly and awkwardly. Very little cohesive thought put into them. No thanks, i'll ride in the street.

[jemdet]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

Absolutely agree.

The worst is around here in NJ. Some politician will get a bug up their butt to make a town more "bike friendly" and add some bike lanes that are totally worthless. They start literally nowhere, and end abruptly and awkwardly. Very little cohesive thought put into them. No thanks, i'll ride in the street.

I see that you've ridden through Port Imperial.

Hits and misses in the city. The ones on traditionally intersectioned avenues (1, 2, 7, 8) are worse than useless.

[Applesauce]

Yup, be wary of traffic that has to turn across those “protected lanes”: I got hit head on in Montreal a bunch of years ago. Fully smashed the bike, went through the windshield...used up one of my nine lives.

[Blue Jays]

My beef with bicycle lanes is they get added (typically removing lane space for a car) then they essentially get treated as a shoulder filled with glass, debris, and gravel. This paradoxically pushes us even further into the now-narrowed lane.

[benb]

There's basically 0 controversy about protected lanes being more dangerous at intersections than riding in with traffic.

None of the advocates seem to deny it but they still think the right approach is bicycles being separated everywhere possible.

I've been very much in the Effective Cycling mindset for a very long time.. a lot of the new lanes in the city scare the crap out of me. I will use them on long straights but won't stay in them if I'm going straight through an intersection or taking a left.. I will get back out in the traffic lanes well ahead of time and ride with the cars to avoid being right hooked at the intersection or being stuck taking a left across cars going straight.

[FlashUNC]

I'd rather we spend more time changing the insurance liability laws in accidents with cars than worrying about protected bike lanes.

Holding drivers liable by default would sure change a lot of behind the wheel behavior.

[cgolvin]

Originally Posted by FlashUNC

I'd rather we spend more time changing the insurance liability laws in accidents with cars than worrying about protected bike lanes.

Holding drivers liable by default would sure change a lot of behind the wheel behavior.

I’m interested to learn if there are any jurisdictions that have made this change, and if so to what effect. Do you know, Flash?

Not gainsaying, curious.

[prototoast]

I don't like them either--not just as a cyclist, but also as a driver. One time, 5+ years ago, I was driving in a place where the bike lanes were "protected" by being on the far side of a row of parked cars. I like to think I drive cautiously and am extra careful around cyclists, but I came to a turn, looked, couldn't see anyone, and made the turn. There was a cyclist behind the row of parked cars--I didn't hit him, but he had to slow to avoid a collision, and I clearly shouldn't have made the turn until he had safely crossed the intersection.

Despite how much of a non-event it was, I still feel bad about it. If the timing were a little different, I could have killed him. He was just riding where the city told him it was safe to ride, but was hidden from my view.

Protected bike lanes are only as safe as long as they are actually protected, and in too many cases, the protection disappears right where the cyclists need it most.

[FlashUNC]

Originally Posted by cgolvin

I’m interested to learn if there are any jurisdictions that have made this change, and if so to what effect. Do you know, Flash?

Not gainsaying, curious.

The Netherlands. Drivers have strict liability in a crash with cyclists. Definitely changes how you drive if you're on the hook for an accident by default.

https://www.cvbnlaw.com/2012/04/19/c...united-states/

[lavi]

Concur. These "protected" lanes suck. Out of the view of drivers, lanes are full of crap as street sweepers cannot easily get to them.

I ride in the road. The way god intended.

[marciero]

Take the lane, as they say

Though I travel within bike lane demarcations often enough, I treat them mostly as vanity decorations on the road. Rare is the case where these were designed as part of the roadway and not simply add-ons. At best their presence might at least remind motorists that cyclists may be about. At worst they send the message that cyclists dont belong on the roadway anywhere outside of them.

[martl]

i've been riding a bike in the utilitarian way all my life, in a large city. When i was a schoolboy in the early eighties, the city started to paint (mandatory) bike lanes on the sidewalks, and my mother told me to use these. Those things hid you behind parked cars and just spat you in front of cars at every intersection and property entrance. I learned fast to use a route with no such lanes where i could use the road, this reduced the near-misses from one per week to 1 per year. (i never told my mum).
Currently, advocates like Coleville-Andersen decided the PBI is the silver bullet for everything, and everyone not liking them is a selfish git in Lycra.

Looking at the Netherlands, where the concept seems to kinda work, i notice that they work because they a) have been designed with the purpose of actually increasing unprotected traffic's safety at the cost of slowing down/reducing motorized traffic, as oppsed to: get annoying cyclists out of the way of important traffic in cars b) the concept has been in place for 40+ years now, so everyone learned to ride/drive with them, and c) the concept has been constantly subject to re-eveluation again and again.

Currently, the result of this ongoing research is: Netherlands only use PBI when no other option is feasible, like reducing car traffic, reducing delta speeds etc. This is conveniently totally ignored by the current new generation of cycling advocates.

Building PBI just to get PBI (and look progressive) does the oppositew of what many think it does. It reduces safety, it reduces the "normalness" of bicycles being present on the road. Basically, a PBI protects car traffic from having to pay attention to weaker, unprotected traffic. It is a step in the wrong direction.

[bigbill]

Originally Posted by FlashUNC

The Netherlands. Drivers have strict liability in a crash with cyclists. Definitely changes how you drive if you're on the hook for an accident by default.

https://www.cvbnlaw.com/2012/04/19/c...united-states/

I lived in Sardinia and the laws are in the favor of cyclists. The mainland is the same, you can ride on any road except the major north-south highways. In Sardinia, I had an afternoon loop on the north side of the island that took me through Cannigione. I was harassed once by a group of non-locals in a car who were yelling out the window and were within a few inches of me. The Carabinieri pulled the car over and they were still being detained when I rode past in the opposite direction about 20 minutes later.

[Ken Robb]

My complaint about some protected lanes like Friars Road in San Diego is that the curb separating the bike lane from the regular lane prevents the street sweeping machines from getting in them so the bike lane is loaded with dirt, rocks, broken glass, wires from radial tires, etc.